Quotes from Terry Goodkind

Sometimes doing what you would most like to do can be the very worst thing to do. Sometimes to accomplish what you want in the end, you have to hold back in the beginning. - Zedd (Pg.161)

Evil grants no mercy, and to attempt to appease it is nothing more than a piecemeal surrender to it. Surrender to evil is slavery at best, death at worst.

He had to smile, or his fragile world would fall apart.

I am sorry, Richard Cypher. I do not know the answers that would save you. If I did, please believe I would give them eagerly. But I know the good in you. I believe in you. I do know that you have within you what you must to succeed. There will be times when you doubt yourself. Do not give up. Remember then that I believe in you, that I know you can accomplish what you must. You are a rare person, Richard Cypher. Believe in yourself. And protect Kahlan.

It is the mind that makes the person who they are, --- - Anna to Nicci. (Pg. 245)

You imply a higher value to a life because of a young age. The line, my dear, across which the value of life becomes petty. Where is the line? But a child- He held up a cautionary finger. Do not think to play on my emotions by plying me with the value of the life of a child, as if a higher value can be placed on life because of age. When is a life worth less? Where is the line? At what age? Who decides? All life is of value. Dead is dead, no matter the age.

Love is a passion for life shared with another person. You fall in love with a person who you think is wonderful. It's your deepest appreciation of the value of that individual, and that individual is a reflection of what you value most in life. Love, for sound reasons, can be one of life's greatest rewards.

Dance with me, Death. I am ready. - Richard Cypher Rahl

They knew how to cut a person both to cause pain, to cripple, and to bring a swift death, and they weren't timid about doing either.

You could die this day, so you should strive to do your best while you still lived. - Richard Cypher Rahl

The weapon which most readily conquers reason is terror and violence

Like hounds at a feast, people gather round the table of tyranny, eager for tasty scraps tossed on the floor. Not everyone will wag their tail for a tyrant, but most will, if he first makes them salivate with hate and gives license to their covetous impulses by making them feel it is only their due. Many would rather take than earn.

We are the ring of steel around Lord Rahl himself... Two thousand strong. We fall to a man before harm gets a glance at Lord Rahl. -Commander General Trimack

It doesn't require an education, Sergeant Beata, to see what's right before your eyes. Use your head." Beata

Justice is not the exercise of hatred, it is the celebration of civilization.

There is nothing fair about having to fight in war. The only fair thing would be to live in peace. The purpose of war is singular: to kill.

What are half-people? Living people he has stripped of their souls.

Eliminate the tyranny of magic from mankind.

Their words can sound good—almost make sense—if you don't think, if you just feel. Truth doesn't seem to count for much

No matter how much you know, there will always be more; no one knows everything.

He felt as if he were standing in quicksand, but he had lived with Zedd too long to dismiss the things he said simply because they were hard to fathom

Life is the future, not the past. The past can teach us, through experience, how to accomplish things in the future, comfort us with cherished memories, and provide the foundation of what has already been accomplished. But only the future holds life. To live in the past is to embrace what is dead. To live life to its fullest, each day must be created anew. As rational, thinking beings, we must use our intellect, not a blind devotion to what has come before, to make rational choices.

Think about the solution, he told himself, not the problem;

Morality comes from the top, such as parent to child. The first step, then, is to set down just laws and show that all of us must live by its maxims. You can never stop all wrongdoing, but if you don't punish it, then it proliferates until anarchy wears the robes of tolerance and understanding.