quotes by Terry Goodkind

"People are stupid. They will believe a lie because they want to believe it's true, or because they are afraid it might be true."
— Terry Goodkind (Wizard's First Rule)

"I often hear people say that they read to escape reality, but I believe that what they’re really doing is reading to find reason for hope, to find strength. While a bad book leaves readers with a sense of hopelessness and despair, a good novel, through stories of values realized, of wrongs righted, can bring to readers a connection to the wonder of life. A good novel shows how life can and ought to be lived. It not only entertains but energizes and uplifts readers."
— Terry Goodkind

"Nothing gained without cost is valued. Freedom has a cost, and all will bear it so all will value and preserve it."
— Terry Goodkind

"If the road is easy, you're likely going the wrong way."
— Terry Goodkind

"I'm afraid that we all make mistakes. One of the things that defines our character is how we handle mistakes. If we lie about having made a mistake, then it can't be corrected and it festers. On the other hand, if we give up just because we made a mistake, even a big mistake, none of us would get far in life."
— Terry Goodkind (Confessor)

"Wizards First Rule: People are Stupid"
— Terry Goodkind (Wizard's First Rule)

"You can't argue with the fools in the world. It's better to let them have their way, then trick them when they're not paying attention."
— Terry Goodkind

"Knowledge is a destination. Truth, the journey."
— Terry Goodkind

"I am who I am; no more, no less."
— Terry Goodkind (Wizard's First Rule)

"Fate does not seek our consent."
— Terry Goodkind (Blood of the Fold)

"Nothing is ever easy"
— Terry Goodkind

"Nothing marks a man's character better than his attraction to intelligence."
— Terry Goodkind

"The sun has already set on the days we made those choices. We must concentrate on what we can do tomorrow; we can't relive yesterday."
— Terry Goodkind

"Admitting that you do not know something is the first step to learning."
— Terry Goodkind

"The Second Rule is that the greatest harm can result from the best intentions. It sounds a paradox, but kindness and good intentions can be an insidious path to destruction. Sometimes doing what seems right is wrong, and can cause harm. The only counter to it is knowledge, wisdom, forethought, and understanding the First Rule. Even then, that is not always enough."
— Terry Goodkind (Stone of Tears)

"The first law of reason is that what exists, exists; what is, is, and that from this ineducible, bedrock principle, all knowledge is built...that is the foundation from which life is embraced... thinking is a choice...wishes and whims are not facts, nor are they a means to discover them... reason is our only way of grasping reality--it's our basic tool of survival. We are free to evade the effort of thinking--to reject reason--but we are not free to avoid the penalty of the abyss we refuse to see... Reason is the very substance of truth itself. The glory that is life is wholly embraced through reason. In rejecting reason one embraces death."
— Terry Goodkind (Faith of the Fallen)

"Love is not about what you want. It's about finding happiness for the one you love."
— Terry Goodkind (Wizard's First Rule)

"...no army has ever marched into battle thinking that the Creator had sided with their enemy."
— Terry Goodkind (Wizard's First Rule)

"Charity, if you have the means, is a personal choice, but charity which is expected or compelled is simply a polite word for slavery."
— Terry Goodkind (The Pillars of Creation)

"Every person's life is theirs by right. An individual's life can and must belong only to to himself, not to any society or community, or he is then but a slave."
— Terry Goodkind

"Once lucky, twice confident, and thrice dead."
— Terry Goodkind (Blood of the Fold)

"Deserve Victory"
— Terry Goodkind

"Right and wrong are not the product of census."
— Terry Goodkind (Naked Empire)

"Wrong doing must be punished. If not, it will proliferate until anarchy wears the robes of tolerance and understanding."
— Terry Goodkind (Blood of the Fold)

"Love is a passion for life shared with another person. You fall in love with a person who you think is wonderful. It's your deepest appreciation of the value of that individual, and that individual is a reflection of what you value most in life. Love, for sound reasons, can be one of life's greatest rewards."
— Terry Goodkind (Chainfire)

"Not everyone is willing to embrace liberty; liberty requires not just effort, but risk. Some people choose to delude themselves and see their chains as protective armor."
— Terry Goodkind (Chainfire)

"To exist in this vast universe for a speck of time is the great gift of life. Our tiny sliver of time is our gift of life. It is our only life. The universe will go on, indifferent to our brief existence, but while we are here we touch not just part of that vastness, but also the lives around us. Life is the gift each of us has been given. Each life is our own and no one else's. It is precious beyond all counting. It is the greatest value we can have. Cherish it for what it truly is..... Your life is yours alone. Rise up and live it."
— Terry Goodkind

"The Wizard's First Rule: People are stupid; given proper motivation almost anyone will believe almost anything."
— Terry Goodkind (Wizard's First Rule)

"Wizards First Rule
"People are stupid; given proper motivation, almost anyone will believe almost anything. Because people are stupid, they will believe a lie because they want to believe it's true, or because they are afraid it might be true. People’s heads are full of knowledge, facts, and beliefs, and most of it is false, yet they think it all true. People are stupid; they can only rarely tell the difference between a lie and the truth, and yet they are confident they can, and so are all the easier to fool."

"
— Terry Goodkind

"Emotions are the sums created by details, whether those details are true or not."
— Terry Goodkind (Confessor)

"We reap a reward merely in the act of helping others. We never know how, or if, that reward will come back to us. Helping is the reward; none other is needed nor better."
— Terry Goodkind

""By my love for you. I realized I loved you more than life itself, and I would rather give myself into your power than live without you. Nothing the magic could do to me could be worse than living without you. I was willing to give it all over to you. I offered the power everything I have. All of my love for you. Once I realized how much I loved you, I was willing to be yours on any terms. I understood that there could be nothing for the magic to harm. I’m already devoted to you; it didn’t need to change me. I was protected, because I have already been untouched by your love. I had utter faith that you felt the same, and had no fear of what would happen. Had I had any doubt, the magic would have latched on to that crack and taken me, but I had no doubt. My love for you is smooth and seamless. My love for you protected me from the magic.""
— Terry Goodkind (Wizard's First Rule)

"...Wizard's Fifth Rule: Mind what people do, not only what they say, for deeds will betray a lie."
— Terry Goodkind

""If you are unwilling to defend your right to your own lives,
then you are merely like mice trying to argue with owls.
You think their ways are wrong.
They think you are dinner.""
— Terry Goodkind (Naked Empire)

"We all can be only who we are, no more, no less."
— Terry Goodkind (Stone of Tears)

"The Screelings are loose and the Keeper may win.
His assassins have come to rip off your skin.
Golden eyes will see you if you try to run.
The screelings will get you and laugh like it's fun.

Walk away slow or they'll tear you apart,
and laugh all day long as they rip out your heart.
Golden eyes will see you if you try to stand still.
The screelings will get you, for the Keeper they kill.

Hack 'em up, chop 'em up, cut 'em to bits,
or else they will get you while laughing in fits.
If the screelings don't get you the Keeper will try,
to reach out and touch you, your skin he will fry.

Your mind he will flail, your soul he will take.
You'll sleep with the dead, for life you'll forsake.
You'll die with the Keeper till the end of time.
He hates that you live, your life is the crime.

The screelings might get you, it says so in text.
If screelings don't get you the Keeper is next,
lest he who's born true can fight for life's bond.
And that one is marked; he's the pebble in the pond."
— Terry Goodkind (Stone of Tears)

"As you learn to be other than Mord-Sith, like I learned as I grew up, you'll find that being a friend is to like a person for who they are, even the parts you don't understand. The reasons you like them makes the things you don't understand unimportant. You don't have to understand, or do the same, or live their lives for them. If you truly care for them, then you want them to be who they are; that was why you liked them in the first place."
— Terry Goodkind (Blood of the Fold)

""Bags, and Double Bags!" - Zedd"
— Terry Goodkind (Wizard's First Rule)

"Emotions are the end result, the sum, of things learned"
— Terry Goodkind (Confessor)

"I'd rather look a fool than be right and fail to act."
— Terry Goodkind (Soul of the Fire)

"Faith and feelings are the warm marrow of evil. Unlike reason, faith and feelings provide no boundary to limit any delusion, any whim. They are virulent poison, giving the numbing illusion of moral sanction to every depravity ever hatched.

Faith and feelings are the darkness to reason’s light.

Reason is the very substance of truth itself. The glory that is life is wholly embraced through reason. In rejecting it, in rejecting reason, one embraces death."
— Terry Goodkind (Faith of the Fallen)

"Culture carries no privilege to exist. Cultures do not have value simply because they are. Some cultures, the world is better off without."
— Terry Goodkind

"We all can be no more, or less, than who we are."
— Terry Goodkind (Wizard's First Rule)

""Once committed to fight, cut. Everything else is secondary. Cut. That is your duty, your purpose, your hunger. There is no rule more important, no commitment that overrides that one. Cut. Cut from the void, not from bewilderment. Cut the enemy as quickly and directly as possible. Cut decisively, resolutely. Cut into the enemy’s strength. Flow through the gaps in his guard. Cut him. Cut him down utterly. Don’t allow him a breath. Crush him. Cut him without mercy to the depths of his spirit."
-Richard Rahl"
— Terry Goodkind (Faith of the Fallen)

"But emotions when based on valued things can be a faithful and consistant sum of truths."
— Terry Goodkind (Confessor)

"I am dead. Only vengeance can restore me! Only victory can return my life to me!"
— Terry Goodkind (Stone of Tears)

"... many people must be ruled to thrive. In their selfishness and greed, they see free people as their oppressors. They wish to have a leader who will cut the taller plants so the sun will reach them. They think no plant should be allowed to grow taller than the shortest, and in that way give light to all. They would rather be provided a guiding light, regardless of the fuel, than light a candle themselves."
— Terry Goodkind (Wizard's First Rule)

""Zedd used to tell me that if the road is easy, you're likely going the wrong way." - Richard"
— Terry Goodkind

"Over the millennia the seed of stories planted in the fertile soil of bits and scraps of facts was watered by wishes and began to take root and grow. Eventually, a bountiful fruit of rumors burst forth, to be spread on the wind of whispers that said we hid a fabled hoard of gold. Nothing could convince the believers that it was not true. The truth does not glitter for these people like gold does."
— Terry Goodkind (Phantom)

"Alone, he must bear the weight of a sin he dare not confess to the one person he loves…and has lost."
— Terry Goodkind (Confessor)