“Do you see how much power you have when you act without fear?”

“Taking away men's weapons will be not bring peace. They'll fight with sticks and stones, and tooth and nail. Mapidr's is a peace supported only by fear, as secure as a nest built on a rotten branch.”

“There is far more happiness in a life that is your own than a life in which you are handed the lines to say and shown the gestures to make. Do not ever be ambitious.”

“I thought my duty was to restore Haan, but Haan is not King Cosugi or the burned-down palace or the ruins of the great estates or the dead nobles and their descendants pining for glory-these are bu...”

“I have seen the poor suffer when nobles seek the purity of ideals. I have seen the powerless die when princes believe in the nostalgia of their dreams. I have seen the common people torn from peace...”

“He intrigued her. Powerful men, in her experience, were usually not so full of doubt. Kuni was consumed by the desire to do good for others, but uncertain what "good" might be and whether he was th...”

“...if charity begins at home, empire begins in other men's homes.”

“There are no moral obligations in the game of empire.”

“Every empire grow until its reach exceeds its grasp”

“How many shots had to be fired to turn this child back to his home and anxious mother?”

“We are not subjects of a State founded upon law, but members of a society founded upon revolution. Revolution is our obligation: our hope of evolution. The Revolution is in the individual spirit, o...”

“To be out of touch with a society in which women have internalized their subjugation is an admirable thing.”