Elend shook his head. "We can survive this. But, the only way that will happen is if our people don't give up. They need leaders who laugh, leaders who feel that this fight can be won. So, this is what I ask of you. I don't care if you're an optimist or a pessimist—I don't care if secretly, you think we'll all be dead before the month ends. On the outside, I want to see you smiling. Do it in defiance, if you have to. If the end does come, I want this group to meet that end smiling. As the Survivor taught us.

To believe, it seemed, one had to want to believe.

Plots behind plots, plans behind plans. There was always another secret.

We follow the codes not because they bring gain, but because we loathe the people we would otherwise become.

It is a time of change,'' Sazed said. ''Perhaps it is also time to learn of other truths, other ways.

Spook smiled. "Elend is a forgetful scholar - twice as bad as Sazed ever was. He gets lost in his books and forgets about meeting he himself called. He only dresses with any sense of fashion because a Terriswoman bought him a new wardrobe. War has change him some, but on the inside, I think he's still just a dreamer caught in a world with too much violence.

The finest defense of character is correct action. Acquaint yourself with virtue, and you can expect proper treatment from those around you.