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There are no foolish oaths. All are the mark of men and true spren over beasts and subspren. The mark of intelligence, free will, and choice.
The trick to happiness wasn’t in freezing every momentary pleasure and clinging to each one, but in ensuring one’s life would produce many future moments to anticipate.
“They will try,” Jasnah said, “to define you by something you are not. Don’t let them. I can be a scholar, a woman, a historian, a Radiant. People will still try to classify me by the thing that makes me an outsider. They want, ironically, the thing I don’t do or believe to be the prime marker of my identity. I have always rejected that, and will continue to do so.”
You are a man with complicated beliefs, who does not accept everything you are told. You decide how you are defined. Don’t surrender that to them. They will gleefully take the chance to define you, if you allow it.”
Most cities lived on the very edge of civilization. Everyone talked about towns and villages out in the middle of nowhere as if they were uncivilized, but she’d found people in those places pleasant, even-tempered, and comfortable with their quieter way of life. Not in cities. Cities balanced on the edge of sustainability, always one step from starvation. When you pressed so many people together, their cultures, ideas, and stenches rubbed off on one another. The result wasn’t civilization. It was contained chaos, pressurized, bottled up so it couldn’t escape.
“You are not what I expected, Blackthorn,” Noura said. “And what did you expect?” “An animal,” she said frankly. “A half-man creature of war and blood.” Something about that struck him. An animal … Echoes of memories shuddered inside of him. “I was that man,” Dalinar said. “I’ve merely been blessed with enough good examples to make me aspire to something more.”
Hedonism has never been enjoyment, Shallan, but the opposite. They take the wonderful things of life and indulge until they lose savor. It’s listening to beautiful music, performed so loud as to eliminate all subtlety—taking something beautiful and making it carnal.
You tried to help the people of the market. You mostly failed. This is life. The longer you live, the more you fail. Failure is the mark of a life well lived. In turn, the only way to live without failure is to be of no use to anyone. Trust me, I’ve practiced.”
You can. Find the balance. Accept the pain, but don’t accept that you deserved it.”
“Sometimes, a hypocrite is nothing more than a man who is in the process of changing.”
‘The question,’ she replied, ‘is not whether you will love, hurt, dream, and die. It is what you will love, why you will hurt, when you will dream, and how you will die. This is your choice. You cannot pick the destination, only the path.’
The most important step a man can take. It’s not the first one, is it? It’s the next one. Always the next step, Dalinar.
“I will take responsibility for what I have done,” Dalinar whispered. “If I must fall, I will rise each time a better man.”
