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The White Luck Warrior (Aspect-Emperor, #2) QUOTES

The White Luck Warrior (Aspect-Emperor, #2) QUOTES

1 " Any fool can see the limits of seeing, but not even the wisest know the limits of knowing. Thus is ignorance rendered invisible, and are all Men made fools. "

― R. Scott Bakker , The White Luck Warrior (Aspect-Emperor, #2)

2 " Zsoronga, Sorweel was beginning to realize, possessed the enviable ability to yoke his conviction to his need — to believe, absolutely, whatever his heart required. For Sorweel, belief and want always seemed like ropes too short to bind together, forcing him to play the knot as a result. "

― R. Scott Bakker , The White Luck Warrior (Aspect-Emperor, #2)

3 " We belittle what we cannot bear. We make figments out of fundamentals, all in the name of preserving our own peculiar fancies. The best way to secure one's own deception is to accuse others of deceit. "

― R. Scott Bakker , The White Luck Warrior (Aspect-Emperor, #2)

4 " It is strange the way trauma deadens curiosity. To suffer cruelty in excess is to be delivered from care. The human heart sets aside its questions when the future is too capricious. This is the irony of tribulation.

To know the world will never be so bad. "

― R. Scott Bakker , The White Luck Warrior (Aspect-Emperor, #2)

5 " The Men of the Ordeal do not march to save the World, Proyas--at least not first and foremost. They march to save their wives and children. Their tribes and their nations. If they learn that the world, their world, slips into ruin behind them, that their wives and daughters may perish for want of their shields, their swords, the Host of Hosts would melt about the edges, then collapse. "

― R. Scott Bakker , The White Luck Warrior (Aspect-Emperor, #2)

6 " Complexity begets ambiguity, which yields in all ways to prejudice and avarice. Complication does not so much defeat Men as arm them with fancy. "

― R. Scott Bakker , The White Luck Warrior (Aspect-Emperor, #2)

7 " You can count the bruises on your heart easily enough, but numbering sins is a far tricker matter. Men are eternally forgetting for their benefit. They leave it to the World to remeber, and to the Outside to call them to harsh accout. One hundred Heavens . . . for one thousand Hells. "

― R. Scott Bakker , The White Luck Warrior (Aspect-Emperor, #2)

8 " Exhaustion has a way of parting the veils between men, not so much because the effort of censoring their words exceeds them, but because weariness is the foe of volatility. Oft times insults that would pierce the wakeful simply thud against the sleepless and fatigued. "

― R. Scott Bakker , The White Luck Warrior (Aspect-Emperor, #2)

9 " We must speak plainly. Only honesty provides truth. Only truth delivers triumph. "

― R. Scott Bakker , The White Luck Warrior (Aspect-Emperor, #2)

10 " Master,” Malowebi once asked, “what is the path to truth?” “Ah, little Malo,” old Zabwiri had replied, “the answer is not so difficult as you think. The trick is to learn how to pick out fools. Look for those who think things simple, who abhor uncertainty, and who are incapable of setting aside their summary judgment. And above all, look for those who believe flattering things. They are the true path to wisdom. For the claims they find the most absurd or offensive will be the ones most worthy of your attention. "

― R. Scott Bakker , The White Luck Warrior (Aspect-Emperor, #2)

11 " You can only believe so many lies before becoming one of them. "

― R. Scott Bakker , The White Luck Warrior (Aspect-Emperor, #2)

12 " Nothing makes fools of people quite like a luxurious life,” Achamian said, shaking his head and nodding. “Ajencis says they confuse decisions made atop pillows for those compelled by stones. When they hear of other people being deceived, they’re certain they would know better. When they hear of other people being oppressed, they’re certain they would do anything but beg and cringe when the club is raised …” “And so they judge,” Mimara said sourly. "

― R. Scott Bakker , The White Luck Warrior (Aspect-Emperor, #2)

13 " Gods are but greater demons," the Cishaurim said, "hungers across the surface of eternity, wanting only to taste the clarity of our souls. Can you not see this? "

― R. Scott Bakker , The White Luck Warrior (Aspect-Emperor, #2)

14 " Truths were carved from the identical wood as were lies—words—and so sank or floated with equal ease. "

― R. Scott Bakker , The White Luck Warrior (Aspect-Emperor, #2)

15 " If you find yourself taken unawares by someone you thought you knew, recall that the character revealed is as much your own as otherwise. "

― R. Scott Bakker , The White Luck Warrior (Aspect-Emperor, #2)

16 " Our words always paint two portraits when we describe our families to others. Outsiders cannot but see the small peeves and follies that wrinkle our relationships with our loved ones. The claims we make in defensive certainty--that we were the one wronged, that we were the one who wanted the best--cannot but fall on skeptical ears since everyone makes the same claimsof virtue and innocence. We are always more than we want to be in the eyes of others simply because we are blind to the bulk of what we are.
. . .
Mimara had wanted him to see her as a victim, as a long-suffering penitent, more captive than daughter, and not as someone embittered and petulant, someone who often held others accountable for her inability to feel safe, to feel anything unpolluted by the perpetual pang of shame . . .
And he loved her the more for it. "

― R. Scott Bakker , The White Luck Warrior (Aspect-Emperor, #2)

17 " If you find yourself taken unawares by someone you thought you knew, recall that the character revealed is as much your own as otherwise. When it comes to Men and their myriad, mercenary natures, revelation always comes in twos. "

― R. Scott Bakker , The White Luck Warrior (Aspect-Emperor, #2)

18 " This one thing every tyrant will tell you: nothing saves more lives than murder. "

― R. Scott Bakker , The White Luck Warrior (Aspect-Emperor, #2)

19 " There was an absurdity to places far, a sense of insignificant people scratching meaningless earth. Let them die, she would sometimes think, whenever she heard tidings of famine in Ainon or plague in Nilnamesh. What are these people to me? These places? A fool … that’s what she had been. "

― R. Scott Bakker , The White Luck Warrior (Aspect-Emperor, #2)

20 " To see what was unseen was to understand that blindness was always a matter of degree. To say that all men were blind in some respect—to the machinations of others, to themselves—was a truism scarcely worth noting. What was astounding was the way this truism perpetually escaped Men, the way they confused seeing mere slivers with seeing everything they needed to see. "

― R. Scott Bakker , The White Luck Warrior (Aspect-Emperor, #2)