Experience is primarily the ability to restrain our fleeting impulses.

When leaders betray their people and the people don't overthrow them, it's not just the leaders who should be blamed.

And the simple people are trash. A herd of sheep that are good for shearing, but sometimes it's more profitable to slaughter them.

This was how you wound up in the Inquisition. When you stopped being able to see any difference between Light Ones and Dark Ones. When for you, people weren't even a flock of sheep, but just a handful of spiders in a glass jar. When you stopped believing in the future, and all you wanted to do was preserve the status quo. For yourself. For those few individuals who were still dear to you.

Ill-considered but well-intentioned actions do more good that actions that are well-considered but cruel.

For every prophet there are a thousand interpreters to distort the essence of the religion, to replace the bright flame with the heat of the inquisitors' pyres.

This is the inevitable consequence of a popular movie: you become the guy who wrote "the book that inspired the movie." Frankly speaking, I find it a bit insulting.