The Last Emperor Quotes & Sayings

We, Seth, Emperor of Azania, Chief of Chiefs of Sakuyu, Lord of Wanda and Tyrant of the Seas, Bachelor of the Arts of Oxford University, being in this the twenty-fourth year of our life, summoned by the wisdom of Almighty God and the unanimous voice of our people to the throne of our ancestors, do hereby proclaim ... " Seth paused in his dictation and gazed out across the harbour where in the fresh breeze of early morning the last dhow was setting sail for the open sea. "Rats," he said; "stinking curs. They are all running away. — Evelyn Waugh

The newly created Darth Vader flexes his Force-muscle as the Emperor's enforcer to maintain order and obedience in a galaxy reeling from civil war and the destruction of the Jedi Order. To the galaxy at large, Jedi Knight Anakin Skywalker - the Chosen One - died on Coruscant during the siege of the Jedi Temple. And, to some extent, the was true - Anakin was dead. But from the site of Anakin Skywalker's last stand - on the molten surface of the planet Mustafa, where he sought to destroy his friend and former master, Obi-Wan Kanobi - a fearsome spectre in black has risen. Once the most powerful Knight ever known to the Jedi order he is not a disciple of the dark side, a lord of the dreaded Sith, and the avenging right hand of the galaxy's ruthless new Emperor. Seduced, deranged and destroyed by the machinations of the Dark Lord Sidious, Anakin Skywalker is dead ... and Darth Vader lives ... — James Luceno

Letter from Philippus of Athens to Lucius Annaeus Seneca: Yet the Empire of Rome that [Octavius] created has endured the harshness of a Tiberius, the monstrous cruelty of a Caligula, and the ineptness of a Claudius. And now our new Emperor is one whom you tutored as a boy, and to whom you remain close in his new authority; let us be thankful for the fact that he will rule in the light of your wisdom and virtue, and let us pray to the gods that, under Nero, Rome will at last fulfill the dream of Octavius Caesar. — John Edward Williams

If you cannot say what you mean, your majesty, you will never mean what you say and a gentleman should always mean what he says. — Reginald Fleming 'R.J.' Johnston - The Last Emperor

In the move The Last Emperor, the young child anointed as the last emperor of China lives a magical life of luxury with a thousand eunuch servants at his command. "What happens when you do wrong?" his brother asks. "When I do wrong, someone else is punished," the boy emperor replies. To demonstrate, he breaks a jar, and one of the servants is beaten. In Christian theology, Jesus reversed that ancient pattern: when the servants erred, the King was punished. Grace is free only because the giver himself has borned the cost. — Philip Yancey

The imprudent Maximus disregarded these salutary considerations: he gratified his resentment and ambition; he saw the bleeding corpse of Valentinian at his feet; and he heard himself saluted Emperor by the unanimous voice of the senate and people. But the day of his inauguration was the last day of his happiness. — Edward Gibbon

At last, when his wits were gone beyond repair, he came to conceive the strangest idea that ever occurred to any madman in this world. It now appeared to him fitting and necessary, in order to win a greater amount of honor for himself and serve his country at the same time, to become a knight-errant and roam the world on horseback, in a suit of armor; he would go in quest of adventures, by way of putting into practice all that he had read in his books; he would right every manner of wrong, placing himself in situations of the greatest peril such as would redound to the eternal glory of his name. As a reward for his valor and the might of his arm, the poor fellow could already see himself crowned Emperor of Trebizond at the very least; and so, carried away by the strange pleasure that he found in such thoughts as these, he at once set about putting his plan into effect. — Miguel De Cervantes Saavedra

Corbulo: a name to conjure with, a name to follow into battle, wherever he led; a name to have a man marching to the gates of Rome, crying Imperator! until the crowds and the idiot senate and the corrupt wax-brains of the Praetorian Guard and every other man with voting powers in the city came to understand what we already knew: that this man should be our emperor, that Rome would thrive under his rule, in place of the fool who presently held the throne.
Corbulo, who stood before us that bright, brisk spring afternoon and watched as our centurions bawled us through our paces, and then as Cadus took charge and marched us through the display that we had been practising, if we were honest, for the last four years, just for this moment. — M.C. Scott

We do not know what our chances of survival are, so we fight as if they were zero. We do not know what we are facing, so we fight as if it was the dark gods themselves. No one will remember us now and we may never be buried beneath Titan, so we will build our own memorial here. The Chapter might lose us and the Imperium might never know we existed, but the Enemy - the Enemy will know. The Enemy will remember. We will hurt it so badly that it will never forget us until the stars burn out and the Emperor vanquishes it at the end of time. When Chaos is dying, its last thought will be of us. That is our memorial - carved into the heart of Chaos. We cannot lose, Grey Knights. We have already won." ~Justicar Alaric — Ben Counter

I know this is weird ... I am a Black woman and I am not mixed with any Asian blood or Chinese blood at all, but for some reason, as a child, the movie, The Last Emperor, had a serious affect on me. I can't understand why. But there's something that the movie did to me. — Tyra Banks

In short, conquest is in no sense a necessary sign of higher human development, though conquistadors have always thought otherwise. Any valid concept of organic development must use the primary terms of ecology-cooperation and symbiosis-as well as struggle and conflict, for even predators are part of a food chain, and do not 'conquer' their prey except to eat them. The idea of total conquest is an extrapolation from the existing power system: it indicates, not a desirable end, accomodation, but a pathological aberration, re-enforced by such rewards as this system bestows. As for the climactic notion that "the universe will be man's at last"-what is this but a paranoid fantasy, comparable to the claims of an asylum inmate who imagines that he is Emperor of the World? Such a claim is countless light-years away from reality. — Lewis Mumford

For the first and the last time in his life, Corax cried. He cried not for the loss of life, though it was great.
He cried not for the degradation that has been heaped upon his dead warrior, though it was obscene.
He cried for all Astartes, for the shame that Horus has brought upon them. They had been the Emperor's trusted sword, and they had betrayed him. It mattered not that Corax himself had remained loyal, he was Astartes and the shame of one was the shame of all.
'Will they ever trust us again?'
A tear rolled down his cheek and dropped onto the fallen Raven Guard. Should they trust us, was the next question. — Gav Thorpe

The Emperor tells us that civilization will only achieve perfection when the last stone of the last church falls upon the last priest. — Graham McNeill

In the days of the Roman Colosseum, captured soldiers were regularly thrown to the lions. But one soldier earned a reputation for bravery and managed to save his life by a bold act. When a lion sprang toward him with lunch on its mind, the man whispered something in the lion's ear just at the last moment. The lion cowered, turned a sickly green, and then slunk back into its cage. This happened again and again, with even the empire's fiercest lions turning tail once they had heard what the man whispered. The emperor, curious to understand the man's power over these beasts, promised him his life in exchange for the secret of how he caused the lions to leave him alone. "It's simple," the soldier told the emperor. "When a lion is about to attack, I just whisper, 'After you've eaten, they're going to ask you to make a short speech.' Works every time.
— Arthur H. Bell

Songs remain. They last. The right song can turn an emperor into a laughing-stock, can bring down dynasties. A song can last long after the events and the people in it are dust and dreams are gone. That's the power of songs. — Neil Gaiman

What have they said to us?"
"I could translate, but it would be meaningless. They have welcomed us in the name of their Emperor, who appears to be an over-Master. The short, round one is Mediator to this Emperor."
"Ah. We have at last found one who can communicate. Speak to her."
"But he has said nothing!"
"Say nothing in return. — Larry Niven