Petrik > Books: favorites‎ (206)

“What is the point of gathering knowledge if one does not pass it on? What is the point of growing old if one does not try to shape the future?”

“Sometimes, the only way to improve something is to destroy it, so it can be rebuilt better… Sometimes, to change the world, we must first burn it down.”

“How could one man keep his oath when everyone else was breaking theirs, after all? An army very much relied on unity of purpose.”

“Have you been outside lately? Wisdom is not at a premium, madness is the fashion, the balance sheets are all torn up and the friends that were assets have become liabilities… Threats for tomorrow don’t cut very deep when today is so damn threatening.”

“The past has never interested me. For better or worse it is done, and set, and littered with disappointments as a battlefield is littered with the dead. But the future is a ploughed field, full of potential. The future we can twist into wonderful shapes.”

“It’s a comfort, telling yourself there’s some big right thing out there. That you could seek some wise old bastard in the mountains who’s got the answer. Then there’d be no need for doubts and regrets… But far as I can tell it ain’t that simple. Right things, wrong things, well… it’s all a matter of where you stand. Every choice is good for some, bad for others. And once you’re chief, you can’t just do what’s good for you, or those you love. You have to find what’s best for most. Worst for fewest.”

“The sad truth is, men love to follow a man other man fear… Makes them feel fearsome, too. We tell the odd fond story of the good men. The straight edges. Your Rudd Threetrees, your Dogmen. But it’s the butchers men love to sing of. The burners and the blood-spillers. Your Cracknut Whirruns and your Black Dows. Your Bloody-Nines. Men don’t dream of doing the right thing, but of ripping what they want from the world with their strength and their will.”

“History is not the story of battles between right and wrong, but between one man’s right and another’s. Evil is not the opposite of good. It is what we call another man’s notion of good when it differs from ours.”

“Don’t matter how savage a face you show the world, few men dare look the Great Leveller in the eye once he comes calling.”

“Great folk are great ‘cause they plant new footsteps. Not ‘cause they blunder through the same mistakes some other bastards made.”

“He’d seen victories enough, and they were like the false summits of a great fell. You struggle towards ‘em, sure you’ve made the top, then the moment you get there you see another just beyond. No fight was ever the last. No victory was ever for good.”

“There comes a point… when talking about a better world is simply not enough. There comes a time… when men of conscience, principle and courage must dare the unthinkable… and fight for a better world.”

“My scripture teacher used to say that those who strive and fail are as blessed as those who succeed.”

“We’re all like children, Rikke. The older you get, the more you realize the grown-ups won’t suddenly walk in and set things right. You want things right, you have to put ‘em right yourself.”
“With your bones and your brains, eh?”
“And your heart, Rikke. And your heart.”

“A man is measured by his enemies. Worthy ones can be more missed than friends… Magic fades from the world but, in truth, most problem have always been better solved with a few sharp words. Or a little sharp steel.”

“I must confess I have always had some sympathy with villains. Heroism makes fine entertainment but sooner or later someone has to get things done.”
“Well-written villains, maybe. You wouldn’t believe Wetterlant in a book! How the hell does a man end up like that?”
“Being given everything he wants all his life. Being asked for nothing in return.”

“An investor must know an opportunity when she sees it, must judge the risks and rewards in an instant, and if one outweighs the other pounce upon it, commit without delay, without regret, without sentiment.”

“Old stories are like old friends, she used to say. You have to visit them from time to time.”

“Rhaegar fought valiantly, Rhaegar fought nobly, Rhaegar fought honorably. And Rhaegar died.”

“It all goes back and back," Tyrion thought, "to our mothers and fathers and theirs before them. We are puppets dancing on the strings of those who came before us, and one day our own children will take up our strings and dance in our steads.”

“The greatest fools are ofttimes more clever than the men who laugh at them.”

“There's no shame in fear, my father told me, what matters is how we face it.”

“People often claim to hunger for truth, but seldom like the taste when it's served up.”

“When you tear out a man's tongue, you are not proving him a liar, you're only telling the world that you fear what he might say.”

“So many vows... they make you swear and swear. Defend the king. Obey the king. Keep his secrets. Do his bidding. Your life for his. But obey your father. Love your sister. Protect the innocent. Defend the weak. Respect the gods. Obey the laws. It’s too much. No matter what you do, you’re forsaking one vow or the other.”

“He who hurries through life hurries to his grave.”

“... a mind needs books as a sword needs a whetstone, if it is to keep its edge.”

“Bran thought about it. 'Can a man still be brave if he's afraid?'
'That is the only time a man can be brave,' his father told him.”

“Why is it always the innocents who suffer most, when you high lords play your game of thrones?”

“When you play the game of thrones, you win or you die. There is no middle ground.”

“What is honor compared to a woman's love? What is duty against the feel of a newborn son in your arms . . . or the memory of a brother's smile? Wind and words. Wind and words. We are only human, and the gods have fashioned us for love. That is our great glory, and our great tragedy.”

“Never forget what you are, for surely the world will not. Make it your strength. Then it can never be your weakness. Armour yourself in it, and it will never be used to hurt you.”

“A lord must learn that sometimes words can accomplish what swords cannot.”

“The things I do for love.”

“Every day, a person should learn something, experience something, do something that left them changed, even in a small way.”

“To speak from the heart required more bravery than any physical risk. To heal a wound was so much harder than to cause one.”

“A friendship of half a lifetime shouldn’t be broken by a few harsh words.”

“In her lessons, as in life, they’d often find themselves dealt a hand that was less than fair. She’d teach them to overcome a disadvantage any way they could.”

“Even the smallest cog is important in the workings of a clock.”

“We are the Swords that hunt so your hands may be clean. We are the Swords that kill so your soul may be light. We are the Swords that die so you may live.”

“Lesson number four. Sometimes those who seek to help you are the worst enemies of all.”

“Do not make assumptions about things you know nothing about. An emperor serves his people. The day the people serve the emperor is the day the empire falls. Remember that, Miko, if nothing else. War profits no peasant.”

“The hardship of the exercises is intended less to strengthen the back than to toughen the mind. The Spartans say that any army may win while it still has its legs under it; the real test comes when all strength is fled and the men must produce victory on will alone.”

“A king does not abide within his tent while his men bleed and die upon the field. A king does not dine while his men go hungry, nor sleep when they stand at watch upon the wall. A king does not command his men's loyalty through fear nor purchase it with gold; he earns their love by the sweat of his own back and the pains he endures for their sake. That which comprises the harshest burden, a king lifts first and sets down last. A king does not require service of those he leads but provides it to them...A king does not expend his substance to enslave men, but by his conduct and example makes them free.”

“Arthur would fight for Britain. I would fight for Arthur. And Guinevere would always own my soul. The gods are cruel.”

“Distributed responsibility is the problem. One person gives the order, another carries it out. One can say they didn’t pull the trigger, the other that they were just doing what they were told, and everyone lets themselves off the hook.”

“But pacifism only works when your enemy has a conscience.”

“There are people I love. There are people who have loved me. I fought for what I believed, protected those I could, and stood my ground against the encroaching darkness. Good enough.”

“You take care of your tools, your tools take care of you.”

“People are born selfish; babies are the most selfish creatures, even though they’re helpless and wouldn’t survive a day on their own. Growing up and losing that selfishness—that’s what civilization is, that’s what sets us above beasts. If someone harms my brother, they harm me—that’s what our clan oaths are about. Those men weren’t your enemies—they were our enemies.”

“The clan was not just people and jade and money. It was an idea, a legacy that connected the pats with the present and the future. The family’s strength was a promise.”

“If you’re not sure you’re in love, then you’re not.”

“Out of small resentments, spring great wars.”

“All that mortals could do was accept the lot they were given, and yet still fight to better their own fate and that of their loved ones.”

“Any old horse will run when it's whipped, but only fast enough to avoid the whipping," Hilo said. "Racehorses, though, they run because they look at the horse on their left, they look at the one on their right, and they think, No way am I second to these fuckers.”

“Sometimes even the most loyal and devoted men make mistakes when they’re forced to make decisions under terrible circumstances.”

“Sometimes, Andy, the people you think you can count on, they let you down in a bad way, and that’s hard to take. But for the most part, you give a man something to live up to, you tell him he can be more than he is now, more than other people think he’ll ever be, and he’ll try his godsdamned best to make it true.”

“Expectations are a funny thing,” Wen said. “When you’re born with them, you resent them, fight against them. When you’ve never been given any, you feel the lack of them your whole life.”

“All things have a value. Sometimes the value is paid in coin. Other times, it is paid in time and sweat. And finally, sometimes it is paid in blood.

Humanity seems most eager to use this latter currency. And we never note how much of it we’re spending, unless it happens to be our own.”

“One day I’ll live a life that doesn’t force me to make such cold-blooded decisions, she thought. But today is not that day.”

“Any given innovation that empowers the individual will inevitably come to empower the powerful much, much more.”

“We are not here to earn riches with a bow. The wolf

“We are not here to earn riches with a bow. The wolf does not think of fine things, only that his pack is strong and no other wolf dares to cross his path. That is enough.”

“All men die, Genghis. All. Think what it means for a moment. None of us are remembered for more than one or two generations." He raised a hand as Genghis opened his mouth to speak again. "Oh, I know we chant the names of great khans by the fireside and the Chin have libraries running back for thousands of years. What of it? Do you think it matters to the dead that their names are read aloud? They don’t care, Genghis. They are gone. The only thing that matters is what they did while they were alive.”

“Be careful of raising me too high, brother. I have no special strength, unless it is in choosing good men to follow me. The great lie of cities is that we are all too weak to stand against those who oppress us. All I have done is see through that lie. I always fight, Kachiun. Kings and shahs depend on people remaining sheep, too afraid to rise up. All I ever did was realize I can be a wolf to them.”

“Men always die in war. Their kings expect it. I want them to know that if they resist me, they are putting their hand in the mouth of a wolf. They will lose everything and they can expect no mercy… This is a hard land and the people are used to death. If I am to rule them, they must know that to face me is to be destroyed. They must be afraid, Chakahai. It is the only way.”

“Mongolia is an unforgiving land. The boy, Temujin, was never cruel, and there is no record of him ever taking pleasure from the destruction of his enemies, but he was capable of utter ruthlessness.”

“His childhood experiences created the man he would become, who would not bend or allow fear or weakness in any form. He cared nothing for possessions or wealth, only that his enemies fall.”

“Courage cannot be left like bones in a bag. It must be brought out and shown the light again and again, growing stronger each time. If you think it will keep for the times you need it, you are wrong. It is like any other part of your strength. If you ignore it, the bag will be empty when you need it most.”

“There was no bond stronger than that between those who have risked their lives in each other’s company.”

“He had a vision of a nation. The incredible martial skills of the Mongol tribes had always been wasted against each other. From nothing, surrounded by enemies, Temujin rose to unite them all. What came next would shake the world.”

“If there is a divine creator, some ultimate moral authority, then why do bad things happen to good people? And why would this deity create people at all, since people are such imperfect beings?”

“Children ceased to be children when you put a sword in their hands. When you taught them to fight a war, then you armed them and put them on the front lines, they were not children anymore. They were soldiers.”

“There is much in life that is beyond our control, events that sweep us up and along, actions that wrap us tight in their consequences. Stop raging about the things you cannot change. Just be true to yourself and do what you can do. Love those worth loving, and to the Otherworld with the rest of it. That is all any of us can do.”

“Each small step taken for a greater good, and then before you know it, you have walked a thousand leagues from where you used to be. And how do you return to that place, return to the person you were? Or if you cannot do that, how do you become the person that you wish to be?"

“A person is made by their heart and their wits.’ He touched his one hand to his chest and then to his temple. ‘And by the deeds that they do. Their choices. Not whether they have pale skin or dark skin, wings or no wings. One hand or two.”

"We live our lives by Truth and Courage. Love and loyalty, friendship and honor are our guiding lights.”

“The name of the human who is written in this note shall die.”

“Start looking around you... and all you see are people the world would be better off without.”

“Every act of communication is a miracle of translation.”

“We are defined by the places we hold in the web of others’ lives.”

“Our lives are ruled by these small, seemingly ordinary moments that turn out to have improbably large effects.”

“And yet, whatever has been lost in translation in the long journey of my thoughts through the maze of civilization to your mind, I think you do understand me, and you think you do understand me. Our minds managed to touch, if but briefly and imperfectly.

Does that thought not make the universe seem just a bit kinder, a bit brighter, a bit warmer and more human?

We live for such miracles.”

"The Sixth Order wields the sword of justice and smites the enemies of the Faith and the Realm."

"War is always an adventure to those who've never seen it."

"Comradeship, he realized. Also a warrior's lot. You share your life with those who would die for you."

"A life without experience provides no contemplation."