Rhythm of War

Quotes

1. I name you idiot for playing with powers you only presume to understand.

   p. 999

2. 

   “Must be nice,” Adolin said, patting the horse, “to not have to worry about things like politics or relationships.”

   The horse snorted in a way that Adolin thought was distinctly dismissive. Well, perhaps there was more to complicate a horse’s life than a man could ever see.

   p. 443

3. 

   I’m not using a key at all. I’m breaking the lock.

   p. 529

4. 

   And storm Teft if it wasn’t a valid question. One not enough soldiers asked themselves. Right here, right now, should I be fighting? Is there a better way?

   p. 1002

5. 

   And she would ask the best question of them all.

   What will I discover next?

   p. 585

6. 

   “I’m telling you to think!” his father snapped. “I’m telling you that if you want to change the world, you have to stop being part of the problem!”

   p. 538

7. 

   In her little room of a laboratory, everything fit together. She’d met scholars who claimed they needed chaos to function. Perhaps that was true for some, but in her experience, good science wasn’t about sloppy inspiration. It was about meticulous incrementalization.

   p. 982

8. 

   I wasn’t thinking straight, Veil thought. That’s kind of the point of drinking.…

   p. 396

9. 

   A thousand wrong plans were no more useful that a single wrong one.

   p. 572

10. 

    “The way you talk lacks hope.”

    “‘Hope,’” she said, spreading her papers out on the table. “Have I ever told you how much I dislike that word? Think of what it means, what it implies. You have hope when you’re outnumbered. You have hope when you lack options. Hope is always irrational, Uncle.”

    p. 1090

11. 

    Any information—even if you suspect your enemy is feeding it to you—is useful, son. More wars are lost to lack of information than are lost to lack of courage.

    p. 667

12. 

    If there is one thing I can guarantee you about humankind, Last Listener, is is this: Provide them with a sword , and they will find a way to impale themselves upon it.”

    p. 513

13. 

    “You like irony now too?”

    “Irony tastes good. Like sausage.”

    p. 927

14. 

    True freedom—with the power to make certain she didn’t ever have to be dependent upon anyone else, listener or spren. True freedom couldn’t exist while someone else had power over you.

    p. 958

15. 

    Who did she think was listening? Was she only praying because she was afraid?

    Yes, she thought, continuing to paint. I’m afraid. And I have to hope that someone, somewhere, is listening. That someone has a plan. That it all matters somehow.

    Jasnah took comfort in the idea that there was no plan, that everything was random. She said that a chaotic universe meant the only actions of actual importance were the ones they decided were important. That gave people autonomy.

    p. 1099

16. 

    Alone in the darkness, standing with his back to the wall, facing overwhelming numbers. A glorious way to die, but Kaladin didn’t want glory. He’d given up on that foolish dream as a child.

    p. 582

17. 

    Mathematics thought that there were numbers associated with tones—frequencies, wavelengths. Music, at its most fundamental level, was math.

    p. 1040

18. 

    You don’t get to choose to be free, Venli. Just which master to follow.

    p. 847

19. 

    It’s too easy to forget the cost not only to the boys who die, but to the ones who live. Every commander should be reminded periodically.

    p. 760

20. 

    So Ishar was a butcher, a mad surgeon as well as a crazed theocrat. For some reason, that relieved Dalinar. It was disgusting, but this was an ordinary kind of evil. He’d expected something worse.

    p. 1167

21. 

    “You run like a coward.”

    “Every good sergeant is a coward! And proud of it! Someone needs to talk sense to the officers!”

    p. 1115

22. 

    He grinned, then kissed her hand again. He seemed to think that sort of thing would eventually spark passion in her. When in truth, physical stimulation was so inferior to mental stimulation.

    p. 1079

23. 

    “Innocence is more false a god than the ones in our songs,” Venli said, sitting beside her sister. “People who chase it will find themselves enslaved.”

    p. 962

24. 

    “Nothing is real,” Wit said. “At least by one measure of philosophy. So enjoy what you seem to be able to eat and don’t complain.”

    p. 912

25. 

    She knew she shouldn’t let the lack of results bother her. Real scientists understood that experiments like this weren’t failures; they were necessary steps on the way to discovery.

    p. 796

26. 

    Wit dropped his bloody handkerchief before Ruthar. “How remarkable,” he said. “If you spend your life knocking people down, you eventually find they won’t stand up for you. There’s poetry in that, don’t you think, you storming personification of a cancerous anal discharge?”

    p. 643

27. 

    We must not let our desires for a specific result cloud our perceptions.

    p. 672

28. 

    “No one ever accomplished anything by being content with who they were, Shallan,” Adolin said. “We accomplish great things by reaching toward who we could become.”

    “As long as it’s what you want to become. Not what someone else thinks you should become.”

    p. 441

29. 

    “It wouldn’t be polite for me to interrupt,” Notum said. “Please continue your insane rant.”

    p. 411

30. 

    “We proved nothing,” Navani said. “We had a single failed experiment.”

    p. 874

31. 

    Those gods had never deserved reverence. What was a god who only made demands? Nothing but a tyrant with a different name.

    p. 980

32. 

    Eventually Dalinar had done what any good commander did when faced by such persistent mass insubordination: He backed down. When good men disobeyed, it was time to look at your orders.

    p. 666

33. 

    “Your stories always have a point,” Kaladin said.

    “I am an artist,” Wit said. “I should thank you not to demean me by insisting my art must be trying to accomplish something. In fact, you shouldn’t enjoy art. You should simply admit that it exists, then move on. Anything else is patronizing.”

    p. 920

34. 

    “We need both heart and mind,” Lirin said. “The heart might provide the purpose, but the head provides the method, the path. Passion is nothing without a plan. Wanting something doesn’t make it happen.”

    p. 539

35. 

    All this time, he’s been asking what a god could possibly fear, but the answer was obvious. Odium feared men who would not obey him.

    p. 1173

36. 

    War was a masculine art, but when you started attacking women, you’d stopped engaging in war. You deserved anything that happened to you after that point.

    p. 1165

37. 

    The trouble wasn’t getting answers. It was finding the presence of mind to accept them.

    p. 894

38. 

    The man who forges weapons can claim he’s never killed, but he still prepares for the slaughter.

    p. 795

39. 

    “Do you believe?” Kaladin asked as he advanced. “In God, or the Almighty or whatever?”

    “I don’t have to believe,” the voice drifted back. “I know gods exist. I simply hate them.”

    p. 221

40. 

    Would you prefer a reinforcement of what you already want to believe, or do you seek the truth?

    p. 242

41. 

    The fact that these had thrown their lives away so wantonly did not speak highly of their master.

    p. 56

42. 

    Navani wasn’t certain what to think about how easily it had happened. It was nice to make headway; yet in her experience, a fair breeze one day was the herald of a tempest to come.

    p. 273

43. 

    A good lie, the delicious kind, hinted at hidden grandeur or further secrets. This was instead the lie of a drunken has-been at the bar, trying to drum up enough pity to get a free drink. It was more pathetic than interesting.

    p. 73

44. 

    She had been around enough intelligent people to know they worked best in an encouraging environment where study and discovery were rewarded.

    p. 261

45. 

    That’s the trouble with science. It’s never done. Always upending itself. Ruining perfect systems for the little inconvenience of them being wrong.

    p. 222

46. 

    Words on the page define men to future generations.

    p. 27

47. 

    These are not the actions of greatness. You are no scholar. You merely like being near them. You are no artifabrian. You are merely a woman who likes trinkets. You have no fame, accomplishment, or capacity of your own. Everything distinctive about you came from someone else. You have no power—you merely like to marry men who have it.

    p. 27

48. 

    Heroism is a myth you tell idealistic young people—specifically when you want them to go bleed for you.

    p. 39

49. 

    “Do you think you can take the truth?”

    “Try for once. It would be refreshing.”

    p. 27

That’s all the quotes.

49 quotes in the collection · come back when we add more