Demon in White (The Sun Eater, #3)

by Christopher Ruocchio

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.

Such relativistic thinking is always attractive to the young. Despising their parents—and through their parents all authority—they decide there is no authority but themselves, and therefore all knowledge which was and came before them is evil, and they alone wholly good.

I had believed that I alone had the wisdom to set the world to rights, not knowing then that true wisdom lies in knowing that I did not possess that wisdom, and never would.

“Grief is deep water, they say.” He recovered his grip on his cane. “But not all tears are grief.” He drew back, putting some small distance between us. “I sometimes think we do more harm than good, teaching what we teach. Reason. Reason is such a small part of being human. We scholiasts climb our towers, look at the sky, and forget the world. So often we don’t see the truth because we won’t look low enough. Chasing reason, chasing facts … we forget to be human. To be human is the greater thing, dear boy. Now go … before I go with you.”

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