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But Teia had a superpower that no one had counted on: she was completely paranoid.
Time is the only prison from which prison frees us.
“Look at your mistakes long enough to learn from them, then put them behind you.”
Those who pray will pray, and those who fight will fight, but those who lead will do both.
Cruxer liked to let people figure things out for themselves, intervening only if there was a problem he could fix that they couldn’t fix on their own. It was one of many traits that made him a good man to follow.
The element of surprise is no advantage if you’re surprised, too.
“The seeds of love may sprout where they will, but we choose whether to water them and give them light or to pluck them like weeds from the soil. We always have a choice.”
Amazzal was not a bad man, nor a bad luxiat. But he was a bad leader, and that made him a bad High Luxiat.
Fealty to One? More like Fealty to None. There is only one to whom I will have fealty: myself.
A man who can’t swim shouldn’t attempt to save the drowning.
‘When the king sends a ship of grain to his ally, he worries not about the comfort of the rats in the hold.’
Guilt is a poor counselor. Guilt oft conspires to make two victims where there was only one.
Funny how war makes villains of heroes and slaves of the free.
They were mirrors to each other: outsiders, logical women, cool and rational, both captured, both entwined, but Liv young and Samila older, Liv unproven and Samila renowned, Liv with all her tales before her, Samila with her legends behind, and, most importantly, Liv free while Samila wore the Color Prince’s black jewel at her throat.
The art isn’t knowing what to do, it’s knowing exactly what your people can do, and getting them to do it at the right time.
When a man sees perversity everywhere, one must question who’s the pervert.
‘Don’t decide to change. The world is full of people who have decided to change but haven’t. Don’t decide to change—change. If you want to be different, act different.’
“Evil is what we call what we don’t understand.”
“Those who use a shield only to block are ignoring a weapon in their hands.”
“There is no cheating in life, only success and a thousand flavors of failure.”
But as with so many things in life, there’s a difference between knowing and knowing.
Once a man is convinced to believe the impossible, it’s impossible to make him disbelieve it.
That is the problem of peacetime militaries: most of them train for peace, and they produce officers good at peacetime activities.
But love doesn’t demand perfection, only focus and time and effort.
