Nor is it any longer possible for you to give up this empire … Your empire is now like a tyranny: it may have been wrong to take it; it is certainly dangerous to let it go.

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Notes from Wikiquote

This verse is sometimes freely translated as Empires are dangerous things to possess for, once you have them, it is very difficult to let them go.

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Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Pericles (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.