Of all the difficulties in a state, the temper of a true government most felicifies and perpetuates it; too sudden alterations distemper it. Had Nero tuned his kingdom as he did his harp, his harmony had been more honorable, and his reign more prosperous.
We haven't done anything. That has devolved into a partisan bickering of the kind that says Nero was fiddling while Rome burned.
Paul was Nero's prisoner, but Nero was much more God's.
They say that Nero started the fire himself because he needed a suitable backdrop for his concert.
It's not evil that's ruining the earth, but mediocrity. The crime is not that Nero played while Rome burned, but that he played badly.
The absolute ruler may be a Nero, but he is sometimes a Titus or Marc Aurelius; the people is often Nero, but never Marc Aurelius.
No problem, but just know that no one steals from Nero. He knows who you are and he will hunt you down and make you pay in ways you can’t imagine – including this whole brain squeeze thing he does that will leave you with a migraine so bad, you’ll wish you could bleed out your eyes to stop the pain. He’s nasty that way. (Syn)
The possession of unlimited power will make a despot of almost any man. There is a possible Nero in the gentlest human creature that walks.
The first persecution of the Church took place in the year 67, under Nero, the sixth emperor of Rome.
Darkdoom? Darkdoom did this?" Nero was visibly surprised. He placed a hand on his forehead, rubbing his temples. "Oh, why is it always the bald ones?
Thus Nero went up and down Greece and challenged the fiddlers at their trade. Æropus, a Macedonian king, made lanterns; Harcatius, the king of Parthia, was a mole-catcher; and Biantes, the Lydian, filed needles.
You may talk of the tyranny of Nero and Tiberius; but the real tyranny is the tyranny of your next-door neighbor.
Nero wasn't worried at all when he heard the utterance of the Delphic Oracle: "Beware the age of seventy-three. " Plenty of time to enjoy himself still. He's thirty. The deadline the god has given him is quite enough to cope with future dangers.
There live Christ and Nero in our hearts.
After ages during which the earth produced harmless trilobites and butterflies, evolution progressed to the point at which it generated Neros, Genghis Khans, and Hitlers. This, however, is a passing nightmare; in time the earth will become again incapable of supporting life, and peace will return.
I’m not dead yet. It’s all good. (Omari) Good. That whole spontaneous combustion thing can be a real buzzkill. Ruins your clothes, too. (Nero)
Aren’t you afraid they’ll arrest you? (Shahara) I wasn’t a convict, Dagan. I was an illegally purchased slave. My owner has no legal claim on me. And I’m no longer a kid learning my powers. I’m a full-grown man with an ax I want to bury in the forehead of anyone dumb enough to come at me. I defy the bastards to try something now. (Nero)
Men call their sons Paul and their dogs Nero today.
Why does any martyr cooperate with his judases?. . . We see a game beyond the endgame. . . As Seneca warned Nero: No matter how many of us you kill, you will never kill your successor.
I try to know what I need to know. I make sure to know what I want to know. (Nero Wolfe)
