# Steven Erikson

- Quotes: 64
- Author page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/steven-erikson

## Books

- [Gardens Of The Moon](https://www.leafyquotes.com/steven-erikson/gardens-of-the-moon.md) — 31 quotes
- [House of Chains](https://www.leafyquotes.com/steven-erikson/house-of-chains.md) — 8 quotes
- [Memories of Ice](https://www.leafyquotes.com/steven-erikson/memories-of-ice.md) — 5 quotes
- [Midnight Tides](https://www.leafyquotes.com/steven-erikson/midnight-tides.md) — 8 quotes
- [Reaper's Gale](https://www.leafyquotes.com/steven-erikson/reapers-gale.md) — 1 quote
- [The Bonehunters](https://www.leafyquotes.com/steven-erikson/the-bonehunters.md) — 11 quotes

## Recently added quotes

> A civilization at war chooses only the most obvious enemy, and often also the one perceived, at first, to be the most easily defeatable. But that enemy is not the true enemy, nor is it the gravest threat to that civilisation. Thus a civilization at war often chooses the wrong enemy.

> Mappo Trell, I believe motivations prove, ultimately, irrelevant. Upon either side of the battlefield the face grins with blunt stupidity, even as smoke fills the sky from horizon to horizon, even as crops whither and die, even as sweet land turns to salt. Inequity ends, Trell, when no-one and no thing is left standing.

> Compassion existed when and only when one could step outside oneself, to suddenly see the bars from inside the cage.

> "I mean the only thing us dead soldiers got in common is that none of us was good enough or lucky enough to survive the fight. We're a host of failures."

> Discipline is as much facing the enemy within as the enemy before you; for without critical judgement, the weapon you wield delivers — and let us not be coy here — naught but murder. And its first victim is the moral probity of your cause.

> "Oh," the figure settled back down, "those reasons. Well, yes. Clever, even. But still profoundly stupid."

> 'For Hood's sake,' the foreigner muttered. 'What's wrong with words?'
>
> 'With words,' said Redmask, turning away, 'meanings change.'
>
> 'Well,' Anaster Toc said, following as Redmask made his way back to his army's camp, 'that is precisely the point. That's their value — their ability to adapt -'
>
> 'Grow corrupt, you mean. The Letheri are masters at corrupting words, their meanings. They call war peace, they call tyranny liberty. On which side of the shadow you stand decides a word's meaning. Words are the weapons used by those who see others with contempt. A contempt which only deepens when they see how those others are deceived and made into fools because they choose to believe. Because in their naivety they thought the meaning of a word was fixed, immune to abuse.'

> The world, Ahlrada Ahn knew, was indifferent to the necessity of preservation. Of histories, of stories layered with meaning and import. It cared nothing for what was forgotten, for memory and knowledge had never been able to halt the endless repetition of wilful stupidity that so bound peoples and civilizations.

> We are contrary creatures, us humans, but that isn't something we need be afraid of, or even much troubled by. And if you make a list of those people who worship consistency, you'll find they're one and all tyrants or would-be tyrants. Ruling over thousands, or over a husband or a wife, or some cowering child. Never fear contradiction, Cutter, it is the very heart of diversity.

> So much had changed inside him. He was no believer in causes, not any more. Certainty was an illusion, a lie. Fanaticism was poison in the soul, and the first victim in its inexorable, ever-growing list was compassion. Who could speak of freedom, when one's soul was bound in chains?

> With ever greater frequency they annihilate themselves, for success breeds contempt for those very qualities that purchased it.

> If one could always choose the right question, then every answer could be as obvious.