As events would show, Cixi was indeed opposed to the foreign policy of her husband and his inner circle – but for very different reasons. Silently observing from close quarters, she in fact regarded their stubborn resistance to opening the door of ...
The hope that fuels the pursuit of endless economic growth – that billions of consumers in India & China will one day enjoy the lifestyles of Europeans and Americans – is as absurd & dangerous a fantasy as anything dreamt up by Al-Qaeda. It conde...
By the time of the arrival of Islam in the early seventeenth century CE, what we now call the Middle East was divided between the Persian and Byzantine empires. But with the spread of this new religion from Arabia, a powerful empire emerged, and with...
Yoda: Ready are you? What know you of ready? For eight hundred years have I trained Jedi. My own counsel will I keep on who is to be trained. A Jedi must have the deepest commitment, the most serious mind. This one a long time have I watched. All his...
C-3PO: [R2 is outside the Hoth base, scanning the area] You must come along now R2. There's really nothing more we can do. And my joints are freezing up. [R2 Beeps something about Luke] C-3PO: Don't say things like that! Of course we'll see Master Lu...
Lando: Lord Vader, what about Leia and the Wookiee? Darth Vader: They must never again leave this city. Lando: [outraged] That was never a condition of our agreement, nor was giving Han to this bounty hunter! Darth Vader: Perhaps you think you're bei...
The British are the last national group who can be insulted by Hollywood without any comeback. These days if you depict Italians as gangsters, Saudis as terrorists or Mexicans as violent drug dealers you'll never hear the end of it. But as still the ...
I went to a British Council event a while back and there were lots of German professors of literature. About half of them were convinced I had a German sense of humour and the other half were sure it was British. They are probably still arguing about...
And it is undeniably true that the greatest and most important right of a British subject is that he shall be governed by no laws but those to which he, either in person or by his representatives, hath given his consent; and this, I will venture to a...
By all means, let's have free trade and no trade barriers and a common market. But where did it all suddenly become about our own economic and political destiny being surrendered to Brussels with agendas that arguably have very little to do with the ...
Every public speaker likes his hearer to imagine his oratory as an unpremeditated gift of nature, and not the result of prolonged and patient study [Lionel Logue said]
I live in L.A. so I worry my kids aren't that connected to Britain, I suppose I don't want them to become American kids. We try to get back three or four times a year. When they go to school they speak with a British-American accent but when they com...
The modern Middle East was largely created by the British. It was they who carried the Allied war effort in the region during World War I and who, at its close, principally fashioned its peace. It was a peace presaged by the nickname given the region...
From the 1920s into the 1940s, Britain's standard of living was supported by oil from Iran. British cars, trucks, and buses ran on cheap Iranian oil. Factories throughout Britain were fueled by oil from Iran. The Royal Navy, which projected British p...
What is the mass of a feeling? What is its wavelength, its position on the electromagnetic spectrum?
I've always been very confident in my immaturity.
Betrayal isn't ridiculous. It's the reason empires fall.
Look back over the past, with its changing empires that rose and fell, and you can foresee the future too.
I definitely aspire to be someone like Tyra Banks, who's created an empire for herself.
The day of small nations has long passed away. The day of Empires has come.
I think it's a great shame that America stopped being a republic and became an empire.
