Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
There are times, Sember, when I could believe your mother had a secret lover. Looking at you makes me wonder if it was one of my goats.
Kings are chosen by the Source, so it is said. [...] Therefore those who fight for the king can be said to be godly. Is that not cause enough?
I don't give a damn, laddie. Until the actual moment, when they cut me down, I shall still be looking to win. And the gods of war are fickle at best.
We are full of dreams [...] We long for the unattainable. We believe in the nonsense of fables. There is no pure love; there is lust and there is need.
Each man has a breaking point, no matter how strong his spirit. Somewhere, deep inside him, there is a flaw that only the fickle cruelty of fate can find.
Life is not so simple. There are many futures. The life of a single person is like a great tree: every branch, every twig, every leaf is a possible future.
The nature of a coward is to avoid death. If such a man courts peril there can be only two reasons. Either he is not a coward at all or there is no danger.
She was his north star, the fixed point round which his world turned. For as long as his heart beat, or hers, he believed they would always share a destiny.
It is a merchant's nature to quibble over coins. It is how we become rich and buy satin shirts. The problems of who governs this area is one for another day.
Evil lives in a pit. If you want to fight it, you must climb down into the slime to do so. White cloaks show the dirt more thank black, and silver tarnishes.
It would be a fine thing if war could be conducted as a game where no lives were lost. At the end of a battle combatants could meet [...] and drink and talk.
Most of the heroes we remember we remember only because they won. To win you must be ruthless. Single-minded ... which was why he had no friends just admirers.
Win or lose, we achieve nothing in the world that we understand [...]' 'But then the world does not matter.' 'Indeed it does not [...] It is good to understand that.
How many hopes and dreams are trapped within these bones? How many wonders lie never to be discovered? This is what war is. Desolation, despair and loss. There are no victors.
But men don't come in just two groups, one of gold and the other of lead. They are a mix of both." "And what about women?" "Pure gold, my girl," Rayvan answered with a chuckle.
Fear is an aid to the warrior. It is a small fire burning. It heats the muscles, making us stronger. Panic comes when the fire is out of control, consuming all courage and pride.
While men compete in war, there will be warriors. While there are warriors, there will be princes among warriors. Among the princes will be kings, and among the kings an emperor.
Liberty is only valued when it is threatened, therefore it is the threat that highlights the value. We should be grateful to the Nadir, since they heighten the value of our liberty.
I may be stupid, as you say, to believe in honour and friendship and loyalty without price. But these are virtues to be cherished, for without them we are no more than beasts roaming the land.
A warrior feeds his body well; he trains it; works on it. Where he lacks knowledge, he studies. But above all he must believe. He must believe in his strength of will, of purpose, of heart and soul.
It's a funny thing about weaknesses....Most people will tell you they know their weaknesses. When asked, they'll tell you, 'Well for one thing, I'm overgenerous.' ... that's what innkeepers are for.
To be truthful i am not entirely sure what people mean when they talk of happiness. There are moments of joy and laughter, the comfort of friendship, but enduring happiness? If it exists i have not found it
What will you do now?' I think I will become a monk and devote my entire life to prayer and good works.' No,' said Rek. 'I mean, what will you do today?' Ah! Today I'll get drunk and go whoring,' said Bowman.
It is easier with strangers, for they touch your life but for an instant. You will not disappoint them, for you owe them nothing; neither do they expect anything. Friends you can hurt, for they expect everything.
Never violate a woman, nor harm a child. Do not lie, cheat or steal. These things are for lesser men. Protect the weak against the evil strong. And never allow thoughts of gain to lead you into the persuit of evil.
If we are still discussing its merits tomorrow, I will agree with you," said Diagoras. "Cheer up, laddie. Nobody lives forever." "Oh I expect you will, Druss, Old Horse. It's the mortals around you who always seem to kiss the granite.
Some people are born ugly. It's not their fault, and I for one have never held it against a man that he is ugly. but others and I count myself among them are born with handsome features. That's a gift that should not be lightly taken away.
Makes no sense to me,' said Huntsekker. 'You don't know who is at your door, but you know the thoughts of a man twenty miles away.' 'Life is a mystery,' said Powdermill, with a gold-toothed grin. 'It is that, right enough,' agreed Huntsekker.
They dont understand what real treasure is. They see it in gold and copper, and tin. They see in herds of horses or cattle. They gather treasures to themselves, building great storehouses, which they guard ferociously. Then they die. What good is it then?
Fear is good, for it makes us cautious and aids survival. Not so with terror. It is like slow poison, paralyzing the limbs and blurring the mind. . . Never, when in danger, ask yourself, What will they do to me? Instead think, What can I do to prevent them?
No need for confusion, my dear Mulgrave... Beautiful wine and sour vinegar come from exactly the same source. Curiously if one leaves a bottle of wine open for long enough it will become vinegar. Happily in this house wine never survives long enough to go bad.
Heroes are people who face down their fears. It is that simple. A child afraid of the dark who one day blows out the candle; a women terrified of the pain of childbirth who says, 'It is time to become a mother'. Heroism does not always live on the battlefield.
Love is a mystery. We embrace it where we can. Mostly we do not choose whom we love. It just happens. A voice speaks to us, in ways the ears cannot hear. We recognize a beauty the eye does not see. We experience a change in our hearts that no voice can describe.
Why must I have the Piglet?' 'Because you are the best.' 'I do not understand.' 'Teach him.' 'And who teaches me?' ' As an officer, my lord, you will have many men under your command and not all will be gifted. You must learn to use each man to his best advantage.
You may think life is sweet now, but when death is a heartbeat away then life becomes unbearably desirable. And when you survive, everything you do will be enhanced and filled with greater joy: the sunlight, the breeze, a good wine, a woman's lips, a child's laughter.
Not one of the creatures of blood can escape death. We all face it, and succumb to it. It follows us like a dark shadow. Yet if we live in terror of it, then we do not live at all. Yes we are born alone, and yes we will die alone. But in between, Tae, we live. We know joy.
Our modern world, though infinitely more complex than that of ancient Greece, is also far more superficial. Where the Greeks offered simple psychological training, we live in an age of style and spin in which perceptions of good and evil slither and shift with the political view of the moment.
Why now? Why not? Live or die, a man and a woman need love. There is a need in the race. We need to share. To belong. Perhaps you will die before the year is out. But remember this: to have may be taken from you, to have had never. Far better to have tasted love before dying, than to die alone.
It is hard to be angry when one has seen the sun rise,' she said. It seems to be true,' he admitted. 'I wonder why.' Because it makes one feel so small and insignificant. It has been rising forever and will rise forever no matter what we do or do not do. All our problems are as nothing to the sun.
We are tiny flames, Helikaon, and we flicker alone in the great dark for no more than a heartbeat. When we strive for wealth, glory and fame, it is meaningless. The nations we fight for will one day cease to be. Even the mountains we gaze upon will crumble to dust. To truly live we must yearn for that which does not die.
Many fantasy novels - 'Lord of the Rings', for instance, or 'Lavondyss' by Robert Holdstock - are beautifully written. Geoff Ryman's 'The Child Garden' is exquisite and utterly beguiling. Mervyn Peake's 'Gormenghast' trilogy is an astonishing piece of multi-faceted storytelling. So quality of writing does not condemn the genre.
One day the enemy will cross the Great Green. They will bring war and tragedy to these eastern lands. Such is the nature of vile men. Yet we cannot live in dread of them. We cannot hide behind these high walls, our hearts trembling. For that is not life. We must accept the needs and the duties of each day, and face them one at a time.
I have discovered in my long life that there are many words and phrases which have more power than any spell of magick. The most well-known of these is, of course, I love you. But by far the most deadly is, if only. For these two words can strip a man's strength, his courage and his confidence. They become the father of regret and anguish and pain.
True. The one certainty about riding, Braygan, is that - at some time - you will fall off. It is a fact. Another fact you might like to consider, in your life of perpetual terror, is that you will die. We are all going to die, some of us young, some of us old, some of us in our sleep, some of us screaming in agony. We cannot stop it, we can only delay it.
Man is capable of greatness, love, nobility, compassion. Yet never forget that his capacity for evil is infinite. It is a sad truth, boy, that if you sit now and think of the worst tortures that could ever be inflicted on another human being, they will already have been practiced somewhere. If there is one sound that follows the march of humanity, it is the scream.
Warriors fear surrender. They are proud and defiant. They will fight to the death for what they believe in. They will struggle to conquer. Love is not about conquest. The truth is a man can only find true love when he surrenders to it. When he opens his heart to the partner of his soul and says: 'here it is! the very essence of me! It is yours to nurture or destroy.
Yours is a race whose imagination is limited to its own small appetites. Greed, lust, envy - these are the motivating forces of humankind. What redeems you is that in every man and woman there is a seed that can grow to encompass love, joy and compassion. But this seed is never allowed to prosper in fertile ground. It struggles for life among the rocks of your human soul.
There is a darkness in you. In all of us, probably. Beasts we keep chained. Ordinary men have to keep the chains strong, for if we let the beast loose then society will turn upon us with fiery vengeance. Kings though...well, who is there to turn upon them? So the chains are made of straw. It is the curse of kings, Helikaon, that they can become monsters. And they invariably do.