Lew Wallace Quotes

Look to the past and remember no empire rises that sooner or later won't fall.

The nation that is supreme above all others during one age, will be eclipsed by another in the next age.

Every empire eventually falls.

World power is fleeting. Nations rise and fall.

Empires can only decline when other nations decline and make way for them.

This [American] empire will not last. No empire does. If empires lasted, the whole world would be speaking ancient Persian today.

All empires come to an end, and the American one is no exception.

All states and nations, however great, bloom for a season and are replaced.

Nations and empires flourish and decay, By turns command, and in their turns obey.

Every one being allowed to learn to read, ruineth in the long run not only writing but also thinking.

People ask me whether I think that one day I might wake up one morning and run dry, but I've had the opposite feeling - that I would die before I had time to write all the ideas in my drawer.

In the Air Force, I had an old Wilcox Gay recorder, and I used to hear guitar runs on that recorder going (vocalizing) like the chords on "I Walk The Line." And I always wanted to write a love song using that theme, that tune.

The two main ideas that run through all of my writing, whether it be literary criticism or political polemic are these: I am strong in favor of liberty and I hate fraud.

All empires fall eventually. It is the way of things.

I think the Internet really sussed things into perspective. Because twelve years ago, I could spend my days on writing and running my band and touring and making posters and practicing with my band and working on my vocals, but I didn't spend a large pie chart of my time sifting through criticism as well, and nowadays I do, and all female artists do, because to be able to promote your work, you need to live in those spaces.

[You write out of the] desire to seem clever, to be talked about, to be remembered after death, etc., etc., etc. It is humbug to pretend this is not a motive and a strong one.

I've been lucky with my hair. I couldn't deal with it if I'd run out of barnet. Imagine me with a Bobby Charlton comb over.

But women are very differently situated with respect to eachother - for they are all rivals (...) Is it then surprising that when the sole ambition of woman centres in beauty, and interest gives vanity additional force, perpetual rivalships should ensue? They are all running the same race, and would rise above the virtue of morals, if they did not view each other with a suspicious and even envious eye.

All you have to do [to win a Pulitzer Prize] is spend your life running from one awful place to another, write about every horrible thing you see. The civilized world reads about it, then forgets it, but pats you on the head for doing it and gives you a reward as appreciation for changing nothing.

I think a lot of creators are attracted to those toys they got to play with when they were young, and everyone wants to write a Superman story or a Batman story or a Spider-Man story. I don't know, if it's been successful for me, it should be successful for anyone. "Hit the ground with your feet running" is the secret of breaking new characters when it seems like no one else is having any luck.

Perfectionism is the voice of the oppressor, the enemy of the people. It will keep you cramped and insane your whole life, and it is the main obstacle between you and a shitty first draft. I think perfectionism is based on the obsessive belief that if you run carefully enough, hitting each stepping-stone just right, you won't have to die. The truth is that you will die anyway and that a lot of people who aren't even looking at their feet are going to do a whole lot better than you, and have a lot more fun while they're doing it.

It was on this day that the Bahamas declared independence. Before that they were a British colony. The British Empire lost Canada and the Bahamas, to name just a couple. Britain's been dumped more times than Taylor Swift. But did they go writing whining songs about it? No.

The sun of her [Great Britain] glory is fast descending to the horizon. Her philosophy has crossed the Channel, her freedom the Atlantic, and herself seems passing to that awful dissolution, whose issue is not given human foresight to scan.