Wisdom Quotes

"For those who dine with war and empire, the bill always comes at the end."

"Sometimes, little one, it’s best if the worlds think you a little mad.” He winks. “Inspiring what they’ll let you get away with."

"Grandmother thought talkative men the most hilarious of creatures, so busy projecting that they never notice anything until the jaws of the trap close around their legs. The key to learning, to power, to having the final say in everything, is observation. By all means, be a storm inside, but save your movement and wind till you know your purpose."

"hope is an opiate, not a plan."

"Fear those who seek your company for their own vanity. As soon as you eclipse them in the mirror, it won’t be the mirror they break."

"Never deny your enemy a chance for retreat. Victory may cost too much."

"Life is meant to be felt. Else why live? Valleys make the mountains."

"Permanence of fame, power, dominion of the individual, are illusions. All that will be measured, all that will last, is your mastery of yourself."

"The tragedy of the gifted is the belief they are entitled to greatness, Lysander. As a human, you are entitled only to death."

"Daxo taught my son to build castles in the sand. Pax cried when the waves came in. Your brother sat him on his knee and told him that’s all life is. Moments you build only to see washed away. But that doesn’t mean it’s all for nothing. The key is having a long memory for the sweet, and a short one for the bitter. I will miss your brother, Thraxa. But he isn’t gone."

"I believe we all begin equal parts light and dark. I fear you think your strength lies in your darkness. But the measure of a man is not the fear he sows in his enemies. It is the hope he gives his friends."

"Sometimes it’s better to let a wheel squeak than break the cart trying to fix it."

"how can you understand a man at war with himself?"

"All of a man’s affairs become diseased when he wishes to cure evils by evils. For order, I impaled soldiers. For liberty, you drowned cities. The victor writes history with the blood of the vanquished. I wonder, in the end, which of us will turn out the hero? Don’t you?"

"Remember you are but a mortal"

"Love may give one wings, but everything burns when it flies too close to the sun."

"There is evil in us, as there is good. But we do not regret our good as we do our evil. So we know what we are, my daughter. We know what we are."

"It is a master’s nature to want, just as it is a servant’s nature to provide. This does not mean the master does not provide. This does not mean a servant does not want."

"We achieve perfection first by acknowledging our failures. We increase understanding first by recognizing our ignorance."

"Guilt makes men do very rash things."