An Echo of Things to Come (The Licanius Trilogy, #2)

by James Islington

“There is only one reason to be passionate about a lack of faith—and that is fear,” said Caeden quietly. “Fear that you are wrong. An innate need for others to share your opinion, so that you can be less afraid.” He shook his head. “I do not feel the need to argue, to cajole, to threaten or accuse. If others wish to believe differently, that is no business of mine. I simply do not think that there are gods.”

“I have seen mankind making up stories to make themselves feel safe at night. Or for power. Or for glory. Or for respect. Or for control. But I have never known a god, Gassandrid. The wise among us understand that they are fantasies. That they do not exist except in our own minds.”

A man who believes is the worst of enemies. A man who believes is more dangerous than anything.

“I’m telling you that you should doubt—as I do my own beliefs. The day on which you decide not to question what you believe, is the day that you start making excuses for why you believe it.”

She was just like the rest of them—willfully ignorant, passionately believing in something because she surrounded herself with people who also passionately believed in the same thing. He knew the type, now—those who found it easier to listen to people who reinforced what they already thought, rather than actually considering the opinions of those who didn’t.

“You know this. The true evil is always in the reason and the excuse, not the act.

The danger of evil, the purpose of evil, is that it causes those who would oppose it to become evil also.” He looked Caeden in the eye. “And that, my friend, is what happened to you.”

They could not pretend to a moral imperative, this time. They were choosing the darker path because they feared the consequences of not. It wasn’t something to feel good about or to be proud of. It simply … was.

“The lesser of two evils, or the greater good. Get a good man to utter either of those phrases, and there is no one more eager to begin perpetrating evil.”