"It was luxuries like air conditioning that brought down the Roman Empire. With air conditioning their windows were shut, they couldn't hear the barbarians coming"

"The Holy Roman Empire is neither Holy, nor Roman, nor an Empire"

"The Sixties are now considered a historical period, just like the Roman Empire"

"The Papacy is not other than the Ghost of the deceased Roman Empire, sitting crowned upon the grave thereof"

"I am utterly struck how, 300 years after his execution, Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire"

"All comparisons between America's current place in the world and anything legitimately called an empire in the past reveal ignorance and confusion about any reasonable meaning of the concept empire, especially the comparison with the Roman Empire"

"In Italy, on the breaking up of the Roman Empire, society might be said to be resolved into its original elements, - into hostile atoms, whose only movement was that of mutual repulsion"

"My last days at MGM were like the fall of the Roman Empire in fast motion"