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The world has long ceased to be the author of your anguish.
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There was such a difference, he thought, between the beauty that illuminated, and the beauty that was illuminated.
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History. Language. Passion. Custom. All these things determine what men say, think, and do. These are the hidden puppet-strings from which all men hang.
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The world is a big place and our brain is only three pounds.
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Beliefs are the foundation of actions. Those who believed without doubting, he would say, acted without thinking. And those who acted without thinking were enslaved.
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Gods are but greater demons, the Cishaurim said, hungers across the surface of eternity, wanting only to taste the clarity of our souls. Can you not see this?
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Any fool can see the limits of seeing, but not even the wisest know the limits of knowing. Thus is ignorance rendered invisible, and are all Men made fools.
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To be a student required a peculiar kind of capitulation, a willingness not simply to do as one is told, but to surrendor the movements of one's soul to the unknown complexities of another's. A willingness, not simply to be moved, but to be remade.
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I remeber asking a wise man, once . . . 'Why do Men fear the dark?' . . . 'Because darkness' he told me, 'is ignorance made visable.' 'And do Men despise ignorance?' I asked. 'No,' he said, 'they prize it above all things--all things!--but only so long as it remains invisible.
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Achamian tossed his hands skyward in dismay. “Foolish boy! How many faiths are there? How many competing beliefs? And you would murder another on the slender hope that yours is somehow the only one?
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Though all men be equally frail before the world, the differences between them are terrifying.
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If soot stains your tunic, dye it black. This is vengeance.
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What if the choice isn’t between certainties, between this faith and that, but between faith and doubt? Between renouncing the mystery and embracing it?
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He had despised the sorcerer, thinking him one of those mewling souls who forever groaned beneath burdens of their own manufacture.