Steven Erikson - Midnight Tides (2004)

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Chaos needs no allies, for it dwells like a poison in every one of us.

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

Steven Erikson
"Indeed Bugg. is it because, do you think, at the human core, we are naught but liars and cheats?"
"Probably."
"With no hope of ever overcoming our instinctive nastiness?"
"Hard to say. How have we done so far?"

Steven Erikson
"What war is this?"
"A pointless one."
"They are all pointless Denier. Subjugation and defeat breed resentment and hatred, and such things cannot be bribed away."
"Unless the spirit of the defeated is crushed," Trull said.

Steven Erikson
Civilization after civilization, it is the same. The world falls to tyranny with a whisper. The frightened are ever keen to bow to a perceived necessity, in the belief that necessity forces conformity, and conformity a certain stability. In a world shaped into conformity, dissidents stand out, are easily branded and dealt with. There is no multitude of perspectives, no dialogue. The victim assumes the face of the tyrant, self-righteous and intransigent, and wars breed like vermin. And people die.

Steven Erikson
Destiny is a lie. Destiny is justification for atrocity. It is the means by which murderers armour themselves against reprimand. It is a word intended to stand in place of ethics, denying all moral context.

Steven Erikson
"You leave me without hope," Brys said.
"I am sorry for that. Do not seek to find hope among your leaders. They are the repositories of poison. Their interest in you extends only so far as their ability to control you. For you, they seek duty and obedience, and they will ply you with the language of stirring faith. They seek followers, and woe to those who question, or voice challenge."

Steven Erikson
Death cannot be struggled against, brother. It ever arrives, defiant of every hiding place, of every frantic attempt to escape. Death is every mortal's shadow, his true shadow, and time is its servant, spinning that shadow slowly round, until what stretched before one now stretched before him.

Steven Erikson