Loyaulté Me Lie ~ Loyalty Binds Me

When was it exactly that I became... this? By small degrees, I suppose. One act presses hard upon another, on a path we have no choice but to follow, and each time there are reasons. We do what we must, we do what we are told, we do what is easiest. What else can we do but solve one sordid problem at a time? Then one day we look up and find that we are... this.

"The Blade Itself incites to deeds of violence." ~ Homer
“The victor is not victorious if the vanquished does not consider himself so.” ~ Quintus Ennius
"I am aware of the frailty of man, I think about the power of fortune, and I know that all our actions are at the mercy of a thousand vicissitudes." ~ Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus
"Ungrateful fatherland - you will not even have my bones" ~ The Tomb Epitaph of Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus
"A glorious moment, Polybius; but I have a dread foreboding that some day the same doom will be pronounced on my own country." ~ Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus Aemilianus (As he watched Carthage burn)
"No friend ever served me, no enemy ever wronged me, whom I have not repaid in full." ~ Lucius Cornelius Sulla
"As a rule, what is out of sight disturbs men's minds more seriously than what they see." ~ Gaius Julius Caesar
“It is a bad plan, that cannot be altered.” ~ Publilius Syrus
"Young men, listen to an old man to whom old men listened when he was young." ~ Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus Augustus
"Caesar has discovered that I have not kept his confidence: and therefore I intend to kill myself." ~ Paullus Fabius Maximus
"No one is more miserable than the person who wills everything and can do nothing." ~ Tiberius Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus
"They make a desolation and call it peace." ~ Gaius Corenlius Tacitus
"But what evil have I done? Whom have I killed?" ~ Didius Julianus (At his execution)
"If you desire to rule, abstain from the blood of the innocent. If you will conquer, be merciful." ~ Apollonius of Tyana to Lucius Domitius Aurelianus

"My Life when it is written, will read better than it lived. Henry FitzEmpress, first Plantagenet. A king at twenty-one, the ablest soldier of an able time. He led men well, he cared for justice when he could, and ruled for thirty years a state as great as Charlemagne's. He married out of love, a woman out of legend. Not in Alexandria, or Rome, or Camelot has there been such a Queen. She bore him many children, but no sons. King Henry had no sons."
~ King Henry II 'FitzEmpress' Plantagenet, in James Goldman's; The Lion in Winter.

"He was a bad son, a bad husband and a bad king, but a gallant and splendid soldier." ~ Steven Runciman on King Richard I 'Cœur de Lion' Plantagenet

"Three may keep a secret if two are dead." ~ Benjamin Franklin
"I am a sinner in the hands of an angry God." ~ Jonathan Edwards
"We should forgive our enemies, but not Before They Are Hanged." ~ Heinrich Heine
"Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake." ~ Napoleon Bonaparte
"In times of peace the warlike man attacks himself." ~ Freidrich Nietzsche