[In ancient Rome,] why did the senate after killing Caesar turn around and give the government to his nephew? Why did France after they got rid of the king and that whole system turn around and give it to Napoleon? It’s the same thing with Germany and Hitler.

As the profoundest philosophy of ancient Rome and Greece lighted her taper at Israel‘s altar, so the sweetest strains of the pagan muse were swept from harps attuned on Zion‘s hill.

The old Lie:Dulce et decorum est Pro patria mori.

If you must break the law, do it to seize power: in all other cases observe it.

It was with the utmost difficulty that ancient Rome could support the institution of six vestals; but the primitive church was filled with a great number of persons of either sex who had devoted themselves to the profession of perpetual chastity.

I read mostly historical fiction – lots of stuff set in ancient Rome and ancient Greece. I also liked sci-fi and fantasy: David Gemmell, Raymond E. Feist. It’s a nice escape from the world. As much as I do love real-life stories, they can often make you hurt in a way I’d rather not hurt.

Football is controlled violence, but it is violence, which people have loved to watch since the gladiatorial contests in ancient Rome.

Ancient Rome was a violent place.

We stand todaybefore the awful proposition: either the triumph of imperialism and the destruction of all culture, and, as in ancient Rome, depopulation, desolation, degeneration, a vast cemetery; or, the victory of socialism.

And how can man die better than facing fearful odds, for the ashes of his fathers, and the temples of his Gods?

War may be the game of kings, but, like the games at ancient Rome, it is generally exhibited to please and pacify the people.

I would be literally patrician in the sense that the senators in ancient Rome were called conscript fathers, paters, from which comes the word patrician. So if you come from a senatorial family, you are literally patrician in that sense, but that doesn’t mean that you couldn’t be Billy Carter, you know, of recent memory.

But, ancient Greece and ancient Rome – people did not happen to believe that creativity came from human beings back then, OK? People believed that creativity was this divine attendant spirit that came to human beings from some distant and unknowable source, for distant and unknowable reasons.

It was stone carvers in ancient Rome, scribes in the Middle Ages, all the way through Gutenberg to the present day. That’s a pretty long track record. More likely we may reach a point where each one of us is a typographer with our own custom proprietary typeface.

If we were living in ancient Rome or Greece, I would be considered sickly and unattractive. The times dictate that thin is better for some strange reason, which I think is foolish.

Silent enim leges inter arma (Laws are silent in times of war).

It is a sweet and seemly thing to die for one’s country.

I devoured Gibbon. I rode triumphantly through it from end to end and enjoyed it all.

If you spend any time in Washington you’ll find nerds. What happens is most of them sublimate their fixations with comics, or baseball cards, or 1960s British comedies to policy minutiae and political arcana. But, like Christians in ancient Rome, you can still spot them if you know the signals.

OVATION, n. n ancient Rome, a definite, formal pageant in honor of one who had been disserviceable to the enemies of the nation. A lesser “triumph.”

Ancient Rome was as confident of the immutability of its world and the continual expansion and improvement of the human lot as we are today.

Internationally, ancient Rome and Greece cultures are just so fascinating. I don’t think audiences will ever tire of it, because it’s such an advanced society.