722 Quotes by Steven Erikson

People who make up their minds about something never listen to advice - especially when it's to the contrary.

We are rocked in the tumult, and the awareness of one's own ignorance is a smothering cloak that proves poor armour.

Wisdom grows by stripping away beliefs, until the last tether is cut, and suddenly you float free. Only, because your eyes are wide open, you see right away that you can’t float in what you’re in. You can only sink. That’s why the meanest religions work so hard at keeping their followers ignorant. Knowledge is poison. Wisdom is depthless. Staying ignorant keeps you in the shallows.

Chaos needs no allies, for it dwells like a poison in every one of us.

A civilization at war chooses only the most obvious enemy, and often also the one perceived, at first, to be the most easily defeatable. But that enemy is not the true enemy, nor is it the gravest threat to that civilization. Thus, a civilization at war often chooses the wrong enemy.

As far as Gu’Rull could determine, the only virtue humans possessed was a talent for starting over, with stern resolve restored in the sudden glow of renewed optimism, in complete disregard of whatever lessons past failures might offer. And he had no choice but to acknowledge the power of that virtue. It is contingent upon collective amnesia, but as everyone knows, stupidity needs no excuse to repeat itself.

Now, invite me in, before I lose my temperature.’‘Temper, you mean.’‘No, temperature. It’s getting chilly.

That's the thing with Just Wars - they never end and never will because Justice is a weak god with too many names.

Oh, we take you into slaughter without a moment's thought. And yes, some of you come to enjoy it, to lust for that cacophony, that violence, the reek of blood.And so we share with you, dear horse, our peculiar madness. But who judges us for this crime against you and your kind? No one.Unless you horses have a god.