Last Argument of Kings

I have learned all kinds of things from my many mistakes. The one thing I never learn is to stop making them.

Rules are for children. This is war, and in war the only crime is to lose.

Travel brings wisdom only to the wise. It renders the ignorant more ignorant than ever.

Proof is boring. Proof is tiresome. Proof is an irrelevance. People would far rather be handed an easy lie than search for a difficult truth, especially if it suits their own purposes.

You have to realistic about these things.

Truly, life is the misery we endure between disappointments.

Sometimes it doesn't matter too much what choice you make, as long as you make it quick and stick to it.

If you want to be a new man you have to stay in new places, and do new things, with people who never knew you before. If you go back to the same old ways, what else can you be but the same old person?

You can never have too many knives, his father had told him. Unless they're pointed at you, and by people who don't like you much.

It's hard to be done a favor by a man you hate. It's hard to hate him so much afterwards. Losing an enemy can be worse than losing a friend, if you've had him for long enough.

Chose? If you believe that I chose any part of the pitiful shadow of a life you see before you, you are very much mistaken. I chose glory and success. The box did not contain what was written on the lid.

Luck is a woman. She's drawn to those that least deserve her.

But you can't truly hate a man without loving him first, and there's always a trace of that love left over.

People would far rather be handed an easy lie than search for a difficult truth, especially if it suits their own purposes.

It always amazes me, how swiftly problems can be solved, once you start cutting things off people.

The only difference between war and murder is the number of dead.

Round and round in circles we go, clutching at successes we never grasp, endlessly tripping over the same old failures. Truly, life is the misery we endure between disappointments.

But you love to play the good man, don't you? Do you know what's worse than a villain? A villain who thinks he's a hero. A man like that, there's nothing he won't do, and he'll always find himself an excuse.

Power makes all things right. That is my first law, and my last. That is the only law that I acknowledge.

Fear has made them sloppy. The world teeters at a precipe. All scared to take a step in case they put a foot into empty air. The instinct of self-preservation. It can destroy a man's efficiency.

They appear somewhat unreliable," he murmured. "Unreliable? Nonsense, Superior! Out of luck is all, and we both know how that goes, no? Why, there's not a man of them I wouldn't trust my mother to." "Are you sure?" "She's been dead these twenty years. What harm could they do her now?

The lamplight gleamed on the Magus’ white grin. “People like to watch the pretty puppets, Superior. Even a glimpse of the puppeteer can be most upsetting for them. Why, they might even suddenly notice the strings around their own wrists

The lowly have small ambitions, and are satisfied with small indulgences. They need not get fair treatment. They need only think that they do...

We do what we must, we do what we are told, we do what is easiest. What else can we do but solve one sordid problem at a time? Then one day we look up and find that we are . . . this.

First it is done to us, then we do it to others, then we order it done. Such is the way of things

Nothing had worked out the way he’d hoped. He should’ve expected it by now, maybe. After all, things never had before. And yet he kept on pissing into the wind. He was like a man whose door’s too low, but instead of working out how to duck, keeps on smacking his head into the lintel every day of his miserable life. He wanted to feel sorry for himself, but he knew he deserved no better. A man can’t do the things he’d done, and hope for happy endings.

Mercy and weakness are the same thing in war, and there's no prize for nice behavior.

Have you no pity?' Glokta could only shrug. 'I did have. As a boy I was soft-hearted beyond the point of foolishness. I swear, I would cry at a fly caught in a spider's web.' He grimaced at a brutal spasm through his leg as he turned for the door. 'Constant pain has cured me of that.

Life is a series of things we would rather not do.

Trust. It was a word that only liars used. A word the truthful had no need of.