Home > Work > The Emperor's Blades (Chronicle of the Unhewn Throne, #1)
1 " Leadership isn't just about giving orders. A fool can give orders. A leader listens. He changes his mind. He acknowledges mistakes. "
― Brian Staveley , The Emperor's Blades (Chronicle of the Unhewn Throne, #1)
2 " Believe what you see with your eyes, trust what you hear with your ears; know what you feel with your flesh. The rest is dream and delusion. "
3 " Is that so bad? Might make whoever's trying to kill you think twice." "I don't wan't them to think twice," Valyn said, rolling his eyes. "I want them to think once and, if at all possible, drunkenly. "
4 " Any fool can see what's there. You need to see what is not there. "
5 " Easier to recall a loosed falcon than a spoken word. "
6 " Resist faith. Resist trust. Believe only in what you touch with your hands. The rest is error and air. "
7 " Assume nothing,’” he said. The first chapter of the Tactics. “If we figure everyone might be a murderer, we’re less likely to be disappointed. "
8 " You squint hard enough, and everything starts to look suspicious. "
9 " Men tend to die when you slide steel beneath their skin and wiggle it around. Even priests. "
10 " There’s no blade as keen as surprise. "
11 " The man still fighting last week’s battle will always lose to the man already fighting tomorrow’s, "
12 " we use the time we have. There is no other. "
13 " I’m doubly sorry for your loss,” the old monk began after a time. “First, because every son should have a chance to know his father, not as a child knows his protector, but as a man knows another man. "
14 " Believe what you see with your eyes; trust what you hear with your ears; know what you feel with your flesh. The rest is dream and delusion. "
15 " When you know nothing about a creature," the monk ground out, his voice as hard as a rock slide, "expect it has come to kill you. "
16 " The fighters who frighten you are not the fighters to fear. The man you barely notice will be the one to bury a blade in your back. "
17 " Henderson Jakes, the founder of the Eyrie, had envisioned a cadre of elite soldiers dedicated to celibacy, the empire, and the art of war. He had to settle for two out of three. Young men and women willing to leap off massive birds into burning buildings at a mere nod from a commanding officer grew violently rebellious when required to abstain from sex. "
18 " The mind was a clay pot set out in the rain. A monk could empty it daily and still the old hopes and worries, the body’s meager strengths and perennial pains pattered against the bottom, trickled down the sides, filling it once more. "
19 " If you hope to play a part in this empire, Sanlitun had told her time and time again, you must learn to divorce your feelings from your face. The world sees what you allow it to see, judges you according to what you reveal. "
20 " The present is the present. Tomorrow will still be ‘now. "
