The Judging Eye Quotes

“I rememeber asking a wise man, once . . . 'Why do Men fear the dark?' . . . 'Because darkness' he told me, 'is ignorance made visible.' 'And do Men despise ignorance?' I asked. 'No,' he said, 'they prize it above all things--all things!--but only so long as it remains invisible.”
― R. Scott Bakker, The Judging Eye

“A beggar's mistake harms no one but the beggar. A king's mistake, however, harms everyone but the king. Too often, the measure of power lies not in the number who obey your will, but in the number who suffer your stupidity.”
― R. Scott Bakker, The Judging Eye

“Darkness shields as much as it threatens.”
― R. Scott Bakker, The Judging Eye

“To be a student required a peculiar kind of capitulation, a willingness not simply to do as one is told, but to surrendor the movements of one's soul to the unknown complexities of another's. A willingness, not simply to be moved, but to be remade.”
― R. Scott Bakker, The Judging Eye

“So he came to realize that learning a language was perhaps the most profound thing a man could do. Not only did it require wrapping different sounds around the very movement of your soul, it involved learning things somehow already known, as though much of what he was somehow existed apart from him. A kind of enlightenment accompanied these first lessons, a deeper understanding of self.”
― R. Scott Bakker, The Judging Eye

“When a man possesses the innocence of a child, we call him a fool.
When a child possesses the cunning of a man, we call him an abomination. As with love, knowledge has its seasons.”
― R. Scott Bakker, The Judging Eye

“They so wanted it to be simple, believers. "It is what is!" they cried, sneering at the possibility of other eyes, other truths, overlooking their own outrageous presumption. "It says what it says," spoken with a conviction that was itself insincerity. They ridiculed questions, for fear it would make their ignorance plain. Then they dared call themselves "open.”
― R. Scott Bakker, The Judging Eye

“Convince a man to take a single step—after all, what earthly difference could one step make?—and he would walk the next mile to prove himself right.”
― R. Scott Bakker, The Judging Eye

“Despite all the pain, all the wrenching loss, there is no greater glory than a complicated life.”
― R. Scott Bakker, The Judging Eye

“Sorweel: „Then how can we hope to resist him?“
Harweel: „With our swords and our shields. And when those fail us, with spit and curses.“
But the spit and the curses, Sorweel would learn, always came first, accompanied by bold gestures and grand demonstrations. War was an extension of argument, and swords were simply words honed to a blood-letting edge. Only the Sranc began with blood. For Men, it was always the conclusion.”
― R. Scott Bakker, The Judging Eye

“To resent is to brood in inaction, to pass through life acting in a manner indistinguishable from those who bear no grudges. But hatred hails from a wilder, far more violent tribe. Even when you cannot strike out, you strike nonetheless. Inward, if not outward, as if such things have direction. To hate, especially without recourse to vengeance, is to besiege yourself, to starve yourself to the point of eating your own, then to lay wreaths of blame at the feet of the accused.”
― R. Scott Bakker, The Judging Eye

“he knew that one never stood still, even while waiting. That sometimes the sheathed knife could cut the most throats of all.”
― R. Scott Bakker, The Judging Eye

“I remember … I remember asking a wise man, once … though whether it was last year or a thousand years ago I cannot tell. I asked him, ‘Why do Men fear the dark?’ I could tell he thought the question wise, though I felt no wisdom in asking it. ‘Because darkness,’ he told me, ‘is ignorance made visible.’ ‘And do Men despise ignorance?’ I asked. ‘No,’ he said, ‘they prize it above all things—all things!—but only so long as it remains invisible.”
― R. Scott Bakker, The Judging Eye

“Power, she had come to realize, had the insidious habit of inserting others between you and your tasks, rendering your limbs little more than decorative mementoes of a more human past.”
― R. Scott Bakker, The Judging Eye

“Look unto others and ponder the sin and folly you find
there. For their sin is your sin, and their folly is your folly.
Seek ye the true reflecting pool? Look to the stranger you
despise, not the friend you love.”
― R. Scott Bakker, The Judging Eye

“The air became dry and still, like the gap in a dead man’s mouth.”
― R. Scott Bakker, The Judging Eye

“Achamian had almost forgotten what it was like, watching men about their fires. The arms folded against the chill. The mouths smiling, laughing, tongue and teeth peeking in and out of firelight. The gazes hopping from face to face within the cage of camaraderie, only to return to the furnace coals during the inevitable lulls. At first it struck him as something fearful, an exposing of what humans do when they turn their backs to the world, their interiority laid bare to the vaults of dark infinity, cracked open like oysters, with no walls save a warlike nature. But as the moments passed, he found the sight more and more affecting, to the point of feeling old and maudlin. That in a place so vast and so dark creatures this frail would dare gather about sparks called light. They seemed at once precious and imperiled, like jewels mislaid across open ground, something sure to be scooped up by jealous enormities.”
― R. Scott Bakker, The Judging Eye

“A pesar de todo el dolor, toda la pérdida desgarradora, no hay mayor gloria que una vida complicada”
― R. Scott Bakker, The Judging Eye

“questions always came too late. Events had to be pushed passed the point of denial; only then could the pain of asking begin.”
― R. Scott Bakker, The Judging Eye

“The world is only as deep as we can see. This is why fools think themselves profound. This is why terror is the passion of revelation.”
― R. Scott Bakker, The Judging Eye

“Where two reasons may deliver truth, a thousand lead to certain delusion. The more steps you take, the more likely you will wander astray.”
― R. Scott Bakker, The Judging Eye

“Cursed be he who misleads the blind man on the road!”
― R. Scott Bakker, The Judging Eye

“Our souls rise from darkness,
at once near and far.
Our souls fall into darkness,
through gates left ajar. He comes before,
A candle carried into forever after.
He comes before …”
― R. Scott Bakker, The Judging Eye

“His Dreams and his Hatred. Contained too long in too little space, how could they not become entangled in a single turbulent stream? To resent is to brood in inaction, to pass through life acting in a manner indistinguishable from those who bear no grudges. But hatred hails from a wilder, far more violent tribe. Even when you cannot strike out, you strike nonetheless. Inward, if not outward, as if such things have direction. To hate, especially without recourse to vengeance, is to besiege yourself, to starve yourself to the point of eating your own, then to lay wreaths of blame at the feet of the accused.”
― R. Scott Bakker, The Judging Eye

“A beggar’s mistake harms no one but the beggar. A king’s mistake, however, harms everyone but the king. Too often, the measure of power lies not in the number who obey your will, but in the number who suffer your stupidity.”
― R. Scott Bakker, The Judging Eye

“You know the rule of the slog, boys. The knee that buckles pulls ten men down.”
― R. Scott Bakker, The Judging Eye

“At this moment nothing seems so difficult as squeezing pity into the semblance of avid interest.”
― R. Scott Bakker, The Judging Eye

“To resent is to brood in inaction, to pass through life acting in a manner indistinguishable from those who bear no grudges. But hatred hails from a wilder, far more violent tribe. Even when you cannot strike out, you strike nonetheless. Inward, if not outward, as if such things have direction. To hate, especially without recourse to vengeance, is to besiege yourself, to starve yourself to the point of eating your own,”
― R. Scott Bakker, The Judging Eye

“They so wanted it to be simple, believers. “It is what is!” they cried, sneering at the possibility of other eyes, other truths, overlooking their own outrageous presumption. “It says what it says,” spoken with a conviction that was itself insincerity. They ridiculed questions, for fear it would make their ignorance plain. Then they dared call themselves “open.” This was the iron habit of Men.”
― R. Scott Bakker, The Judging Eye

“War was an extension of argument, and swords were simply words honed to a bloodletting edge.”
― R. Scott Bakker, The Judging Eye