R. Scott Bakker

What vengeance is this? That he should slumber while I endure? Blood douses no hatred, cleanses no sin. Like seed, it spills of its own volition, and leaves naught but sorrow in its wake.

Love is lust made meaningful. Hope is hunger made human.

Where the holy take men for fools, the mad take the world.

Men are forever pointing at others, which is why I always follow the knuckle and not the nail.

One can look into the future, or one can look at the future. The latter is by far the more instructive.

No decision is so fine as to not bind us to its consequences.

No consequence is so unexpected as to absolve us of our decisions.

Not even death.

The proposition "I am the centre" need never be uttered. It is the assumption upon which all certainty and all doubt turns.

The vulgar think the God by analogy to man and so worship Him in the form of the Gods. The learned think the God by analogy to principles and so worship Him in the form of Love or Truth. But the wise think the God not at all. They know that thought, which is finite, can only do violence to the God, who is infinite.

It is enough, they say, that the God thinks them.

... and my soldiers, they say, make idols of their swords. But does not the sword make certain? Does not the sword make plain? Does not the sword compel kindness from those who kneel in its shadow? I need no other God.

What is practicality but one moment betrayed for the next?