Mistborn: The Final Empire (Mistborn, #1)

by Brandon Sanderson

“the entire point of life is to find ways to get others to do your work for you. Don’t you know anything about basic economics?”

“The best liars are those who tell the truth most of the time.”

A smart man hits his hardest at the end of a battle, when his opponent is weakest.

He fought against a thousand years of conditioning, a thousand years of life in a society that would label the deaths of five thousand men as a “great victory.” Life was so hopeless for the skaa that they’d been reduced to finding comfort in expected defeats.

He forced himself to smile—not out of pleasure, and not out of satisfaction. He smiled despite the grief he felt at the deaths of his men; he smiled because that was what he did. That was how he proved to the Lord Ruler—and to himself—that he wasn’t beaten.

Our belief is often strongest when it should be weakest. That is the nature of hope.”