# Seventh Son

- Author: [Orson Scott Card](https://www.leafyquotes.com/orson-scott-card.md)
- Quotes: 30
- Book page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/orson-scott-card/seventh-son

## Quotes

> This is what I want to do forever, each one thought. Rise in the morning, come to the mill, and work all day with him beside me. Never mind that the wish was impossible. Never mind that they might never see each other again, once the boy left for his apprenticeship back in the place of his birth. That only added to the sweetness of the moment, which would soon become a memory, would soon become a dream.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/orson-scott-card/seventh-son/this-is-what.md)

> Taleswapper looked at Miller.
>
> “I'm nothing,” he said.
>
> “A Christian isn’t nothing,” said Taleswapper.
>
> “I'm no Christian, either.”
>
> “Ah,” said Taleswapper. “A Deist, then, like Tom Jefferson.” The children murmured at his mention of the great man's name.
>
> “Taleswapper, I'm a father who loves his children, a husband who loves his wife, a farmer who pays his debts, and a miller without a millstone.”

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/orson-scott-card/seventh-son/taleswapper-looked-at-miller.md)

> Land was what they wanted, as if the mere ownership of dirt could turn a peasant into a squire.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/orson-scott-card/seventh-son/land-was-what.md)

> The most evil creatures don’t desire the destruction of everything—they only desire to exploit it for themselves.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/orson-scott-card/seventh-son/the-most-evil.md)

> “You must be a prophet right enough,” said Alvin Junior, “cause I can’t understand a thing you said.”

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/orson-scott-card/seventh-son/you-must-be-a-prophet.md)

> A man who can't read only knows what other folks tell him.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/orson-scott-card/seventh-son/a-man-who.md)

> I always tell what I believe. Whether it's true, I'm no more sure than any man.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/orson-scott-card/seventh-son/i-always-tell.md)

> Everything possible to be believed is an image of the truth.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/orson-scott-card/seventh-son/everything-possible-to-be-believed.md)

> The billion billion paths of his life lay open before him, waiting for his first choices, for the first changes in the world around him to eliminate a million futures every second.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/orson-scott-card/seventh-son/the-billion-billion.md)

> Just because the only way you can maintain control over your bodily passions is to sit straight in your chair, knees together, hands delicately arranged in our lap, fingers tightly intertwined, does not mean that I am required to do the same.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/orson-scott-card/seventh-son/just-because-the.md)

> That's the way it was then, you see. Folks noticed other people's trouble every bit as quick as if it was their own.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/orson-scott-card/seventh-son/thats-the-way.md)

> “I went to the Garden of Love,
>
> And saw what I never had seen:
>
> A chapel was built in the midst,
>
> Where I used to play on the green.
>
> And the gates of this chapel were shut,
>
> And ‘Thou shalt not’ writ over the door,
>
> So I turned to the Garden of Love,
>
> That so many sweet flowers bore,
>
> And I saw it was filled with graves,
>
> And tomb-stones where flowers should be:
>
> And priests in black gowns were walking their rounds,
>
> And binding with briars my joys and desires.”

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/orson-scott-card/seventh-son/i-went-to-the.md)

> “I don’t hold with prophets,” said Alvin. “Near as I can tell, they end up just as dead as the next man.”

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/orson-scott-card/seventh-son/i-dont-hold.md)

> It's plain that if I married you for brains I was plumb cheated.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/orson-scott-card/seventh-son/its-plain-that.md)

> She grunted. “Nothing unusual?”
>
> “That’s right.”
>
> “Well, if you ask me, that’s pretty unusual right there, if a body was smart enough to notice it.”

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/orson-scott-card/seventh-son/she-grunted-nothing.md)

> As the caterpillar chooses the fairest leaves to her eggs on, so the priest lays his curse on the fairest joys.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/orson-scott-card/seventh-son/as-the-caterpillar.md)

> “I was ordained,” said the preacher. “No one ordains artists. They ordain themselves.”
>
> Just as Taleswapper had expected. The preacher retreated to authority as soon as he feared his ideas could not stand on their own merit. Reasonable argument was impossible when authority became the arbiter.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/orson-scott-card/seventh-son/i-was-ordained.md)

> You can't tell real from a rutabaga.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/orson-scott-card/seventh-son/you-cant-tell.md)

> I own the whole world, and folks haven't been keeping up too well on the payments.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/orson-scott-card/seventh-son/i-own-the.md)

> The only true vision comes not from God but from the inmost recesses of the human mind.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/orson-scott-card/seventh-son/the-only-true.md)

> It is a weak man who blames his failures on the strength of others.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/orson-scott-card/seventh-son/it-is-a-weak.md)

> It just gripes me hollow, the way God always sneaks in to take the credit.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/orson-scott-card/seventh-son/it-just-gripes.md)

> Just because you believe it doesn’t make it so.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/orson-scott-card/seventh-son/just-because-you.md)

> “I've done my best, but the boy is unteachable. He doubts everything, and contests each point of theology as if it were required to meet the same tests of logic and consistency that prevail in the world of science.”
>
> “In other words, he expects your doctrines to make sense.”
>
> “He is unwilling to accept the idea that some things remain mysteries, comprehensible only to the mind of God. Ambiguity makes him saucy, and paradox causes open rebellion.”
>
> “An obnoxious child.”

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/orson-scott-card/seventh-son/ive-done-my-best.md)

> “What kind of stupid tale is that, when we just have to look at each other to know it isn’t true?”
>
> “It has problems, I admit.”

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/orson-scott-card/seventh-son/what-kind-of-stupid.md)

> Sunday morning, he decided, is designed to let sinners have a sample of the first day of eternity in hell.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/orson-scott-card/seventh-son/sunday-morning-he-decided.md)

> A duel is just two murderers who agree to take turns trying to kill each other.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/orson-scott-card/seventh-son/a-duel-is-just.md)

> If something just plain didn’t make sense to Alvin, he didn’t believe it, and no amount of quoting from the Bible would convince him. Now Taleswapper was telling him that he was right to refuse to believe things that made no sense.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/orson-scott-card/seventh-son/if-something-just.md)

> “I’ve never seen a soft heart turn hard,” said Taleswapper. “At least not without good reason.”

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/orson-scott-card/seventh-son/ive-never-seen.md)

> Religion makes them crazy. Not a woman I ever met wasn't crazy with religion.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/orson-scott-card/seventh-son/religion-makes-them.md)