Brandon Sanderson

Sometimes, a hypocrite is nothing more than a man who is in the process of changing.

“Funny, isn’t it, how so many of our stories start the same way, but have opposing endings? In half, the child ignores her parents, wanders out into the woods, and gets eaten. In the other half she discovers great wonders. There aren’t many stories about the kids who say, ‘Yes, I shall not go into the forest. I’m glad my parents explained that is where the monsters live.’”

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

“‘The question,’ she replied, ‘is not whether you will love, hurt, dream, and die. It is what' you will love, why you will hurt, when you will dream, and "how you will die. This is your choice. You cannot pick the destination, only the path.’”

That was the coward’s route. Wishing for ignorance.

You could not arrive at excellence by the average of these people. Excellence was an individual quest, not a group effort.

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

Some problems could not be fixed with a lie.

“Be wary,” Shallan whispered, “of anyone who claims to be able to see the future.”

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

The best indication of what human beings will do is not what they think, but what the record says similar groups have done in the past.

Words on the page define men to future generations.