One day, perhaps, you will see for yourself that regrets are as nothing. The value lies in how they are answered.

Fear bespeaks of wisdom. Recognition of responsibility.

Any reasonable ruler would have the expectation and the demand the other way round.

Kallor said: "I walked this land when the T'lan Imass were but children. I have commanded armies a hundred thousand strong. I have spread the fire of my wrath across entire continents, and sat alone upon tall thrones. Do you grasp the meaning of this?" "Yes," said Caladan Brood, "you never learn."

The more civilized a nation, the more conformed its population, until that civilization's last age arrives, when multiplicity wages war with conformity. The former grows ever wilder, ever more dysfunctional in its extremities; whilst the latter seeks to increase its measure of control, until such efforts acquire diabolical tyranny.' - Traveller

It is one thing to lead by example with half a dozen soldiers at your back. It is wholly another with ten thousand.

Shake your fist all you want but dead is dead