David Gemmell - Legend (1984)

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Some people are born ugly. It's not their fault, and I for one have never held it against a man that he is ugly. but others — and I count myself among them — are born with handsome features. That's a gift that should not be lightly taken away.

David Gemmell
Liberty is only valued when it is threatened, therefore it is the threat that highlights the value. We should be grateful to the Nadir, since they heighten the value of our liberty.

David Gemmell
When your life has been spent in one war after another for forty-five years, you have to be pretty handy to survive.

David Gemmell
There is only one way to survive in war, and that is by being willing to die. You will find soon that swordsmen can be downed by untutored savages who would slice their fingers if asked to carve meat. And why? because the savage is willing. Worse, he may be a baresark.

David Gemmell
A man's strength is ultimately born of his knowledge of his own weakness...

David Gemmell
It would be a fine thing if war could be conducted as a game where no lives were lost. At the end of a battle combatants could meet [...] and drink and talk.

David Gemmell
Some of you are probably thinking that you may panic and run. You will not! Others are worried about dying. Some of you will. But all men die. No one ever gets out of this life alive.

David Gemmell
Only a fool loves war. Or a man who has never seen it. The trouble is that the survivors forget about the horrors and remember only the battle lust. They pass on that memory, and other men hunger for it.

David Gemmell
A cynic by experience, a romantic by inclination and now a hero by necessity.

David Gemmell
A man cannot spend his life worrying about the unexpected.

David Gemmell
Be at peace, my friend. One thing I have learnt about Death is that his bark is worse than his bite.

David Gemmell
This enterprise was doomed, but we do what we can and do what we must. So a young farmer with wife and children decides to go home. Good! He shows a sense that you and I will never understand. They will sing songs about us, but he will ensure that there are people to sing them. He plants. We destroy.

David Gemmell
A man should be free to do what he wants to do, as long as it doesn't hurt others.

David Gemmell
How do you decide a battle is lost? Numbers, strategic advantage, positioning? It's all worth a sparrow's fart. It comes down to men who are willing. The largest army will founder if its men are less willing to die than to win.

David Gemmell
True. The one certainty about riding, Braygan, is that - at some time - you will fall off. It is a fact. Another fact you might like to consider, in your life of perpetual terror, is that you will die. We are all going to die, some of us young, some of us old, some of us in our sleep, some of us screaming in agony. We cannot stop it, we can only delay it.

David Gemmell
We are not made for life at all, old horse. It is made for us. We live it. We leave it.

David Gemmell
A man with wife and daughters has no place losing his temper.

David Gemmell
Why now? Why not? Live or die, a man and a woman need love. There is a need in the race. We need to share. To belong. Perhaps you will die before the year is out. But remember this: to have may be taken from you, to have had never. Far better to have tasted love before dying, than to die alone.

David Gemmell
It's a funny thing about weaknesses.... Most people will tell you they know their weaknesses. When asked, they'll tell you, 'Well for one thing, I'm overgenerous.'... that's what innkeepers are for.

David Gemmell
Everyone makes mistakes. Everyone fails at something.

David Gemmell
You may think life is sweet now, but when death is a heartbeat away then life becomes unbearably desirable. And when you survive, everything you do will be enhanced and filled with greater joy: the sunlight, the breeze, a good wine, a woman's lips, a child's laughter.

David Gemmell
By nature of definition only the coward is capable of the highest heroism.

David Gemmell
... the baresark loses all fear; his method is all-out attack, and invariably he takes his opponent with him even if he falls.

David Gemmell
This world has few redeeming features, and one is the capacity for people to love one another with great, enduring passion.

David Gemmell
The very odd thing about sagas [...] is that they very rarely mention dry mouths and full bladders.

David Gemmell
The point is [...] that you never know whether you've lost until you've lost. Anything can happen.

David Gemmell
I'm not laughing at you. [...] I'm laughing at the whole stupid business. We face the biggest threat in our history and they give me a helmet too big, and you a helmet too small, and tell us we can't exchange them. It's too much. Really.

David Gemmell
Man alone, it seems, lives all his life in the knowledge of death. And yet there is more to life than merely waiting for death. For life to have meaning, there must be a purpose. A man must pass something on — otherwise he is useless.

David Gemmell
What will you do now?' I think I will become a monk and devote my entire life to prayer and good works.' No,' said Rek. 'I mean, what will you do today?' Ah! Today I'll get drunk and go whoring,' said Bowman.

David Gemmell
If we are still discussing its merits tomorrow, I will agree with you," said Diagoras. "Cheer up, laddie. Nobody lives forever." "Oh I expect you will, Druss, Old Horse. It's the mortals around you who always seem to kiss the granite.

David Gemmell