Imperial Policy Quotes

The British should leave Egypt and … as the price of that policy and the favor England would thereby win from France, you should be able, without spending a shilling or losing a man, to annex China to the Indian Empire.

No laws, human or divine, prevent the Romans from seizing and destroying enemies or friends, those near them and those far off, weak or powerful, and from considering every government that does not serve them, especially monarchies, as their enemies.

It was probably only the Tsarist Government's chronic dislike of popular education that saved the Rumanian peasantry from compulsory Russification.

It is evident that that Settlement forming at the Post of St. Vincent is in every respect of the most dangerous Tendency and must have the effect to keep us entangled in perpetual Dispute and Quarrel with the Indians. Therefore, it is his Majesty's Pleasure that you give Notice to the Inhabitants of that Place forthwith to retire from it.

France built its best colony on a principle of exclusion, and failed; England reversed the system, and succeeded.

Cynicism is something which has become symbolic of imperial policy.

For any imperial policy to work effectively...it needs moral and intellectual guidance...It is much to be doubted that the United States can continue to play an imperial role without the endorsement of its intellectual class...

The Egyptian flood is upon us. Pharaoh had just as much business to pursue the Israelites as we have to meddle in Egypt …. However, our policy must now be determined by the effect which the triumph of the Madhi would have on our Mohammedan subjects.

The increase of territory and power of empires by force of arms has been the policy of all great powers, and it has always been possible to get the approval of their state religion.

The policy of the emperors and the senate, as far as it concerned religion, was happily seconded by the reflections of the enlightened, and by the habits of the superstitious, part of their subjects. The various modes of worship, which prevailed in the Roman world, were all considered by the people, as equally true; by the philosopher, as equally false; and by the magistrate, as equally useful. And thus toleration produced not only mutual indulgence, but even religious concord.

This country is little obliged to the framers and supporters of the tea tax. The Americans had almost forgot in their excess of gratitude for the repeal of the Stamp Act, any interest but that of the mother country. This temper would have continued, if not interrupted by your fruitless endeavors to tax them without their consent. I am an old man, and would advise the noble lords in office to adopt a more gentle method of governing America; proceedings like these will never meet with the wished-for success. Instead of these, pass an amnesty on all their youthful errors, clasp them once more to your fond and affectionate arms, and I will venture to affirm you will find them children worthy of their sire.

My idea, therefore, without considering whether we yield as matter of right or grant as matter of favor, is to admit the people of our colonies into an interest in the constitution; and, by recording that admission in the journals of Parliament, to give them as strong an assurance as the nature of the thing will admit that we mean forever to adhere to that solemn declaration of systematic indulgence.

The defeat of the Augustan policy, as the peace with Maroboduus and the sufferance of the Teutoburg disaster may well be termed, was hardly a victory of the Germans.

Lunacy is always distressing, but sometimes it is dangerous; and when you get it manifested in the head of state, and it has become the policy of a great empire, it is about time that it should be ruthlessly put away.