Quotes About Conflict

any exchange of words with a woman was fraught with her torturer's array of deadly implements, each one hovering at the very edge of a man's comprehension.

An army that waits is soon an army at war with itself

The Son of Darkness, a lone brow raised, slowly turned to regard the High King. 'What else, Kallor,' he said in a low, calm voice, 'keeps my blade from your black heart… if not sentiment?

Religious wars are no fun.

In a war between fanatics and skeptics, the fanatics win every time.

He let out a slow breath, only now realizing he was lying on an ants' nest and its inhabitants were telling him to leave in no uncertain terms. I lie with the weight of a god on their world, and these ants don't like it. We're so much more alike than most would think.

War isn't just one thing, over and over again. It's a thing that never stops changing, and every change is just fucking worse than what went before.

Rage and unbearable pain meshed together like twin strands in an ever-tightening rope.

It is the absence of society that leads to destruction. When concord is lost, when arguments cease and in opposition neither side sees the other as kin, as brother and sister, then all manner of atrocity is possible.

Hatred is a most pernicious weed, finding root in any kind of soil. It feeds on itself.' 'With words.' 'Indeed, with words. Form an opinion, say it often enough and pretty soon everyone's saying it right back at you, and then it becomes a conviction, fed by unreasoning anger and defended with weapons of fear. At which point, words become useless and you're left with a fight to the death.

Does it ever strike you, Finadd, that peace leads to an indulgence in strife?' 'No, since your statement is nonsensical. The opposite of peace is war, while war is an extreme expression of strife. By your argument, life is characterized as an oscillation between strife during peace and strife during war.' 'Not entirely nonsensical, then,' Turudal Brizad said.

peregrination has been anything but peaceful.

A nose in the air just made it easier to cut the throat beneath it. And when it came to that choice, why, he never hesitated. As sure as any force of Nature.

Or maybe just confused. All those bickering worshippers, each one convinced their version is the right one. Imagine getting prayers from ten million believers, not one of them believing the same thing as the one kneeling beside him or her. Imagine all those Holy Books, not one of them agreeing on anything, yet all of them purporting to be the word of that one god. Imagine two armies annihilating each other, both in that god's name. Who wouldn't be driven mad by all that?

Fiddler turned in his seat and met his corporal's dark eyes. Trouble? Maybe. The exchange was silent, a product of years fighting side by side. Crokus

And, hovering inches from her throat, was the tip of the warrior's flint sword.

She might decide on a real curse. And if she does, I need to counter it." "Hood's breath, what did you say to her?" "I made a terrible mistake. I agreed with her mother.

War is not a natural state. It is an imposition, and a damned unhealthy one. With its rules, we willingly yield our humanity. Speak not of just causes, worthy goals. We are takers of life.

I sometimes think we only invented war when we ran out of animals to kill.

IT'S NO SIMPLE thing,' he said, frowning as he worked through his thoughts, 'but in the world – among people, that is. Society, culture, nation – in the world, then, there are attackers and there are defenders. Most of us possess within ourselves elements of both, but in a general sense a person falls to one camp or the other, as befits their nature.

You mean, a little bit of wholesale slaughter is all right, Sergeant?

Tene Baralta's mailed hand was a blur as it flashed out and struck Mebra, the spurred links raking deep gashes across the man's face. Blood spattered the wall. The spy reeled back, hands to his torn face.

Corruption and incompetence. These were rebellion's sparks.

Do they hate the idea of her, because she's different from them, and that in this difference there might be some sort of inferiority or superiority that is hers or theirs, that in the end threatens the potential happiness of everyone?