Famous quotes containing the words french, wars, religion, conquest and/or kingdom:
“The Russians imitate French ways, but always at a distance of fifty years.”
—Stendhal [Marie Henri Beyle] (1783–1842)
“O how wretched
Is that poor man that hangs on princes’ favours!
There is betwixt that smile we would aspire to,
That sweet aspect of princes, and their ruin,
More pangs and fears than wars or women have,
And when he falls, he falls like Lucifer,
Never to hope again.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“All the sweetness of religion is conveyed to children by the hands of storytellers and image-makers. Without their fictions the truths of religion would for the multitude be neither intelligible nor even apprehensible; and the prophets would prophesy and the philosophers celebrate in vain. And nothing stands between the people and the fictions except the silly falsehood that the fictions are literal truths, and that there is nothing in religion but fiction.”
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)
“Have I in conquest stretched mine arm so far
To be afeared to tell greybeards the truth?”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and there will be famines and earthquakes in various places: all this is but the beginning of the birth pangs.”
—Bible: New Testament, Matthew 24:7,8.