“For what fortress, what city, in the wide extent of the Roman empire, can hope to exist, secure and impregnable, if it is our pleasure that it should be erased from the earth?”

Superficial goals lead to superficial results.

Everybody has value; even if to serve as a bad example.

Trample the weak. Hurdle the dead.

Do not underestimate the power of an enemy, no matter how great or small, to rise against you another day.

Chieftains must understand that the spirit of the law is greater than its letter.

It takes less courage to criticize the decisions of others than to stand by your own.

There, where I have passed, the grass will never grow gain.

It is unfortunate when final decisions are made by chieftains headquartered miles away from the front, where they can only guess at conditions and potentialities known only to the captain of the battlefield.

If an incompetent chieftain is removed, seldom do we appoint his highest-ranking subordinate to his place

Never arbitrate. Arbitration allows a third party to determine your destiny. It is a resort of the weak.

It’s not that I succeed, it’s that everyone else has to fail, horribly, preferably in front of their parents.

Quintilius Varus, Give me back my legions!

In private enterprises men may advance or recede, whereas they who aim at empire have no alternative between the highest success and utter downfall.

I have done many impious things–no great ruler can do otherwise. I have put the good of the Empire before all human considerations. To keep the Empire free from factions I have had to commit many crimes.

To plunder, to slaughter, to steal, these things they misname empire; and where they make a wilderness, they call it peace.

Advice? I don’t offer advice. Not my business. Your life is what you make it.

I have often before now been convinced that a democracy is incapable of empire.

To make an empire durable, the magistrates must obey the laws and the people the magistrates.

There have been so many empires, kings are kinda going out of style.