We can try to act civilized and polite, but at the bottom of it all, the power of any ruler is based on a threat. Fortunately, we don’t have to carry that threat out too often.
Wise are you, indeed,” the fox said, “to know what is not possible before you have made the attempt.
Lammer stared at the chunk of bread in his hands, trembling violently. “I’ll follow you, my lady,” he declared in a quavering voice. “I’ve eaten my shoes and lived on boiled grass and tree roots.” His fists closed about the chunk of bread as if he were afraid someone might take it away from him. “I’ll follow you to the end of the world and back for this.” And he began to eat, tearing at the bread with his teeth.
Bheid and Leitha, but he didn’t say anything.
As long as I know that my motives are good, however, I’m seldom very concerned with the opinions of others.
Everyone’s lonely, dear,” she explained, drawing him close to her. “We touch other people only briefly, then we’re alone again. You’ll get used to it in time.
By ostentation and propinquity to the throne, small men are able to avoid facing their own inadequacy.
Lying is an art. A good lie shouldn’t be embellished so much.
Is it? If somebody forces you to do something and there’s no possible way to avoid it, is it really sin?
As he grew, the other children grew as well – all except poor Doroon, who seemed doomed to be short and skinny all his life. Rundorig.
Kroldor’s men are going to blame him for the way things turned out,’ Hettar observed. ‘I know. But then, that’s one of the hazards of leadership.
If you don’t have calluses on your soul, writing isn’t for you. Take up knitting instead.
But in time the night, as all nights must, came to an end, and the morning dawned clear and bright.
Why not hold an election?’ I asked them. ‘I’ve never had that much faith in elections,’ Ran Horb said dubiously. ‘An election’s nothing more than a popularity contest, and popularity’s hardly a measure of any kind of administrative ability.
It’s all very well to put the government in the hands of the perfect man, but what do you do when the perfect man gets a belly-ache?’ That’s the major argument against any kind of absolutism.
There’s a whole catalogue of nasty little emotions curdling in the human spirit, and anything the least bit out of the ordinary raises the possibility of retribution.
A prudent man doesn’t give either a priest or a woman the opportunity to scold him in public.
Centuries pass when nothing happens, and then in a few short years events of such tremendous importance take place that the world is never the same again.
Don’t explain it to me, please,” Anheg said. “As long as somebody I know and trust understands, that’s all that’s really important.
Any fool can raise an army, but you start running into trouble around suppertime.
What you have to decide is whether you should do something, not whether you can do it.