Quotes from Orson Scott Card

Law can change how people behave when others are watching that's all.

If a father commands a son to commit a crime so terrible that the son can't do it and live with himself, then is it betrayal for the son to disobey his father?

Humans, in order to rise above the animals, had learned how to convert themselves into nothing more than organs or limbs or even disposable fingernails and hair of a larger metaphorical organism.

We can wash people in the water all we want, but we can never wash their parents out of their hearts.

We all choose our own teachers, don't we? I wonder if our choice of teacher shows anything about what our lives will be.

I believe in everything that seems true to me right now. I just refuse to be surprised when some of those things I believe in now turn out to be false later.

Religion isn't always pretty. Especially viewed from the outside, by an unbeliever.

To face death, that's nothing much. But to feel really stupid when you die, well, that would be insufferable.

Money only buys the illusion of power. Real power is in the force of will will strong enough that others bend to it for its own sake, and follow it willingly. Power that is won through deception will evaporate under the hot light of truth.

You are so intent that you believe only what you believe that you believe, that you remain utterly blind to what you really believe without believing that you believe it.

Love can't conquer anything. Love can't make a scholar into a warrior. Loving her can't make her love me.

You aren't the kind of guy who takes the law into his own hands. You left the law in other hands and it screwed you over pretty badly.

It is the downfall of evil, that it never sees far enough ahead.

Self-knowledge can be painful, but not half so damaging as self-ignorance.

No man can bear to live with a woman who speaks nothing but the truth to him.

Honesty always sounds like impudence to the vain and stupid.

You are exactly what you seem, and so you always assume that other people are, too.

You are sure your enemy is stupid because he doesn't do things as you would do them. It will make you careless, and your enemy will surprise you.

The older you get, the more you believe in God, whatever face he wears.

Keeping secrets was the beginning of freedom.

We were all victims of an oppressive system, but that mattered far less to us than our deep bonding with our owners.

To me, the truth is what actually happened. Yet it is impossible to know anything approaching the whole truth about past events. Even the people living them could not possibly understand. That truth is always out of reach.

If it isn't a wonderful story first, who cares how "important" it is?

This is how humans are: we question all our beliefs, except for the ones we really believe, and those we never think to question.