Teachers see coldness in the world and light fires in the minds of their students, hoping for a warm summer. Sadly, some cannot bear the flame, some turn away from the heat, and some twist the fire to burn.
Fear sticks like a barb in the mind. Someone cold enough to take advantage of it can attach strings to those barbs and make puppets of men and women.
War is more than battles, and battles are more than violence.
If you would see a man’s heart, knock him down. Then observe how he rises. If you would see his soul, do it a thousand times more.
There is wisdom out there that can’t be relayed in musings or sage advice. Like the complexity of life itself, it simply won’t condense. It can only be shown in its entirety. It takes a story.
The weight of history swings on choices. To understand why people make the choices they do is to understand the whole of history and most of the future.
People never know what they are capable of until all other options run out.
Fire can destroy or purify, strengthen or weaken, all depending on the nature of the material being burned. Pain has the same effects on the human soul, and for the same reasons.
The universe holds a destiny in store for people who will not build their own, but they seldom like it.
I have never seen genius without a touch of madness… and vice versa.
Great language and great literature do not survive long without each other
Love truly makes the world turn, as it has been said. What people forget is that the turning of the world brings darkness as well as the light.
For the entire history of humanity, we have stared into fires, hypnotized by the twitch and flow of the blues and yellows. We see the stars of alien skies reflected in the coals and divine messages in the dance of the flames. Fire is magic.
To weaken the body, remove blood. To weaken the character, remove struggle.
All feel justified. To find truth, a man must consider the possibility that he is wrong.
Every sacred moment is made that way by sacrifice.
There are few things more powerful than a name. A single phrase that somehow becomes a symbol for an entire existence.
Animal rage is scary, but not as scary as control.
No healthy mind could bring itself to torture another human being.
Battles waged in daylight are fought by soldiers. Battles waged at night are fought by savages.
It is impossible to know the whole depth of someone’s character from a single moment, but seeing how they respond to the unexpected is a great start.
It is impossible for the sane to truly understand madness.
Anyone can act strategically, it doesn’t take much to make a plan. The skill of a general is his or her ability to react strategically when plans fail.
Cowards are always much more dangerous than heroes.
There is an undercurrent of savagery in the human psyche. Anyone who forgets this and doesn’t guard against it, risks being swept away by it.