David Eddings Quotes

Wars are a summer pastime, Althalus. Politics is a year-round entertainment.

Delegating authority seems unnatural to women. First they tell you to do something, and then they keep sticking their noses into it while you’re trying to do it, and all they’re really doing is getting in the way.

"Arums are real soldiers, and I want to hire them to train and advise the lowlanders to fight their own wars—at least this one.”
“You’re asking me to put myself out of business, Althalus,” Albron objected.
“Not really. After we’ve smashed Ghend’s armies, things should go back to normal. The princes of the low countries will still break out in rashes of ambition, and they’ll come here to Arum to hire professionals to do their fighting. It’s a matter of economics, Albron. It’s very expensive to train and maintain any army. Even when there’s no war, you have to keep feeding them. It’s cheaper in the long run to hire Arums.”

The most important part of strategy is keeping your men alive. If you take care of your men, they’ll take care of you.

"We don’t believe in your wars, we don’t believe in your customs, and we don’t believe in your Gods.”
“Your lives are empty, then.”
“The money sort of fills that up—at least that’s what Sergeant Khalor told us.”

What's it like?" Andine asked curiously. "Hearing the thoughts of others, I mean?"
"Disturbing," Leitha replied. "What people say and what they're thinking don't always exactly match. We're much closer to being animals than most of us would care to admit.

If you’d keep your nose out of things that don’t concern you, you wouldn’t hear so much that offends you.

Althalus took the child by the scruff of the neck and hauled him to the fire.
“I didn’t do anything!” the child protested in a shrill voice, struggling to get free.
“That’s probably because you’re too clumsy for this line of work."

The fate of man might very well depend on what we’re doing. He’s doing the right thing for the wrong reasons, but it’s still the right thing.

You're forcing me to violate one of my most sacred vows."
"Oh, I'm sorry. We won't do it that way then. We'll just kill everybody in this part of Kweron instead. You'll be standing waist-deep in blood, but your soul will be all nice and clean. Won't that make you proud?"
"Monstrous!"
"It's entirely up to you, Bheid. You can either be a swindler or a butcher. Take your pick.

“You’ve got some fairly radical opinions for a member of the priesthood, Bheid,” Althalus suggested.
“The goal of mankind should be justice, Althalus. In their hearts, men really want to be just and kindly, but other things get in the way. It’s the duty of the priesthood to keep man on the right course.”
“Isn’t it just a little early in the day for these dense philosophical discussions?” Althalus asked. “It’s never too early—or too late—to learn, my son,” Bheid proclaimed sententiously. “Now, that’s really offensive.”
Bheid gave him a mischievous little smirk. “I’m glad you liked it,” he said.

All right, lady, I'm woodsy. So what? If you don't like the way I look, don't look at me. I don't have any parents, and I wear rags because that's all I can find to wear. I don't see where that's any of your business, though. I'm too busy staying alive to worry about how I look, and if you don't like it that way, well, that's just too bad."
Andine was gaping at Gher. "People don't talk to me that way!" she gasped.
"Not to your face, maybe," Gher shot back, "but I think if you'd close your mouth and listen to other people once in a while, you might find out what they really think of you. But you don't want to know, do you? I wasn't raised in a palace the way you were, lady. I grew up in a garbage heap, so I don't have fancy manners."
"I don't have to listen to this!"
"Maybe you don't have to, but you really should. I breathe in and out the same as you do, lady, and you don't own the air, so it belongs to me as much as it does to you. Just back away, lady. You make me even sicker than I make you.

Class distinctions are an impediment to understanding, Althalus," Bheid told him, "and anything that interferes with understanding should be discarded."
"You might want to give some thought to keeping that particular opinion tucked up under your arm, Bheid," Althalus advised. "It won't make you very popular in certain quarters.

"His father was killed in a war several years ago, and Eliar became his mother’s only support. [...] [His] mother needed his soldier’s pay to keep eating. [...] Your father was unlucky enough to get in his way while he was showing his veneration for his parents. Isn’t that sort of what you were doing when you were planning to kill him before Althalus came along?”
“It’s not the same thing at all, Bheid [...] My father was the Aryo of Osthos. Eliar’s father was just a common soldier.”
“And do you believe that Eliar loved his father less than you loved yours? We all love and revere our parents, Andine, and the peasant or common soldier loves—and grieves—as deeply as the aristocrat. You might want to think about that just a bit before you launch yourself into your next tirade.”

If he's only a boy, what was he doing in a war?"
"He comes from a warrior culture. They start earlier than civilized people do. It was his first war, and it was supposed to be a quiet one. The half-wit who sits on the throne in Kanthon got carried away, though, so he ordered the soldiers he'd hired from Eliar's Clan Chief to invade your father's territory. It was a stupid thing to do, and it wasn't supposed to happen. It was his fault that your father got killed, not Eliar's. Eliar was only following orders. The whole business was the result of a series of stupid mistakes, but that's what most wars are all about, I guess. Nobody ever really wins a war, when you get right down to it.