You know, Ham,” Breeze noted. “The only funny thing about your jokes is how often they lack any humor whatsoever.
We create things to watch them grow, Ruin, she said. To take pleasure in seeing that which we love become more than it was before.
Weakness can imitate strength if bound properly, just as cowardice can imitate heroism if given nowhere to flee.
There is no greater indication of youth, perhaps, than the desire for everything to be as it should.
A man’s emotions are what define him, and control is the hallmark of true strength. To lack feeling is to be dead, but to act on every feeling is to be a child.
You can’t be in Bridge Four. We’re bodyguards for your own family. What are you going to do? Guard yourself?
Those who take lightly promises they make to those they love are people who find little lasting satisfaction in life.
The man had come looking for a magical solution to his woes, but he had found an answer much more simple. Pain lost its power when other things became more important. Kahar didn’t need a potion or an Aon to save him – he just needed something to do.
You tried,′ Kelsier replied, his voice loud and firm, carrying across the square. ‘But you can’t kill me, Lord Tyrant. I represent that thing you’ve never been able to kill, no matter how hard you try. I am hope.
Battle was a masculine art. A woman wanting to come to the battlefield was like... well, like a man wanting to read. Unnatural.
I find nothing more frightening than a man trying to do what he has decided is important. Very little in the world has ever gone astray – at least on a grand scale – because a person decided to be frivolous.
A leader did not slump. A leader was in control. Even when he least felt like he controlled anything. Especially then.
Money is behind every war,” Au-nak continued. “Religion is but an excuse. Or perhaps a justification.
He’d drafted a law requiring that all people of less than average intellect be required to commit suicide for the good of the city. It had seemed reasonable.
But he’d found that imaginary things were often the only items of real substance in people’s lives.
I spent years in a graduate literature program learning what makes great writing, and the only conclusion we came to was that the future of graduate literature programs was safe because nobody is ever going to agree on what makes great writing.
Good men will kill as quickly for what they want as evil men- only the things they want are different.
We can be strong in the face of kings and priests, my lady,” Ashe replied, “but to live is to have worries and uncertainties. Keep them inside, and they will destroy you for certain- leaving behind a person so callused that emotion can find no root in his heart.
Leadership is rarely about what we want, son. I think too few among the Alethi elite realize that fact.
Honesty does not make a man less of a tyrant.