Jonathan

“Every generation loses the Messiah it has failed to deserve.”
― Michael Chabon, The Yiddish Policemen's Union

“This is stupid."

"Look. You think how stupid people are most of the time. Old men drink. Women at a village fair. Boys throwing stones at birds. Life. The foolishness and the vanity, the selfishness and the waste. The pettiness, the silliness. You think in war it must be different. Must be better. With death around the corner, men united against hardship, the cunning of the enemy, people must think harder, faster, be...better. Be heroic.

Only it's just the same. In fact do you know, because of all that pressure, and worry, and fear, it's worse. There aren't many men who think clearest when the stakes are highest. So people are even stupider in war than the rest of the time. Thinking about how they'll dodge the blame, or grab the glory, or save their skins, rather than about what will actually work. There's no job that forgives stupidity more than soldiering. No job that encourages it more.”
― Joe Abercrombie, The Heroes

“All right, shadow-priest, you've been spying — on what? What state secrets have you learned watching me groom these horses?'

'Only that they hate you, Daru. Every time your back was turned, they got ready to nip you — only you always seemed to step away at precisely the right moment-'

'Yes, I did, since I knew what they were intending. Each time.'

'Is this pride I hear? That you outwitted two horses?”
― Steven Erikson, Memories of Ice

“The life of every individual, viewed as a whole and in general, and when only its most significant features are emphasized, is really a tragedy; but gone through in detail it has the character of a comedy.”
― Arthur Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Representation, Volume I