Before They Are Hanged (The First Law, #2)

by Joe Abercrombie

“We should forgive our enemies, but not before they are hanged.” —Heinrich Heine

“The Great Leveller,” Dogman whispered to himself, since he was in a thoughtful frame of mind. That’s what the hillmen call him. Death, that is. He levels all differences. Named Men and nobodies, south or north. He catches everyone in the end, and he treats each man the same.

“Seeing this, one could almost believe in God.” If one didn’t know better.

“Don’t try to be clever with me, Captain Luthar, you have not the equipment.

Men who might never have left their homes in all their lives, forced to cross the sea to a land they knew nothing of, to fight an enemy they had no quarrel with, for reasons they did not understand.

A lot of wasted time, to the Dogman’s mind, but once you’ve been fool enough to ask for a task, you better do the one you’re given.

We are left only with the ruins, and the tombs, and the myths. Little men, kneeling in the long shadows of the past.”

Respect costs you nothing, and nothing gets a man killed quicker than confidence.”

Logen clapped him on the arm. “But you didn’t get killed! Cheer up, boy, you’re lucky! You’re still alive, aren’t you?” He gave a miserable nod. Logen slid his arm round his shoulder and guided him back towards the horses. “Then you’ve got the chance to do better next time.” “Next time?” “’Course. Doing better next time. That’s what life is.”

Those with the least always lose the most in war.

“Anyone can face ease and success with confidence. It is the way we face trouble and misfortune that defines us. Self-pity goes with selfishness, and there is nothing more to be deplored in a leader than that. Selfishness belongs to children, and to half-wits. A great leader puts others before himself. You would be surprised how acting so makes it easier to bear one’s own troubles. In order to act like a King, one need only treat everyone else like one.”

First you suffer it yourself, then you inflict it on others, then you order it done. Such is the pattern of life.

Crowds rarely cheer too loudly for the defeated, no matter how hard they fought, how great their sacrifices, how long the odds. Maidens might wet themselves over cheap and worthless victories, but they don’t so much as blush for “I did my best.”

Strange how, as long as the hardship lasts, we can stand it. As soon as the crisis is over, the strength all leeches away in an instant.