David Gemmell Quotes
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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.
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By nature of definition only the coward is capable of the highest heroism.
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'A man should not risk his life for beauty alone, Kiall, for that fades. You might as well risk it for a rose. Think on it.'
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We sit here safe, within a circle of swords held by other men.
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I don't know yet whether I fully believe in fate, but certain things do happen in a man's life that he cannot explain.
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Every man has his own reason for every deed. Usually it is selfish.
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Fear is like a fire in your belly. Controlled, it warms you and keeps you alive. Uncontrolled, it burns and destroys you.
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'One day you'll find a love, and then we can talk on equal terms. I do not mean that to sound patronizing. You are bright and intelligent. You have courage and wit. But sometimes, it is like trying to describe colors to a blind man. Love, as I hope you will find, has great power. Even death cannot destroy it. And I still love her.'
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All men have talents. Some build, some paint, some write, some fight. For me it is different.
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He who fears to lose will never win.
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Life is nothing unless death has been faced down.
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A man cannot spend his life worrying about the unexpected.
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I don't give a damn, laddie. Until the actual moment, when they cut me down, I shall still be looking to win. And the gods of war are fickle at best.
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'I don't understand how any man would wish to pursue such a away of life.Causing pain, being hurt, risking death - and for what? so that a crowd of fat-bellied merchants can see blood flow.'
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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.
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Our modern world, though infinitely more complex than that of ancient Greece, is also far more superficial. Where the Greeks offered simple psychological training, we live in an age of style and spin in which perceptions of good and evil slither and shift with the political view of the moment.
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A man must know his limitations.
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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.
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While men compete in war, there will be warriors. While there are warriors, there will be princes among warriors. Among the princes will be kings, and among the kings an emperor.
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The onset of fear makes the simplest actions complex and difficult.
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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.
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All beauty is sad. For it fades.
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A problem shared is a problem doubled.
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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.