Arcosian Wisdom Quotes

"In the words of Lorn au Arcos, if you must only wound the man, you better kill his pride."

"A fool pulls the leaves. A brute chops the trunk. A sage digs the roots."

"A man is never too young to kill, never too wise, never too strong, but he can damn well be too rich."

"Wise men read books about history, Pliny. Strong men write them."

"He is as he always told me to be—a stone amid the waves; wet, yet unimpressed by all that swirls about him."

"When you are in the salt, you feel like every gale is the world ender. Every wave the greatest that has been. These boys ride the gales in rapture at their own glory. But every now and then, a true storm rises. It shatters their masts and rips the hair from their heads. They do not last long till the sea swallows them whole. But their mothers have wept their deaths long before, as I wept for yours the first day we met."

"You meet a man, you know him. You meet a woman, she knows you."

"I would not have raised you to be a great man. There is no peace for great men. I would have had you be a decent one. I would have given you the quiet strength to grow old with the woman you love."

"Love and war. Same coin. Different sides."

"Achilles let his pride and rage consume him, and in the end, an arrow shot by a Pixie took him in the foot. There’s much to live for besides this. Hopefully you’ll grow old enough to realize that Achilles was a gorydamn fool. And we’re fools all the more for not realizing he wasn’t Homer’s hero. He was warning. I feel like men once knew that."

"Each time I returned to my wife, I told her that her boys died well.” He fidgets with his ring. “There’s no such thing."

"The Sons of Ares are guerilla fighters. Saboteurs. Spies. But in this war, Lorn’s words haunt me. “How do sheep kill a lion? By drowning him in blood."

"The man with voice and violence controls the world"

"A man thinks he can fly, but he is afraid to jump. A poor friend pushes him from behind.” He looks up at me. “A good friend jumps with."

"Never fight a river, and never fight Aja."

"Lorn once told me if he had been my father he would have raised me to be a good man. ‘There’s no peace for great men,’ he said.” I smile at the memory. “I should have asked him who he thinks makes the peace for all those good men."

"For those who dine with war and empire, the bill always comes at the end."

"In words of Old Stoneside, ‘Mercy emboldens evil men.’ You and I have the misfortune of floating amongst a sea of evil men. A debt is owed. A debt must be paid."

"Mercy emboldens evil men."

"Lorn au Arcos once said it is the duty of every man to listen to his enemies. When you spoke I listened. Your war is just. Cassius did not believe that, but he is gone. And to honor the dead at the cost of the living is a vanity none of us can afford."

"The old rage in colder ways, for they alone decide how to spend the young."