Toll the Hounds (Malazan Book of the Fallen, #8)

by Steven Erikson

History meant nothing, because the only continuity was human stupidity.

Just how many rules of civil behaviour were designed to perpetuate such egregious schemes of power and control of the few over the many?

Creation demands destruction. Survival demands that something else fails to survive. No existence was truly benign.

Can you live without answers? All of you, ask that of yourself. Can you live without answers? Because if you cannot, then most assuredly you will invent your own answers and they will comfort you. And all those who do not share your view will by their very existence strike fear and hatred into your heart. What god blesses this?

When undeniable crimes had been committed, justification was the act of a coward. And it was our cowardice that permitted such crimes in the first place. No tyrant could thrive where every subject said no. The tyrant thrives when the first fucking fool salutes. He well understood

‘Those who hate need little cause,

People don’t change to suit their god; they change their god to suit them.

Servants bowed, and that they needed to do so was proof of just how flimsy the delusion of superiority was.