Roman Key Card

Famous quotes containing the words roman, key and/or card:

    The Roman Empire stood appalled:
    It dropped the reins of peace and war
    When that fierce virgin and her Star
    Out of the fabulous darkness called.
    William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)

    The key to the age may be this, or that, or the other, as the young orators describe; the key to all ages is—Imbecility: imbecility in the vast majority of men, at all times, and even in heroes, in all but certain eminent moments: victims of gravity, customs and fear. This gives force to the strong,—that the multitude have no habit of self-reliance or original action.
    Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)

    There is undoubtedly something religious about it: everyone believes that they are special, that they are chosen, that they have a special relation with fate. Here is the test: you turn over card after card to see in which way that is true. If you can defy the odds, you may be saved. And when you are cleaned out, the last penny gone, you are enlightened at last, free perhaps, exhilarated like an ascetic by the falling away of the material world.
    Andrei Codrescu (b. 1947)