A beggar's mistake harms no one but the beggar. A king's mistake, however, harms everyone but the king. Too often, the measure of power lies not in the number who obey your will, but in the number who suffer your stupidity.
R. Scott BakkerThereโs faith that knows itself as faith, Proyas, and thereโs faith that confuses itself for knowledge. The first embraces uncertainty, acknowledges the mysteriousness of the God. It begets compassion and tolerance. Who can entirely condemn when theyโre not entirely certain theyโre in the right? But the second, Proyas, the second embraces certainty and only pays lip service to the Godโs mystery. It begets intolerance, hatred, violence.
R. Scott BakkerThe world is only as deep as we can see. This is why fools think themselves profound. This is why terror is the passion of revelation.
R. Scott BakkerTo be a student required a peculiar kind of capitulation, a willingness not simply to do as one is told, but to surrendor the movements of one's soul to the unknown complexities of another's. A willingness, not simply to be moved, but to be remade.
R. Scott BakkerI remeber asking a wise man, once . . . 'Why do Men fear the dark?' . . . 'Because darkness' he told me, 'is ignorance made visable.' 'And do Men despise ignorance?' I asked. 'No,' he said, 'they prize it above all things--all things!--but only so long as it remains invisible.
R. Scott BakkerYou 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.
R. Scott Bakker