Nero may have understood how to tune his cithern, but he disgraced his imperial office both by slackening and by tightening the strings.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
If any man has left us for fear of Nero, I shall not account him a coward; but I shall hail as a philosopher any man who has been superior to this fear, and I shall teach him all I know.
There was one thing Beethoven didn't do. When one of his string quartets was played, you can believe the second violin wasn't improvising.
The man that hath no music in himself, Nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds, is fit for treasons, stratagems and spoils.
No one would have doubted his ability to reign had he never been emperor.
In theory it may seem all right to some, but when it comes to being made the instrument of the Lord's vengeance, I myself don't like it.
He wrapped himself in quotations - as a beggar would enfold himself in the purple of Emperors.
The history of Rome presents various men of greater genius than Scipio Aemilianus, but none equalling him in moral purity, in the utter absence of political selfishness, in generous love of his country, and none, perhaps, to whom destiny has assigned a more tragic part.
Buonaparte has often made his boast that our fleet would be worn out by keeping the sea and that his was kept in order and increasing by staying in port; but know he finds, I fancy, if Emperors hear the truth, that his fleet suffers more in a night than ours in one year.
Jimmy Meng sought to be a power broker in the halls of justice. But the influence he sought to peddle was corrupt, and his power was illusory.
No emperor has the power to dictate to the heart.