Stern men with empires in their brains. [ Lowell ]

Nations and empires flourish and decay,
By turns command, and in their turn obey. [ Dryden, after Ovid ]

Europe's eye is fixed on mighty things,
The fall of empires and the fate of kings. [ Burns ]

Time shakes the stable tyranny of thrones,
And tottering empires rush by their own weight. [ Armstrong ]

The fate of empires depends upon the education of youth. [ Aristotle ]

Vicissitudes of fortune, which spare neither man nor the proudest of his works, which bury empires and cities in a common grave. [ Gibbon ]

A noble life, crowned with heroic death, rises above and outlives the pride and pomp and glory of the mightiest empires of the earth. [ James A. Garfield ]

Everywhere the human soul stands between a hemisphere of light and another of darkness; on the confines of two everlasting hostile empires, Necessity and Free Will. [ Carlyle ]

Have you known how to compose your manners? You have done a great deal more than he who has composed books. Have you known how to take repose? You have done more than he who has taken cities and empires. [ Montaigne ]

Have you known how to compose your manners, you have achieved a great deal more than he who has composed books. Have you known how to attain repose, you have achieved more than he who has taken cities and subdued empires. [ Montaigne ]