Midnight Tides (Malazan Book of the Fallen, #5)

by Steven Erikson

Do not seek to find hope among your leaders. They are the repositories of poison. Their interest in you extends only so far as their ability to control you. From you, they seek duty and obedience, and they will ply you with the language of stirring faith. They seek followers, and woe to those who question, or voice challenge.

Atrocity revisited in the name of justice breeds its own atrocity.