Horus Rising Quotes

“I was there, the day that Horus killed the Emperor”
― Dan Abnett, Horus Rising

“I know that words cannot move mountains, but they can move the multitude - we've proven that time and time again. People are more ready to fight and die for a word than for anything else. Words shape thought, stir feeling, and force action. They kill and revive, corrupt and cure.”
― Dan Abnett, Horus Rising

“The difference between gods and daemons largely depends upon where one is standing at the time.”
― Dan Abnett, Horus Rising

“You are walking along the shores of a lake,’ Sindermann said. ‘A boy is drowning. Do you let him drown because he was foolish enough to fall into the water before he had learned to swim? Or do you fish him out, and teach him how to swim?’
Loken shrugged. ‘The latter.’
‘What if he fights you off as you attempt to save him, because he is afraid of you? Because he doesn’t want to learn how to swim?’
‘I save him anyway.”
― Dan Abnett, Horus Rising

“The Emperor, you see, protects... He protects mankind, through the Legions, through the Martial corps, through the war machines of the Mechanicum. He understands the dangers. The inconsistencies. He uses you, and all the instruments like you, to protect us from harm. To protect our physical bodies from murder and damage, to protect our minds from madness, to protect our souls... There are insane dangers in the cosmos, dangers that mankind is fundamentally unable to comprehend, let alone survive. So he protects us. There are truths out there that would drive us mad by one fleeting glimpse of them. So he chooses not to share them with us. That's why he made you... Remember, Garviel. The Emperor is our truth and out light. If we trust in him, he will protect.”
― Dan Abnett, Horus Rising

“Regard the books,' Sinderman said,
'Are there some I should read? Will you prepare a list for me?' (asked Loken)
'Read them all. Read them again. Swallow the learning and ideas of our predecessors whole, for it can only improve you as a man...”
― Dan Abnett, Horus Rising

“Loken took a step forward. ‘Commander,’ he said, ‘I will own up to ignorance and embrace illumination, but I will not be laughed at.”
― Dan Abnett, Horus Rising

“Great actions have shaped our society.’ Sindermann said. The greatest of these, physically, has been the Emperor's formal and complete unification of Terra, the outward sequel to which, this Great Crusade, we are now engaged upon. But the greatest, intellectually, has been our casting off of that heavy mantle called religion. Religion damned our species for thousands of years, from the lowest superstition to the highest conclaves of spiritual faith. It drove us to madness, to war,
to murder, it hung upon us like a disease, like a shackle ball. I'll tell you what religion was... No, you tell me. You, there?'
'Ignorance, sir.’
Thank you, Khanna. Ignorance. Since the earliest times, our species has striven to understand the workings of the cosmos, and where that understanding has failed, or fallen short, we have filled in the gaps, plastered over the discrepancies, with blind faith. Why does the sun go round the sky? I don't know, so I will attribute it to the efforts of a sun god with a golden chariot. Why do people die? I can't say, but I will choose to believe it is the murky business of a reaper who carries souls to some afterworld.”
― Dan Abnett, Horus Rising

“Perhaps we are cursed," Karkasy told the empty fane, "to crave something which does not exist. There are no gods, no spirits, no daemons. So we make them up, to comfort ourselves.”
― Dan Abnett, Horus Rising

“Tull stopped laughing and stared into Loken’s face. His blue eyes were terribly cold and hard. ‘Kaos is the damnation of all mankind, Loken. Kaos will outlive us and dance on our ashes. All we can do, all we can strive for, is to recognise its menace and keep it at bay, for as long as we persist.”
― Dan Abnett, Horus Rising

“Loken tried to imagine the future, but the image would not form. Death would wipe them all from history. Not even the great First Captain Ezekyle Abaddon would survive forever. There would be a time when Abaddon no longer waged bloody war across the territories of humanity.
Loken sighed. That would be a sad day indeed. Men would cry out for Abaddon’s return, but he would never come.
He tried to picture the manner of his own death. Fabled, imaginary combats flashed through his mind. He imagined himself at the Emperor’s side, fighting some great, last stand against an unknown foe. Primarch Horus would be there, of course. He had to be. It wouldn’t be the same without him. Loken would battle, and die, and perhaps even Horus would die, to save the Emperor at the last.
Glory. Glory, like he’d never known. Such an hour would become so ingrained in the minds of men that it would be the cornerstone of all that came after. A great battle, upon which human culture would be based.
Then, briefly, he imagined another death. Alone, far away from his comrades and his Legion, dying from cruel wounds on some nameless rock, his passing as memorable as smoke.
Loken swallowed hard. Either way, his service was to the Emperor, and his service would be true to the end.”
― Dan Abnett, Horus Rising

“Samus. That's the only name you'll hear. Samus. It means the end and the death. Samus. I am Samus. Samus is all around you. Samus is the man beside you. Samus will gnaw on your bones. Look out! Samus is here.”
― Dan Abnett, Horus Rising

“Religion damned our species for thousands of years, from the lowest superstition to the highest conclaves of spiritual faith. It drove us to madness, to war, to murder, it hung upon us like a disease, like a shackle ball. I’ll tell you what religion was… No, you tell me. You, there?’ ‘Ignorance, sir.”
― Dan Abnett, Horus Rising

“Enemy?’ Horus laughed. ‘When did they become the enemy? They are men like us.’ He glared up at the night sky, threw back his head and screamed a curse at the stars. Then his voice fell to a whisper. Loken was close enough to hear his words.
‘Why have you tasked me with this, father? Why have you forsaken me? Why? It is too hard. It is too much. Why did you leave me to do this on my own?”
― Dan Abnett, Horus Rising

“Perhaps we are cursed,’ Karkasy told the empty fane, ‘to crave something which does not exist. There are no gods, no spirits, no daemons. So we make them up, to comfort ourselves.”
― Dan Abnett, Horus Rising

“Warriors always seek the brotherhood of their kind.”
― Dan Abnett, Horus Rising

“The true purpose of mankind is to bear the torch of truth aloft and shine it, even into the darkest places.”
― Dan Abnett, Horus Rising

“We will spend our lives fighting to secure this Imperium, and then I fear we will spend the rest of our days fighting to keep it intact. There is such involving darkness amongst the stars. Even when the Imperium is complete, there will be no peace. We will be obliged to fight on to preserve what we have fought to establish. Peace is a vain wish. Our crusade may one day adopt another name, but it will never truly end. In the far future, there will be only war.”
― Dan Abnett, Horus Rising

“Regard the books,’ Sindermann said. ‘Are there some I should read? Will you prepare a list for me?’ ‘Read them all. Read them again. Swallow the learning and ideas of our predecessors whole, for it can only improve you as a man, but if you do, you’ll find that none of them holds an answer to still your doubts.”
― Dan Abnett, Horus Rising

“The true purpose of mankind is to bear the torch of truth aloft and shine it, even into the darkest places. To share our forensic, unforgiving, liberating understanding with the dimmest reaches of the cosmos. To emancipate those shackled in ignorance. To free ourselves and others from false gods, and take our place at the apex of sentient life. That… that is what we may pour faith into. That is what we can harness our boundless faith to.”
― Dan Abnett, Horus Rising

“There will always be another goal, another prospect.”
― Dan Abnett, Horus Rising

“Kill for the living, brother,’ he said, ‘and kill for the dead.”
― Dan Abnett, Horus Rising

“To sum up, for I've been speaking far too long," Sindermann was saying, "this recent episode allows us to observe genuine blood and sinew beneath the wordy skin of our philosophy. The truth we convey is the truth, because we say it is the truth. Is that enough?"

He shrugged.

"I don't believe so. ‘My truth is better than your truth’ is a school-yard squabble, not the basis of a culture. ‘I'm right, so you are wrong’ is a syllogism that collapses as soon as one applies any a number of fundamental ethical tools. I am right, ergo, you are wrong. We can't construct a constitution on that, and we cannot, should not, will not be persuaded to iterate on its basis. It would make us what?"

He looked out across his audience. A number of hands were raised.

"There?"

"Liars."

Sindermann smiled. His words were being amplified by the array of vox mics set around his podium, and his face magnified by picter onto the hololithic wall behind him. On the wall, his smile was three meters wide.

"I was thinking bullies, or demagogues, Memed, but ‘liars’ is apt. In fact, it cuts deeper than my suggestions. Well done. Liars. That is the one thing we iterators can never allow ourselves to become.”
― Dan Abnett, Horus Rising

“Tell a conquered man he has a new master, and he’ll shrug. Tell him his new master wants a fifth of his annual income, and he’ll go and find his pitchfork.”
― Dan Abnett, Horus Rising

“The new light of science shines more brightly than the old light of sorcery. Why, then, do we not seem to see as far?”
― Dan Abnett, Horus Rising

“La diferencia entre dioses y demonios depende en gran medida de la posición en la que se encuentre uno en ese momento
- Primarca Lorgar”
― Dan Abnett, Horus Rising

“The Emperor, praise be his name, is not with us,’ Ekaddon replied. ‘If he’s not with us in spirit, captain,’ Loken replied, ‘then I pity the future of this crusade.”
― Dan Abnett, Horus Rising

“Of all the battles Loken had fought at his commander's side, that was the fiercest, the saddest, the most vicious. Teeth barred in firelight, swinging his blade at the foe on all sides, Horus seemed more noble than Loken had ever known. He would remember that moment, years later, when fate had played its cruel trick and sense had turned upside down. He would remember Horus, Warmaster, in that narrow firelit street, defining the honour and unyielding courage of the Imperium of Man.

There should have been frescoes painted, poems written, symphonies composed, all to celebrate that instant when Horus made his most absolute statement of devotion to the Throne. And to his father.

There would be none.

The hateful future swallowed up such possibilities, swallowed the memories too, until the very fact of that nobility became impossible to believe.”
― Dan Abnett, Horus Rising

“The only thing that can beat an Astartes is another Astartes’, and they had all laughed at that.”
― Dan Abnett, Horus Rising

“Karkasy was a tall man, generously upholstered in flesh.”
― Dan Abnett, Horus Rising