"I am the First Emperor, and my successors shall be known as the Second Emperor, Third Emperor, and so on, for ten thousand generations."

"The empire must be standardized—weights, measures, script, even thought."

"Let the waters flow where I command, and the mountains be moved if I so decree."

"To question the emperor is to question the heavens themselves."

"These men, Qin Shi Huang declared, claimed to be sorcerers. If they really had magic powers, then they could bring themselves back to life."