Inheritance (Inheritance, #4)

by Christopher Paolini

But you did everything you could, and when you could do no more, you made peace with your fate, and you didn’t rail needlessly against it. That is wisdom, not weakness.”

A man’s work, or a woman’s, is whatever needs to be done.

“Stubborn, aren’t you?” “Speak for yourself. You could teach a mule a thing or two.” “Not me. I’m not stubborn.”

“Cover yourself; it is inappropriate for polite society.” Nasuada studied her arms for a moment longer. “No, I don’t think I will.”

If you don’t make a few enemies every now and then, you’re a coward—or worse.

Who is it who decides that one man should live and another should die? My life wasn’t worth any more than his, but he’s the one who’s buried, while I get to enjoy at least a few more hours above the ground. Is it chance, random and cruel, or is there some purpose or pattern to all this, even if it lies beyond our ken?

Anger has its place, but it will not help you here. The way of the warrior is the way of knowing. If that knowledge requires you to use anger, then you use anger, but you cannot wrest forth knowledge by losing your temper. Pain and frustration will be your only reward if you try.

you must strive to be calm, even if a hundred ravening enemies are snapping at your heels. Empty your mind and allow it to become like a tranquil pool that reflects everything around it and yet remains untouched by its surroundings. Understanding will come to you in that emptiness, when you are free of irrational fears about victory and defeat, life and death.

The warrior who can adapt the easiest to the unexpected is the warrior who will live the longest.

Time gushes between our teeth like water, and soon it will all be gone.

“What a strange expression,” said the herbalist. “Who would compare themselves to chopped liver in the first place? If you have to choose an organ, why not pick a gallbladder or a thymus gland instead? Much more interesting than a liver. Or what about chopped t—” She smiled. “Well, I suppose that’s not important.”

She could not imagine going into battle looking anything but her best. Her enemies should not only fear her, but admire her.

It’s impossible to go through life unscathed. Nor should you want to. By the hurts we accumulate, we measure both our follies and our accomplishments.”

Why does everything have to be so hard? he wondered. Because, said Saphira, everyone wants to eat, but no one wants to be eaten.

It was the smallest of freedoms—that of one’s own mind—but she was grateful for it,

Death, he had come to believe, was a corrosive thing, and the more he was around it, the more it gnawed away at who he was.

Many of the men and women within them, he knew, had never traveled more than a few miles from their birthplace and would live their whole lives in a world bound by the limits of their sight. What a blinkered existence, he thought.

Was a broad but shallow education superior to one that was narrow but deep?

You cannot expect wolves to become sheep. No, but neither do the wolves have to be cruel to the sheep.

Death, of course, frightened her, although not so much because she feared the end of her existence as because she feared leaving undone all the things she still hoped to accomplish.

He stood there for a long while, barely thinking, content to observe and exist without making any effort to coax meaning from the world around him.

It is easy to be calm when there is nothing to worry about, Eragon. The true test of your self-control, however, is whether you can remain calm in a trying situation. You cannot allow anger or frustration to cloud your thoughts, not at the moment. Right now, you need your mind to be clear.

Let go of your worries and focus only on the task at hand. The future will be what it will, and fretting about it will only make your fears more likely to come true.

“I am not who I was,” he whispered, gripping the edges of the column, “but I know who I am.”

Unlike gods, we take part in the events of the world. Perhaps the gods choose to act without being seen. Then what good are they?

Change itself is neither good nor bad, but knowledge is always useful.”

He had spent the deepest part of the night meditating—thinking not of what was to come nor of what had been, but only of what was: the touch of the cool air against his skin, the feel of the ground beneath him, the steady flow of his breath, and the slow beat of his heart as it marked off the remaining moments of his life.

“Children, it is said, are a blessing to us all. I do not happen to share that belief. It has been my experience that children are every bit as cruel and vindictive as adults. They only lack the strength to subjugate others to their will.

“I’m not fighting for myself anymore.… It makes a difference.”

“Good company and staying busy are often the best cure for a sickness of the soul.”

“When you teach them—teach them not to fear. Fear is good in small amounts, but when it is a constant, pounding companion, it cuts away at who you are and makes it hard to do what you know is right.”

Leave the dead to the earth. They are not for us.

“Haven’t you had your fill of interesting events?” “Never. They’re the spice of life.”