but you're not a traitor, you've merely been the tool of one. I don't punish tools. They do harm only in the hands of a bad workman. - Ursula K. Le Guin

Nothing remains the same from one moment to the next, you can’t step into the same river twice. Life – evolution – the whole universe of space/time, matter/energy – existence itself – is essentially change.

You thought, as a boy, that a mage is one who can do anything. So I thought, once. So did we all. And the truth is that as a man's real power grows and his knowledge widens, ever the way he can follow grows narrower: until at last he chooses nothing, but does only and wholly what he must do. . . .

No, I don't understand him, but he is worth listening to.