“While the angels, all pallid and wan,
Uprising, unveiling, affirm
That the play is the tragedy, "Man",
And its hero the Conqueror Worm.”

London Match (London: Hutchinson, 1985) p. 18

Variant: The tragedy in a man’s life is what dies inside of him while he lives.

Notebook E (1945) edited by Edmund Wilson
Quoted, Notebooks

Reflections (1981)

May-Day
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

Patience (1881)

Keeping the Rabble in Line, January 14, 1993 (note: Reagan's role was edited http://www.zcommunications.org/zspace/noamchomsky to "would be reading their ads on TV") http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Chomsky/ChomOdon_Divide.html.
Quotes 1990s, 1990-1994
Context: Naturally, any conqueror is going to play one group against another. For example, I think about 90% of the forces that the British used to control India were Indians. [... ] It was true when the American forces conquered the Philippines, killing a couple hundred thousand people. They were being helped by Philippine tribes, exploiting conflicts among local groups. There were plenty who were going to side with the conquerors. But forget the Third World, just take a look at the Nazi conquest of nice, civilized Western Europe, places like Belgium and Holland and France. Who was rounding up the Jews? Local people, often. In France they were rounding them up faster than the Nazis could handle them. The Nazis also used Jews to control Jews. If the United States was conquered by the Russians, Ronald Reagan, George Bush, Elliott Abrams and the rest of them would probably be working for the invaders, sending people off to concentration camps. They're the right personality types.

Page 315; "Alonzo the Brave, and Fair Imogine", line 59.
The Monk (1796)