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548885c
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We belittle what we cannot bear. We make figments out of fundamentals, all in the name of preserving our own peculiar fancies. The best way to secure one's own deception is to accuse others of deceit.
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R. Scott Bakker |
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a9afa0f
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Set aside your conviction," Moenghus said, "for the feeling of certainty is no more a marker of truth than the feeling of will is a marker of freedom. Deceived men always think themselves certain, just as they always think themselves free. This is simply what it means to be deceived."
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R. Scott Bakker |
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cb2037a
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And he now knew with certainty that the world was hollowed of its wonder by knowledge and travel, that when one stripped away the mysteries, its dimensions collapsed rather than bloomed. Of course, the world was a much more sophisticated place to him now than it had been when he was a child, but it was also far simpler. Everywhere men grasped and grasped, as though the titles "king," "shriah," and "grandmaster" were simply masks worn by th..
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R. Scott Bakker |
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ada57fc
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The Men of the Ordeal do not march to save the World, Proyas--at least not first and foremost. They march to save their wives and children. Their tribes and their nations. If they learn that the world, their world, slips into ruin behind them, that their wives and daughters may perish for want of their shields, their swords, the Host of Hosts would melt about the edges, then collapse.
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war
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R. Scott Bakker |
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075352f
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Any fool can see the limits of seeing, but not even the wisest know the limits of knowing. Thus is ignorance rendered invisible, and are all Men made fools.
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R. Scott Bakker |
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8db408a
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Better blind in Hell than speechless in Heaven. --
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R. Scott Bakker |
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35ee2b1
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Sit with a merchant or sit with a beggar, and it'll always be the beggar who buys your first drink.
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R. Scott Bakker |
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065ee26
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Of course he could see only blackness, such was the treachery of fire, which iluminated small circles by darkening the entire world.
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R. Scott Bakker |
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d2f0a8d
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It is strange the way trauma deadens curiosity. To suffer cruelty in excess is to be delivered from care. The human heart sets aside its questions when the future is too capricious. This is the irony of tribulation. To know the world will never be so bad.
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R. Scott Bakker |
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b3b520d
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Screens of tumbling water, breaking the world beyond them into glittering lines and smeared shadows. Kellhus had ceased trying to penetrate them. "Power," Anasurimbor Moenghus said, "is always power over. When an infant may be either, what is the difference between a Fanim and an Inrithi? Or between a Nansur and a Scylvendi? What could be so malleable in Men that anyone, split between circumstances, could be his own murderer? "You learned t..
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R. Scott Bakker |
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e000f4f
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To be ignorant and to be deceived are two different things. To be ignorant is to be a slave of the world. To be deceived is to be the slave of another man. The question will always be: Why, when all men are ignorant, and therefore already slaves, does this latter slavery sting us so? --AJENCIS, THE EPISTEMOLOGIES But
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R. Scott Bakker |
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1e7231c
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One cannot raise walls against what has been forgotten.
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R. Scott Bakker |
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93784f5
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They so wanted it to be simple, believers. "It is what is!" they cried, sneering at the possibility of other eyes, other truths, overlooking their own outrageous presumption. "It says what it says," spoken with a conviction that was itself insincerity. They ridiculed questions, for fear it would make their ignorance plain. Then they dared call themselves "open."
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R. Scott Bakker |
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86f935c
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Love is like sleep. One can never seize, never force love.
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R. Scott Bakker |
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4967494
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Exhaustion has a way of parting the veils between men, not so much because the effort of censoring their words exceeds them, but because weariness is the foe of volatility. Oft times insults that would pierce the wakeful simply thud against the sleepless and fatigued.
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R. Scott Bakker |
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7f58116
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I am Cnaiur urs Skiotha, breaker-of-horses-and-men!",
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R. Scott Bakker |
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d7d84b6
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Sorweel: ,,Then how can we hope to resist him?" Harweel: ,,With our swords and our shields. And when those fail us, with spit and curses." But the spit and the curses, Sorweel would learn, always came first, accompanied by bold gestures and grand demonstrations. War was an extension of argument, and swords were simply words honed to a blood-letting edge. Only the Sranc began with blood. For Men, it was always the conclusion."
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R. Scott Bakker |
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a9d421f
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Like a stern father, war shames men into hating their childhood games.
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R. Scott Bakker |
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1e55327
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And 'barbarity,' I fear, is simply a word for unfamiliarity that threatens.
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R. Scott Bakker |
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d3cbd37
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Interruption is weakness, young Kellhus. It arises from the passions and not from the intellect. From the darkness that comes before." "I understand, Pragma." The cold eyes peered through him and saw this was true. "When the Dunyain first found Ishual in these mountains, they knew only one principle of the Logos. What was that principle, young Kellhus?" "That which comes before determines that which comes after." The Pragma nodded. "Two tho..
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R. Scott Bakker |
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6dd784a
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Masses of warring men animated the horizon, crashing into stubborn ranks, churning in melee. The air didn't so much thunder as hiss with the sound of distant battle, like a sea heard through a conch shell, Martemus thought--an angry sea. Winded, he watched the first of Conphas's assassins stride up behind Prince Kellhus, raise his short-sword ... There was an impossible moment--a sharp intake of breath. The Prophet simply turned and caught ..
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R. Scott Bakker |
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c34fe58
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Something ... made him feel small, not in the way of orphans or beggars or children, but in a good way. In the way of souls.
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insight
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R. Scott Bakker |
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5340ab7
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All Kellhus could see of his father were two fingers and a thumb lying slack upon a bare thigh. The thumbnail gleamed. "As Dunyain," the disembodied voice continued, "you had no choice. To command yourself, you had to master circumstance. And to master circumstance, you had to bind the actions of the worldborn to your will. You had to make limbs of nations. So you made their beliefs the object of your relentless scrutiny. It was axiomatic. ..
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R. Scott Bakker |
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6755a30
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Some events mark us so deeply that they find more force of presence in their aftermath than in their occurrence.
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R. Scott Bakker |
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7be8698
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Though all men be equally frail before the world, the differences between them are terrifying.
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R. Scott Bakker |
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097a9a9
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No decision is so fine as to not bind us to its consequences. No consequence is so unexpected as to absolve us of our decisions. Not even death.
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R. Scott Bakker |
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a8be50d
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more than anything, it was ignorance that delivered conviction beyond the pale of disputation. Ignorance of questions. Ignorance of alternatives. No tyranny was so complete as blindness.
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R. Scott Bakker |
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7916674
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That hope is little more than the premonition of regret. This is the first lesson of history.
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R. Scott Bakker |
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31e696e
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Our words always paint two portraits when we describe our families to others. Outsiders cannot but see the small peeves and follies that wrinkle our relationships with our loved ones. The claims we make in defensive certainty--that we were the one wronged, that we were the one who wanted the best--cannot but fall on skeptical ears since everyone makes the same claimsof virtue and innocence. We are always more than we want to be in the eyes ..
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R. Scott Bakker |
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0a7a1d3
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And Cnaiur grinned as only a Chieftain of the Utemot could grin. The neck of the world, it seemed, lay pressed against the point of his sword. I shall butcher. All hungered here. All starved.
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R. Scott Bakker |
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4f59b68
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Sheltered by his caste, Sarcellus had not, as the impoverished must, made fear the pivot of his passions. As a result he possessed an immovable self-assurance. He felt. He acted. He judged. The fear of being wrong that so characterized Achamian simply did not exist for Cutias Sarcellus. Where Achamian was ignorant of the answers, Sarcellus was ignorant of the questions. No certitude, she thought, could be greater.
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R. Scott Bakker |
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e8a5181
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You know nothing of war. War is dark. Black as pitch. It is not a God. It does not laugh or weep. It rewards neither skill nor daring. It is not a trial of souls, not the measure of wills. Even less is it a tool, a means to some womanish end. It is merely the place where the iron bones of the earth meet the hollow bones of men and break them.
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R. Scott Bakker |
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91a940d
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fot he sin of the idolater is not that he worships stone, but that he worships one stone over others.
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R. Scott Bakker |
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4b195fa
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He no longer heard Kellhus speak so much as observed him cut and carve, whittle and hew, as though the man had somehow shattered the glass of language and fashioned knives from the pieces.
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R. Scott Bakker |
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c8b4031
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We," she repeated, laughing as though both hurt and astounded. "It really is 'we' now, isn't it?" With a shy, even scared, smile, she helped him pull free his weathered robes. "When I can't find you," he said, "or even when you turn away, I feel ... I feel hollow, as though my heart's a thing of smoke ... Isn't that 'we'?"
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R. Scott Bakker |
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cb866ec
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A moze, w co chetniej wierzyl Achamian, wybrancami byli ci, ktorzy sie wahali. Czesto myslal o tym, ze wabik falszywej pewnosci jest najbardziej narkotyczna i destrukcyjna ze wszystkich pokus. Kto czynil dobro, tkwiac w niepewnosci, czynil dobro bez obietnicy nagrody... Moze wiec samo zwatpienie bylo kluczem? To pytanie - co zrozumiale - musialo pozostac nierozstrzygniete. Jezeli szczere zwatpienie rzeczywiscie mialo byc warunkiem odkupieni..
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R. Scott Bakker |
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484674c
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Some events mark us so deeply that they find more force of presence in their aftermath than in their occurrence. They are moments that rankle at becoming past, and so remain contemporaries of our beating hearts. Some events are not remembered--they are relived.
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R. Scott Bakker |
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238f62d
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We must speak plainly. Only honesty provides truth. Only truth delivers triumph.
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R. Scott Bakker |
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9c20fae
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Only madmen and historians, he said, believe their lies.
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R. Scott Bakker |
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b061b47
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Convince a man to take a single step--after all, what earthly difference could one step make?--and he would walk the next mile to prove himself right.
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R. Scott Bakker |
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65a0e2b
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Where hard life makes some maudlin to the point of weeping at mere memory, it grants others a curious immunity to suffering. Like the slaves who work the charcoal pits, their skin grows hardened to the pinch of fire and coals, insensible to burning things.
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R. Scott Bakker |
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582557f
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What did it mean to a prophet to sing in a God's own voice? Would that make him a shaman, as in the days described in the Tusk? Or would it make him a god?
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R. Scott Bakker |
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ccbb13b
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Esmenet had loved joking about cocks. She marvelled at the way men fussed over them, cursing, congratulating, beseeching, coaxing, commanding, even threatening them. Once she told Achamian about a deranged priest who had actually held a knife to his member, hissing ,,You must listen!" After that, she said, she understood that men, far more than women, were other to themselves."
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R. Scott Bakker |
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338480f
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Conviction, no matter how narcotic its depth, simply did not make true.
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R. Scott Bakker |