“The great military leaders of the past have gone, their empires have crumbled and burned to ashes. But the empire of Jesus, built solidly and majestically on the foundation of love, is still growing.”

— Martin Luther King, Jr.

1950s, Loving Your Enemies (Christmas 1957)
Context: Love is the most durable power in the world. This creative force, so beautifully exemplified in the life of our Christ, is the most potent instrument available in mankind's quest for peace and security. Napoleon Bonaparte, the great military genius, looking back over his years of conquest, is reported to have said: "Alexander, Caesar, Charlemagne and I have built great empires. But upon what did they depend? They depended on force. But centuries ago Jesus started an empire that was built on love, and even to this day millions will die for him." Who can doubt the veracity of these words. The great military leaders of the past have gone, their empires have crumbled and burned to ashes. But the empire of Jesus, built solidly and majestically on the foundation of love, is still growing. It started with a small group of dedicated men, who, through the inspiration of their Lord, were able to shake the hinges form the gates of the Roman Empire, and carry the gospel into all the world. Today the vast earthly kingdom of Christ numbers more than 900,000,000 and covers every land and tribe.

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Martin Luther King, Jr. 658

American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Ci… 1929–1968

Patrick Süskind book The Pigeon

Source: The Pigeon

“The hoary centuries are full of Him; the echoes of His sweet voice are heard to-day; His love has perfumed the past eighteen hundred years, and He lives to-day, as the Head of His church; He lives to-day, the object of the warmest adoration, the most passionate love, for whom millions would die this very hour. Empires have fallen, thrones have crumbled; but Jesus lives, His empire extending every day, His throne gaining new trophies of His grace.”

Abbott Eliot Kittredge (1834–1912) American minister

P 79.
Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895)

“loves are like empires: when the idea they are founded on crumbles, they, too, fade away.”

Milan Kundera book The Unbearable Lightness of Being

Source: The Unbearable Lightness of Being

“The rulers of Great Britain have, for more than a century past, amused the people with the imagination that they possessed a great empire on the west side of the Atlantic. This empire, however, has hitherto existed in imagination only.”

Adam Smith (1723–1790) Scottish moral philosopher and political economist

Source: (1776), Book V, Chapter III, Part V, p. 1032 (Last Page).

“That is the great end of empires before God, to be Catholic and draw nations into their Catholicism. But our empire is less and less Christian as it grows.”

Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844–1889) English poet

Letter to Coventry Patmore (4 June 1886)
Letters, etc

“We who have inherited this Empire are proud of it, and it is right that we should be proud. With our pride there should mingle gratitude to those who have gone before us, by whose efforts this Empire has grown. In a world still suffering from the shock of war, the British Empire stands firm as a great force for good…It stands in the sweep of every wind, by the wash of every sea, a witness to that which the spirit of confidence and brotherhood can accomplish in the world.”

Stanley Baldwin (1867–1947) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Broadcast from 10 Downing Street, London (24 May 1927), quoted in Our Inheritance (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1938), p. 63.
1927

“The Foundation of Empire is Art & Science Remove them or Degrade them & the Empire is No More — Empire follows Art & Not Vice Versa as Englishmen suppose.”

William Blake (1757–1827) English Romantic poet and artist

Annotations to Sir Joshua Reynolds's Discourses
1790s

“The state is suffering from two opposite vices, avarice and luxury; two plagues which, in the past, have been the ruin of every great empire.”

Livy (-59–17 BC) Roman historian

Source: History of Rome, Book XXXIV, sec. 4

“A historically supportable resolution would have condemned massacres against Armenians with the same vigor, as it should have condemned massacres by Armenians against the innocent Muslim populations of the crumbling Ottoman Empire.”

Bruce Fein (1947) American lawyer

Armenian crime amnesia? (2007)

“There are three Empires. First there is the Empire which was founded on the tree of knowledge. Then there is the Empire founded on the tree of the Cross. The third is still a secret Empire which will be founded on the tree of knowledge and the tree of the Cross — brought together.”

Henrik Ibsen Emperor and Galilean

Emperor and Galilean (1873), as quoted by Lester B. Pearson in his address on accepting the Nobel Peace Peace Prize in Oslo, Norway (10 December 1957) http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/1957/pearson-acceptance.html

“The great military leaders of the past have gone, their empires have crumbled and burned to ashes. But the empire of Jesus, built solidly and majestically on the foundation of love, is still growing.”

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Martin Luther King, Jr. 658

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