Demon in White

The greater part of wisdom is in silence.

You cannot lead as a tyrant. The people under you will not let you. To lead is a kind of service, a duty you owe to those who follow.

But then, so few of us truly think themselves evil. They simply think good and evil matters of opinion, and seek to impose their opinion—which is evil—on good. Nothing is evil in its beginning, it only grows that way.

The Golden Age ended because men forgot philosophy in their pursuit of knowledge. They traded a love of wisdom for progress, and it destroyed them.” In a small voice, he added, “The ancient Christians were right to name pride the greatest of man’s sins.

Men are slower to act from principle than self-interest, and far slower to act on principle than jealousy or revenge.

We do not get to choose our circumstances or our trials. We can only choose how to respond to them.

Because we are not good.” It took me a moment to realize that it had been I who’d answered. Both my master and student looked at me. “If we were good men, we’d not need all this reflection.

Religion and science are old enemies,” Imlarros said. Gibson cleared his throat, and in a thin voice strained by the descent, said, “They’re not, brother. Only fools think so.

The great empire of silence: higher than all stars, deeper than the kingdom of death! It alone is great; all else is small.

How small I felt, how meager my actions seemed, and how inconsequential. How tiny were all the actions of man against that blank and uncaring universe? How could any of it matter? How could any of us? I know better now. The universe has no center, they say . . . and yet the universe is infinite. Is not then every point the center of the universe, surrounded on all sides by infinite space? Copernicus was as wrong as he was right. The Earth of old was as much the center of the universe as the sun she circled. So too were Mars, and Jupiter beyond.

That may be, but my tutor always told me that all heroes are fools until victorious.

Better to let them be fools. There are some arguments you can’t win without violence. Like I’m always telling you, reason has its limits.

Rank only formalizes relationships between people, Alexander. It does not create them. One has rank because one deserves it, and if one does not deserve it, he will lose his rank. Or his life. A man would do well to become worthy of his honors, else he will be deposed as a tyrant.

And you don’t have to thank me,” Gibson added. “All you have to do is teach in turn. Make the world a little wiser.” “Not that the world will ever be wise,

A sword does not discriminate between friend and foe.

A fear born of the fact that though we may come back to a place at the end of our journeys, we never really return, for we are not the same person who departed.

Great is Truth, and mighty above all things.

I am not certain what I did to deserve those years. I had been given an island in time, a haven and refuge from all that had passed before and what must follow.

Obedience out of fear of pain. Obedience out of fear of the other. Obedience out of love for the person of the hierarch. Obedience out of loyalty to the office of the hierarch. Obedience out of respect for the laws of men and of heaven. Obedience out of piety. Obedience out of compassion. Obedience out of devotion.

No one blamed Lord Hadrian Marlowe.

He was not another of my cultists, no true believer at all. He was the most ardent sort of skeptic, the sort who disbelieves despite even the evidence of his eyes.

you don’t think history is valuable?” Valka made a rude gesture. “Not when history is an ass.

I had believed that I alone had the wisdom to set the world to rights, not knowing then that true wisdom lies in knowing that I did not possess that wisdom, and never would.

And if you burn long enough and bright as I have done, you come back to that simple truth of childhood: the world of the scientists, of engineers and mathematicians, does not exist. We live in stories, in the demon-haunted world of myth. We are heroes and dragons. Evil and divine.

Syriani Dorayaica. The Scourge of Earth.

You look . . . impossible,” I said, and smiled my broken smile.

We lie to ourselves all the time, but there remains a piece of us near our heart that whispers, You don’t believe that.

To be a good knight, a good leader, a good man for that matter, you must judge a person by his or her actions. By their character.

But in age once more the magic returns, if you are willing and open to it. Though young wood does not burn for the moisture in it, as a lonely cinder may catch in old, dry wood and spark a great burning, so do such small things kindle the hearts of those with eyes and time to see.

Science means to know, not to close your fucking eyes!