Dragon kind was no less cruel than mankind. The Dragon, at least, acted from bestial need rather than bestial greed.”
~ A thought by Lessa ~

"WE MUST HONOR our dragons, encourage them to be worthy destroyers, expect they'll strive to cut us down. It's their duty to ridicule us, it's their job to demean us, to force us if they can to stop being different! And when we walk our way no matter their fire and their fury, our dragons shrug when we're out of sight, return to their card games philosophical: "Ah, well, we can't toast 'em all . . .

And fantasy it was, for we were not strong, only aggressive; we were not free, merely licensed; we were not compassionate, we were polite; not good, but well behaved. We courted death in order to call ourselves brave, and hid like thieves from life. We substituted good grammar for intellect; we switched habits to simulate maturity; we rearranged lies and called it truth, seeing in the new pattern of an old idea the Revelation and the Word.

So maybe the difference isn't language. Maybe it's this: animals do neither good nor evil. They do as they must do. We may call what they do harmful or useful, but good and evil belong to us, who chose to choose what we do. The dragons are dangerous, yes. They can do harm, yes. But they're not evil. They're beneath our morality, if you will, like any animal. Or beyond it. They have nothing to do with it.
We must choose and choose again. The animals need only be and do. We're yoked, and they're free. So to be with an animal is to know a little freedom...

We are cruel enough without meaning to be.

Had we never lov'd sae kindly,
Had we never lov'd sae blindly,
Never met — or never parted — we had ne'er been broken-hearted

I was not a cruel person. I didn't commit murder because I enjoyed causing pain. I had pets all my life and I wanted to be a veterinarian. I never was a bully, or provoked fights, or picked on people weaker than I was.

We ruined ourselves-I have never honestly thought that we ruined each other.

We are noble people, consider what am saying carefully, we don't know neither treachery nor treason nor guile nor Intrigues. We don't do such things. I am reminding you and myself. we don't betray, we don't plot. We are noble patriotic establishment.

We men dream dreams, we work magic, we do good, we do evil. The dragons do not dream. They are dreams. They do not work magic: it is their substance, their being. They do not do; they are.

I gather we’re not the most craven species in the galaxy, but we’re not the most angelic by a long shot.

Toward no crimes have men shown themselves so cold-bloodedly cruel as in punishing differences in belief.

We are not cowards, we are not kafir.

I mean, we're tough but we don't kill our opponents and eat them.