Imperial Decline Quotes

The Empire of China is an old, crazy, first-rate Man of War, which a fortunate succession of able and vigilant officers have contrived to keep afloat for these hundred and fifty years past, and to overawe their neighbours merely by her bulk and appearance. But whenever an insufficient man happens to have the command on deck, adieu to the discipline and safety of the ship. She may, perhaps, not sink outright; she may drift some time as a wreck, and will then be dashed to pieces on the shore; but she can never be rebuilt on the old bottom.

We lost the American colonies because we lacked the statesmanship to know the right time and the manner of yielding what is impossible to keep.

Empires implode from within due to their own excesses.

I have not become the King's First Minister in order to preside over the liquidation of the British Empire.

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

Once you touch the trappings of monarchy, like opening an Egyptian tomb, the inside is liable to crumble

These different blocs in the Turkish Empire...always conspired against Turkey; because of the hostility of these native peoples, Turkey has lost province after province - Greece, Serbia, Rumania, Bulgaria, Bosnia, Herzegovina, Egypt, and Tripoli. In this way, the Turkish Empire has dwindled almost to nothing.

16,000,000 Americans either defend their rights or suffer repression at the hands of Spain, which, although once the world's greatest empire, is now too weak, with what little is left her, to rule the new hemisphere or even to maintain herself in the old. And shall Europe, the civilized, the merchant, the lover of liberty allow an aged serpent, bent only on satisfying its venomous rage, devour the fairest part of our globe? What! Is Europe deaf to the clamor of her own interests? Has she no eyes to see justice?

I think as English people, we don't want to be reminded that at one point we ruled three-quarters of the globe, and now we're a very small country that doesn't own three-quarters of the globe.

Margaret Thatcher inherited a country in transition. The British Empire was still a considerable entity well into the 20th century.

The Ottoman Empire whose sick body was not supported by a mild and regular diet, but by a powerful treatment, which continually exhausted it.

Wealth conquered Rome after Rome had conquered the world.

Just six years into the 21st century, one can say this is not shaping up to be anything like an American century. Rather, the U.S. seems much more likely to be faced with a very different kind of future: how to manage its own imperial decline.

For the past century or so that's [ Monroe Doctrine] actually been true, but it's declining very significantly.

It is when empires begin to fall, that they tend to cause the most mayhem.

England’s drama is to be forced to choose between the remains of her Empire at the price of American hegemony and a loyal commitment to the continent.

Commerce is so far from being beneficial to arts, or to empire, that it is destructive of both, as all their history shows, for the above reason of individual merit being its great hatred. Empires flourish till they become commercial, and then they are scattered abroad to the four winds.

The arrogance of officialdom should be tempered and controlled, and assistance to foreign hands should be curtailed, lest Rome fall.

Our servants (weaker nations) are becoming our masters. You have my word: As long as there is life in me, I will spend the rest of my days fighting to restore the lost sovereignty of the United States.

Empires always have the hubris to think they are indestructible, when in fact they are always unsustainable.

Empires inevitably fall, and when they do, history judges them for the legacies they leave behind.

Your pretty empire took so long to build, now, with a snap of history's fingers, down it goes.

It's always been the case that you have the really rich, and the really poor. But hey, look, all the great empires have their periods where they rule the world, and then they crumble.

It can be considered a rule that the probable duration of an Empire may be prognosticated by the degree to which its rulers believe in their own propaganda.

If the resistance of the Americans is successful, this memorable epoch will reduce England to a point where she will no longer cause disquietude to France, whose consideration on the Continent will increase in proportion to the enfeeblement of the British Empire.