ArtistImperfect said:
"There is something profoundly cynical my friends, in the notion of paradise after death. The lure is evasion. The promise is excusative. One need not accept responsibility for the world as it is, and by extension, one need do nothing about it. To strive for change, for true goodness in this mortal world, one must acknowledge and accept in ones own soul, that this mortal reality has purpose in itself, that its greatest value is not for us, but for our children and their children. To view life as but a quick passage along a foul, tortured path made foul and tortured by our own indifference, is to excuse all manner of misery and depravity and to exact cruel punishment upon the innocent lives to come. I defy this notion of paradise beyond the gates of bone. If the soul truely survives the passage then it behooves us, each of us my friends, to nuture a faith in similitude; what awaits us is a reflection of what we leave behind, and in the squandering of our mortal existence, we surrender the opportunity to learn the ways of goodness, the practise of sympathy, empathy, compassion and healing. All passed by on our headlong rush to arrive at a place of glory and beauty, a place we did not earn, and most certainly do not deserve."
Malazan book of the fallen series, not sure which book or which author, pretty sure it was one of Erikson. I'm telling any fellow escapists who are into fantasy books, if you havn't read this series your missing out BIG TIME lol the fact that I remembered it in its entirety is testomony to how fucking sweet this series is.
Preaching to the choir. That quote is just a perfect representation of The Malazan Book of the Fallen.(Pretty insane you knew all that by heart. I need to learn it myself) Any who, I'll just bring you some other quotes I love from the same series.
?Tell me, Tool, what dominates your thoughts?'
The Imass shrugged before replying.
'I think of futility, Adjunct.'
'Do all Imass think about futility?'
'No. Few think at all.'
'Why is that?'
The Imass leaned his head to one side and regarded her.
'Because Adjunct, it is futile.?
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The unnamed soldier is a gift. The named soldier?dead, melted wax?demands a response among the living...a response no one can make. Names are no comfort, they're a call to answer the unanswerable. Why did she die, not him? Why do the survivors remain anonymous?as if cursed?while the dead are revered? Why do we cling to what we lose while we ignore what we still hold?
Name none of the fallen, for they stood in our place, and stand there still in each moment of our lives. Let my death hold no glory, and let me die forgotten and unknown. Let it not be said that I was one among the dead to accuse the living.
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He was a man who would never ask for sympathy. He was a man who sought only to do what was right. Such people appear in the world, every world, now and then, like a single refrain of some blessed song, a fragment caught on the spur of an otherwise raging cacophony.
Imagine a world without such souls.
Yes, it should have been harder to do.
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"Wise words are like arrows flung at your forehead. What do you do? Why, you duck of course."
Man, I could just keep going XD
