Demon in White (The Sun Eater, #3)

by Christopher Ruocchio

Rome of old was not loved for its greatness, so the poet wrote. Rome was great because men loved her, as I loved my Empire in that moment.

that the privilege of one’s birth is no privilege at all, only another kind of cage.

We lie to ourselves all the time, but there remains a piece of us near our heart that whispers, You don’t believe that.

I had been born in a tank, grown to order by the natalists of the High College to produce a perfect man. They’d made me instead,

His was the fear of the convict before the judge, as all sons are before their fathers, all men before women, all mortals before gods.

Rank only formalizes relationships between people, Alexander. It does not create them. One has rank because one deserves it, and if one does not deserve it, he will lose his rank. Or his life. A man would do well to become worthy of his honors, else he will be deposed as a tyrant.”

We are always blind, though our eyes see clearly. We are always blind to those things we do not know. Best to assume there are knives in the darkness, because there might be anything in the darkness.

But even when the world is at its most violent, Hadrian, focus on the beauty of it. The ugliness of the world will come at you from all sides. There’s no avoiding it.

She wore a gown of simple black, unadorned, as if to protest all that Imperial white. Despite that, she glowed to me more brightly than all the rest.

That is the danger of having principles. In politics, principle is like a sword aimed at the heart. Far better, one might be forgiven for thinking, for a lord to have no principles than to risk that he might fall on that sword. The principled man simply has more to lose.

“I wish things were different.” “Everyone does, in times like these,” I said. “But we do not choose the challenges of the day. Only our answers to them.”

Broken smile returning to my face, I said, “I love you.” “You’re not wrong,” she said, and matched my smile.

Times of strife breed pretenders and false kings,

Men are slower to act from principle than self-interest, and far slower to act on principle than jealousy or revenge.

Pilgrimages should be carried out on foot.

“Courtesy is timeless,”

“We live in other people,” it said. “They keep us human.”

I thought these people were supposed to be scientists! Science means to know, not to close your fucking eyes!

“Oh, if we saved our wisdom until the world was wise, it would not need us.”

The greater part of wisdom is in silence.

So often we don’t see the truth because we won’t look low enough,

More than a hundred years together by then, and it wasn’t enough. I still wanted her. Always her. Only her.

Every place is the center of the universe. Everything matters. Every one of our actions, every decision, every sacrifice. Nothing is without meaning, because nothing is without consequence.

“I am with you to the . . . to the end,” she said. “Finish this.”