It is ever the narcotic of the learned to seek intent behind the question of why they are not more.
- Ajad, Chronicle of Toil
The scholar drowns in depth as the world drowns in ignorance.
- Ajad, Chronicle of Toil
The Mandate say I cannot know the burden of their hearts. But the Mandate are not me. How, then, can they claim with certainty what in my heart I do and do not know?
- Altheus, Aniconian Interrogations
When sorcery moves the world, are we deceived in word or deed?
- Altheus, Aniconian Interrogations
Is blasphemy still blasphemous if condoned by the God? Is piety still pious if condemned by the God? All acts can be pious, all acts profane. To believe otherwise is to deny the God as infinite.
- Altheus, Aniconian Interrogations
Why does the Tusk need reside within the sheltered halls of the Junriüma? How can the Gods be so uncaring for that which is most holy?
- Altheus, Book of Standards
What heavenly design moves the hearts of men, that so many are put to such rude propose?
- Altheus, Book of Standards
The sinner and the pious, who has greater need of the God’s blessings?
The blessed and the untouched, who is more cherished in the eyes of the God?
- Altheus, Book of Standards
What is analogy, if not falsehoods that seduce through their resemblance to truth?
- Altheus, Book of Standards
Doubt begets philosophers, and philosophy begets fools. Verily, Parcis detests my company.
- Nomedius, Refutations
When fools hold power over you, acquire the means to overpower them. To suffer their foolishness is to prove yourself their lesser.
- Nomedius, Refutations
There is a difference between the admission ‘I am wrong’ and ‘I do not know.’ But to utter either without forethought can bring equally swift disaster. Learn to extricate yourself from your own mistakes with your mask of certainty intact. Only then shall you rule the thoughts of lesser men.
- Nomedius, Refutations
Sincerity is the truest form of flattery. That is to say, not very true at all.
- Nomedius, Three Seasons at the Courts of Shigek
No medicine is as sweet as sympathy, but poisons often delight the senses.
- Nomedius, Three Seasons at the Courts of Shigek
Watching the suturers and apothecaries ply their trade, I am moved to believe that we were made for suffering.
- Kuchaga, The Scourge in Repose
For six years my father knew only triumph. Near and far, heathen princes cowered before his unstoppable might. “All doubt is vanquished before the victor’s blade,” he was fond of saying. It is as good an epitaph as any.
- Kuchaga, Records of the White Jihad
I reach out and cup the water with my hand
I reach out and cup memory with my thought
The two gifts that I hold both promise me life
Yet one shall run dry while the other shall not
I mourn for my kin who have come from afar
As they drink onto death this stream without end
- Anonymous, Lamentations at Dusk
Tremble as you kneel before the God. Thought He cherishes some and torments others, the God owes each of us nothing. We are to Him as beasts are to men.
- Chants 1:6, Lesser Apocrypha
Train your sentries to guard against each other.
- Ainoni proverb
The soundness of sleep is purchased by the blood of righteous.
- Kianene proverb
The great and lesser Schools would laugh at the Mysunsai for calling ourselves ‘mercenaries’. Wear the title with pride, brothers, for what is wealth but power in the hands of guileful men? The Schools cannot help but demean us for laying bare their own most cherished pretensions.
- Cartanian, Dictat Trichroma
To take up the sword is to be humbled. Every thrust and parry is a constant reminder to the limits of one’s reach. Beware, your eminence, he who would wield his Cants as steel.
- Cartanian, Reply to the Principle of the Oaranat
The master said, we are many,
The many answered, we are one.
Crimson toil for crimson levies,
The dead speak not once deeds are done.
- Anonymous, The Burning of Kiz
The subtleties of benjuka are inestimable, but men begin at the plate with the same goal at heart.
- Sutai, On the Paradox of Stratagems
When men war over pride, the spoils are always a pittance.
- Sutai, On the Paradox of Stratagems
