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

by James Islington

“The lesser of two evils, and the greater good. The most dangerous phrases in the world.”

“Refusing to believe evidence is not the same thing as lacking it.”

“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.”

“You are right to doubt, of course,” he said quietly. “But I was not talking of religions—things created by men in order to control other men. I was talking of gods.” He stretched. “You have heard of El, then?”

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.”

“We can’t start mistaking what we can do for what we have the right to do.”

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.

“Nobody and nothing made you do what you did, Tal. Inevitable or not, you chose to believe. You chose to follow. You chose to act.”

The true evil is always in the reason and the excuse, not the act.

evil only wins when it spreads. It can cause destruction, it can cause death—but those are consequences of its nature, not its victory. Not its goal. The danger of evil, the purpose of evil, is that it causes those who would oppose it to become evil also.”

‘The people with whom we are friends should never affect our morality; rather, our morality should affect with whom we are friends.’”

“Certainty is hubris, Tal. It is arrogance and bluster and those who claim it deserve nothing but to be mocked.”

“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.”