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Children of elves, dwarves, halflings, gnomes, half-elves, quarter-elves and toddlers of mysterious provenance neither knew nor recognised racial or social divisions. At least, not yet.
Intolerance and superstition has always been the domain of the more stupid amongst the common folk and, I conjecture, will never be uprooted, for they are as eternal as stupidity itself. There, where mountains tower today, one day there will be seas; there where today seas surge, will one day be deserts. But stupidity will remain stupidity.
“So that you know it. It’s fitting to learn things you don’t know. Anyone who doesn’t know other languages is handicapped.”
A woman accentuates her beauty for her own self-esteem.”
When you know about something it stops being a nightmare. When you know how to fight something, it stops being so threatening.
“I know,” interrupted Geralt. “I lose a great deal of my charm when one gets to know me better.
well known that nothing is such thirsty work as the acquisition of knowledge. Although the chancellor’s orders forbade students and tutors to drink and play before dusk, drinking and playing took place around the clock in Oxenfurt, for it is well known that if there is anything that makes men thirstier than the acquisition of knowledge it is the full or partial prohibition of drinking.
Murder is always murder, regardless of motive or circumstance. Thus those who murder or who prepare to murder are malefactors and criminals, regardless of who they may be: kings, princes, marshals or judges. None who contemplates and commits violence has the right to consider himself better than an ordinary criminal. Because it is in the nature of all violence to lead inevitably to crime.
You have made a mistake. You mistook the stars reflected in the surface of the lake at night for the heavens.
You mistake the stars reflected in the surface of the lake at night for the heavens.”
“Indeed, I don’t. I never will. But I do know what it’s about. Your great causes, your wars, your struggle to save the world … Your end which justifies the means … Prick up your ears, Philippa. Can you hear those voices, that yowling? Those are cats fighting for a great cause. For indivisible mastery over a heap of rubbish. It’s no joking matter—blood is being spilled and clumps of fur are flying. It’s war. But I care incredibly little about either of these wars, the cats’ or yours.”
If the ability to make use of experience and draw conclusions decided, we would have forgotten what war is a long time ago. But those whose goal is war have never been held back, nor will be, by experience or analogy.”
