Quotes from Gadiantons and the Silver Sword

“There are only two forces at work in this world- black and white. Only people are grey.”
― Chris Heimerdinger, quote from Gadiantons and the Silver Sword

“...Teachings are given to different men under different circumstances and in different times... [but] ...the Lord is the same yesterday, today and forever. If a parent commands a little child not to play with matches, and then commands a teenager to light the campfire, is this a contradiction? It's only a question of preparedness - one is ready and one is not.”
― Chris Heimerdinger, quote from Gadiantons and the Silver Sword

“... We [can't] escape the influence of sin in the world, but [do] we have to pay money to see and hear it firsthand?”
― Chris Heimerdinger, quote from Gadiantons and the Silver Sword

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Popular quotes

“Courage doesn’t happen when you have all the answers. It happens when you are ready to face the questions you have been avoiding your whole life.” ― S.L. Alder”
― Nikki Sex, quote from Accuse

“I can hear the tick tick tick in my head: A tripwire ready to explode in fury. And then, in my mind, I start to count down from ten…any moment now.”
― Danielle Esplin, quote from Give It Back

“I’ve missed the silence of you listening to me.” Shahrzad attempted a weak smile. “No one listens to me as you do.” His expression turned quizzical. “You don’t wait to speak,” she clarified. “You truly listen.” “Only to you,” Khalid replied gently.”
― Renee Ahdieh, quote from The Rose & the Dagger

“A Great Rabbi stands, teaching in the marketplace. It happens that a husband finds proof that morning of his wife's adultery, and a mob carries her to the marketplace to stone her to death.

There is a familiar version of this story, but a friend of mine - a Speaker for the Dead - has told me of two other Rabbis that faced the same situation. Those are the ones I'm going to tell you.

The Rabbi walks forward and stands beside the woman. Out of respect for him the mob forbears and waits with the stones heavy in their hands. 'Is there any man here,' he says to them, 'who has not desired another man's wife, another woman's husband?'
They murmur and say, 'We all know the desire, but Rabbi none of us has acted on it.'

The Rabbi says, 'Then kneel down and give thanks that God has made you strong.' He takes the woman by the hand and leads her out of the market. Just before he lets her go, he whispers to her, 'Tell the Lord Magistrate who saved his mistress, then he'll know I am his loyal servant.'

So the woman lives because the community is too corrupt to protect itself from disorder.

Another Rabbi. Another city. He goes to her and stops the mob as in the other story and says, 'Which of you is without sin? Let him cast the first stone.'

The people are abashed, and they forget their unity of purpose in the memory of their own individual sins. ‘Someday,’ they think, ‘I may be like this woman. And I’ll hope for forgiveness and another chance. I should treat her as I wish to be treated.’

As they opened their hands and let their stones fall to the ground, the Rabbi picks up one of the fallen stones, lifts it high over the woman’s head and throws it straight down with all his might it crushes her skull and dashes her brain among the cobblestones. ‘Nor am I without sins,’ he says to the people, ‘but if we allow only perfect people to enforce the law, the law will soon be dead – and our city with it.’

So the woman died because her community was too rigid to endure her deviance.

The famous version of this story is noteworthy because it is so startlingly rare in our experience. Most communities lurch between decay and rigor mortis and when they veer too far they die. Only one Rabbi dared to expect of us such a perfect balance that we could preserve the law and still forgive the deviation.

So of course, we killed him.

-San Angelo
Letters to an Incipient Heretic”
― Orson Scott Card, quote from La voz de los muertos

“Sometimes it’s a flutter, a flicker of wings in your chest. Others, it’s a relentless vise that stops the beat, if only for a second. It might be a hot burn, spreading like wildfire in your ribs, or an icy cold space, empty and void. But the heart always reacts. Even after seven years, just hearing his name inspired any of those reactions or a dozen more. And there was one every single time.”
― Staci Hart, quote from A Thousand Letters

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About BookQuoters

BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.

We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.

Founded in 2023, BookQuoters has quickly become a large and vibrant community of people who share an affinity for books. Books are seen by some as a throwback to a previous world; conversely, gleaning the main ideas of a book via a quote or a quick summary is typical of the Information Age but is a habit disdained by some diehard readers. We feel that we have the best of both worlds at BookQuoters; we read books cover-to-cover but offer you some of the highlights. We hope you’ll join us.