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“The Christians seek to blot out all wisdom save their own; and in that strife they are banishing from this world all forms of mystery save that which will fit into their religious faith.
What just God would create some men wretched, and others happy and prosperous, if one life were all that they could have?” “I do not know,” said the Merlin. “Perhaps they wish men to despair at the harshness of fate, so that they may come on their knees to the Christ who will take them to heaven.
If you seek to avoid your fate or to delay suffering, it only condemns you to suffer it redoubled in another life.
Babes know more than we imagine; they cannot speak their minds, and so we believe they do not think.
Will you walk the road to your destiny, or must the Gods drag you to it unwilling?”
She would not have her daughter brought up to feel shame at her own womanhood.
it seems to me that life is too great a thing to live it only once and then be snuffed out like a lamp when the wind blows.
“Do you think that all our sorcery could bring about anything other than God’s will, my child?”
the Great Creator has better things to do than to be angry with young people,
no one can rule over another’s conscience.
“To know you are ignorant is the beginning of wisdom,”
little girls whose whole duty in life was to spill things, break things, and forget things, the rules of their daily life among them, until they had spilled, broken, and forgotten everything they could, and thus made room in their lives for a little wisdom.
You have that right, now; you have reached a stage where obedience may be tempered with your own judgment.”
“We must serve before we command.
“Beware what you speak,” said the Merlin very softly, “for indeed the words we speak make shadows of what is to come, and by speaking them we bring them to pass, my king.”
a land ruled by priests is a land filled with tyrants on Earth and in Heaven.
“I would rather dwell in a hermitage in the forest than in a house full of chattering ladies! If God is there, it must be hard for him to get a word in edgewise!”
“I imagine, like any henpecked husband, he spends more time in listening to his brides than in speaking to them—
he will try to do good, and like most of your kind, he will do only harm.
I do not give reasons for what I do. I do what I must, no more and no less, and so will you when the day comes.”
All women, indeed, are sisters under the Goddess.
We cannot believe God has made a mistake in giving such a gift to a woman, since God makes no mistakes, so we must accept it wherever it is found.”
By doing right I did wrong;
“Are you like so many men, afraid of a woman’s tears?”
women who never weep frighten me, because I know they are stronger than I,
I fear to die before I have savored my fill of life.”
there are so many things I long for, and whenever I pass one by I regret it so bitterly, and wonder what weakness or folly prevents me from doing what I will . . .”
now in the very midst of her wickedness God had rewarded her when she deserved it least.
“he is lord of all save his womenfolk.
“God is one and there is but one God—all else is but the way the ignorant seek to put Gods into a form they can understand,
Perhaps the truly brave man or woman was the one whose mind made no pictures of what might happen if things went awry.
it was not what went into a man’s mouth that defiled him, but what came out of it,
none can be the master of another’s conscience. Even if you think it wicked and shameful, would you pretend to know what is right for another? Even the wise cannot know everything, and perhaps the Gods have more purposes than we, in our little knowledge, can see.”
we have had all the evil and the guilt, and none of the pleasure which is said to come from sin.
it was good to be cherished and sought after.
when all was said and done, when the lamp was out, one man was not so different from any other, and all of them were ridiculously easy to manage, foolishly dependent on that thing a woman could offer to them.
No house is big enough for the rule of two women.”
the first thing you must learn is when to be silent and ask no questions.”
if there be any Gods at all, of which I am not even certain, I cannot believe they would stoop to meddle in the affairs of men.
her wits are not in the right place.”
Desire must go two ways or it is worthless.
“I loved her too, believe me! But she is dead. She was a great woman, she spent her life for this land—do you think it matters to her where her empty shell shall lie?
God did not reward me for virtue. What makes me think he could punish me?
perhaps there is no God at all, nor any of the Gods people believe in. Perhaps it is all a great lie of the priests, so that they may tell mankind what to do, what not to do, what to believe, give orders even to the King.
Pride, she thought drearily, was a cold bedfellow.
when you have unloosed the winds, then must you abide by their blowing, whatever they may tear down.
Sin is in the wish to do harm.
God—is not a vindictive demon, looking about to punish somebody for some imagined sin.
“Never name that well from which you will not drink!”
“There must be a balance in all things,”
