Sublime
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Emperor of Rome: Ruling the Ancient Roman World
Ben Horowitz • The Architecture of Tomorrow: An Interview With Ben Horowitz
Everywhere these tyrants, with more or less violence, had the same policy. A tyrant of Corinth one day asked advice concerning government of a tyrant of Miletus. The latter, in reply, struck off the heads of grain that were higher than the others. Thus their rule of conduct was to cut down the high heads, and to strike at the aristocracy, while
... See moreNuma Denis Fustel de Coulanges • The Ancient City: A Study of the Religion, Laws, and Institutions of Greece and Rome (Illustrated)
Property and mastery: nothing else counts. Earth will be monetized until all trees grow in straight lines, three people own all seven continents, and every large organism is bred to be slaughtered.
Richard Powers • The Overstory: A Novel
But chimpanzee leaders, like human power brokers, eventually grow old and weak. In their younger days when a potential rival showed up to challenge them, they reared back on their hind legs and made a dramatic show of brawn and agility. But when strength and swiftness fade, the aging leaders use another tactic. Like my dog, they pretend they do not
... See moreHoward Bloom • The Lucifer Principle: A Scientific Expedition into the Forces of History
Marcus, wrote the historian Edward Gibbon, was the last of the Five Good Emperors (the other four being Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, and Antoninus) who ruled from 96–180 and brought about “the period in the history of the world during which the condition of the human race was most happy and prosperous.”
William B. Irvine • A Guide to the Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy
his human flock, and it was thus right and natural for his subjects to obey him