Excerpt from Cerin’s Howl

     There are many places for a man in history, and one does not occupy any of them by modest aspirations.  The great mages did not become so by aspiring to a detail of craft; the warriors of legend did not stand by a remote hamlet; the wise men were consumed by curiosity, not satisfaction.
     So would I be a ruler: not as the man who wished to hold what he once attained, but as the man whose innovation commanded respect both in battle and in his own keep.  I will be a man of fear, a man of awe, a man whose flawless nature is of unfathomable depth.
     Such a man is not troubled with scruples, nor is he weakened by affection.

- from The Recovered Diaries
High Lord Stell of the Artressan Dominion

     Greatness is not to have your name in the annals of history; it is instead to act in the movements that rewrite such books.  What once was seen as heroism will some day be unveiled as mere destruction: a waste of humanity, of the bounty of the gods, on the foolishness of ambition.
     I would rather our names be forgotten than our ideas.  I would rather our peace persist than our memory.

- from The Codes of Peace
Carles, First of the Selar