The future can ever promise but one thing and one thing only: surprises.

The soul knows no greater anguish than to take a breath that begins with love and ends with grief.

The art of illusion is grace itself.

You must dismantle your sources, lest you do nothing but ape the prejudices of others

Any reasonable ruler would have the expectation and the demand the other way round.

Civilization after civilization, it is the same. The world falls to tyranny with a whisper. The frightened are ever keen to bow to a perceived necessity, in the belief that necessity forces conformity, and conformity a certain stability. In a world shaped into conformity, dissidents stand out, are easily branded and dealt with. There is no multitude of perspectives, no dialogue. The victim assumes the face of the tyrant, self-righteous and intransigent, and wars breed like vermin. And people die.

He was not a modest man. Contemplating suicide, he summoned a dragon.' Gothos' Folly