Top 70 Anthony Ryan Quotes (2024 Update)

1. “Ignorant people will believe anything if they’re scared enough.”

— Anthony Ryan

2. “If the stars in the sky are not fixed, then nothing is fixed. Nothing is eternal, all is temporary and ever-changing.” She turned away from the stars, meeting his gaze. “Nothing is fixed, my lord. No course is so set it cannot be changed.”

— Anthony Ryan

3. “It is the lessons we learn that change us from boys to men.”

— Anthony Ryan

4. “We’re soldiers, boy. Soldier’s life is hard, short on pleasure and long on pain.”

— Anthony Ryan

5. “Trust is more important than fear.”

— Anthony Ryan

6. “An axe without a blade is just a stick.”

— Anthony Ryan

7. “Love may claim our hearts but lust will always claim our bodies. It is the traitor that lurks in every soul.”

— Anthony Ryan

8. “Wise Bear said something in his own language, mouth twisting in disgust as if the words stained his tongue. He caught Vaelin’s enquiring gaze and provided a terse translation, “Cat People.”

— Anthony Ryan

9. “But people are still people, however comfortable their surroundings. They lie, they feud, they betray and however much you give them, they always want more.”

— Anthony Ryan

10. “Choice is a lie. The greatest of lies.”

— Anthony Ryan

11. “My finest student, and also my greatest disappointment.”

— Anthony Ryan

12. “What do you think the world is if not just an endless parade of madness? To make war is madness. To seek power is madness.” She laughed louder, throwing her arms wide. “And madness is glorious!”

— Anthony Ryan

13. “The price of stability is unpreparedness.”

— Anthony Ryan

14. “Courage?” I gave a very soft laugh. “I find courage is just another of life’s illusions. In the end, we all do what we must.”

— Anthony Ryan

15. “And chivalry – ” Wilhum let out a short, bitter laugh “ – is the worst trick of all, for it fools us with the illusion that war is anything but a chaos of slaughter and suffering.”

— Anthony Ryan

16. “What has happened cannot be changed, and so you cannot touch it. Change is the province of the future.”

— Anthony Ryan

17. “Destruction, it appears,” Nortah went on, a ghost of his old smile on his lips, “is our principal gift to the world, brother.”

— Anthony Ryan

18. “I was a slave, but never a fool. This empire is vast beyond imagining and we have killed only a fraction of the force they will bring against us. They will kill us, all of us, for we are slaves and we cannot be allowed even the barest hope of freedom. Without us, they have no empire.”

— Anthony Ryan

19. “Some memories are best left to wither.”

— Anthony Ryan

20. “Beware the seduction of the quick conclusion. Do not indulge in the answer you desire until you know all you need to know.”

— Anthony Ryan

21. “I did wonder if I’d have cause to rue my action. Now I believe it can safely be filed under Necessary Regrets.”

— Anthony Ryan

22. “We found a jewel in the desert,’” I quoted. “’And from it fashioned a charred cinder.”

— Anthony Ryan

23. “Cruelty is in all of us,” he said. “But they made it a virtue.”

— Anthony Ryan

24. “No, I’m truthful. It’s my weapon.”

— Anthony Ryan

25. “Honour’ is just a word. You can’t eat it or drink it and yet everywhere I go men talk of it endlessly, and they all tell a different tale of what it actually means.”

— Anthony Ryan

26. “Only in war does the madman become sane.”

— Anthony Ryan

27. “What a burden it is to have an intelligent daughter. It goes against nature for wit to be bound up in so much beauty.”

— Anthony Ryan

28. “You hide it well, but I can see it, Lord Verniers. You hate us. We have beaten you to obedience but it’s still there, like dry tinder waiting for a spark.”

— Anthony Ryan

29. “All knowledge is a threat to someone.” Vaelin.”

— Anthony Ryan

30. “All ambition is folly when it fails to be matched by reason.”

— Anthony Ryan

31. “What is broken remains so, it is the way of things.”

— Anthony Ryan

32. “War is ever the folly of the ignorant. But I have seen much to convince me some wars must be fought, to the bitterest end if need be.”

— Anthony Ryan

33. “Your realm is an insane place. In Volaria, no-one goes hungry, slaves are no use when they starve. Those freeborn too lazy or lacking in intelligence to turn sufficient profit to feed themselves are made slaves so they can generate wealth for those deserving of freedom, and be fed in return. Here, your people are chained by their freedom, free to starve and beg from the rich. It’s disgusting.”

— Anthony Ryan

34. “Hide an advantage and you double its value.”

— Anthony Ryan

35. “Battle is a hard business, sister. Soft training will make for soft soldiers, who will in turn become soft corpses.”

— Anthony Ryan

36. “In order to contemplate, one must have something to contemplate. A life without experience provides no chance of contemplation. Those who have not lived cannot mediate om the mysterious of life.”

— Anthony Ryan

37. “It’s a rare man who can guard against beauty.”

— Anthony Ryan

38. “Time,’ he told me, ’is both precious and worthless. It is eternal and fleeting. Like clay, you may make of it what you will, if your hands possess the skill to do so.”

— Anthony Ryan

39. “Put more than one philosopher together and you’ll birth an argument,” Erlin commented. “A truism I’ve observed the world over. In fact, I once saw one argue with himself, it got quite violent in the end.”

— Anthony Ryan

40. “War is never good for commerce. Lest your trading in steel o’course.”

— Anthony Ryan

41. “The world might be a better place were it ruled by disappointed souls.”

— Anthony Ryan

42. “Give them the right lie and they’ll believe it.”

— Anthony Ryan

43. “True change has never been bloodless.”

— Anthony Ryan

44. “You mistake purpose for cruelty, and I have always had a purpose. I am not mindless.”

— Anthony Ryan

45. “She inclined her head and turned her gaze back to the sky. He was dismissed. The most beautiful woman he had ever seen, bathed in moonlight. It was a truly captivating sight, one he found himself fervently wishing he never saw again.”

— Anthony Ryan

46. “Mercy is the sweetest wine and the bitterest wormwood,” Eliss, the mother, said. “For it rewards the merciful and shames the guilty.”

— Anthony Ryan

47. “My mother used to say that men would fight and kill for money, but they would only die for their gods.”

— Anthony Ryan

48. “There,” he said, pointing. “We’ll camp on the westward slope. No fires, and it would be greatly appreciated, Baron, if your men refrained from excessive noise.” “I’ll do what I can, my lord. But they’re not peasants, y’know. Can’t just flog them like your lot.” “Maybe you should, milord,” Dentos suggested. “Remind ’em they bleed the same colour as us peasants.”

— Anthony Ryan

49. “One of the curses suffered by the intelligent is the power of imagination, for a clever mind will explore the dark possibilities with far more dedication than the bright.”

— Anthony Ryan

50. “He recalled those brief years when his song had fallen silent, his refusal to heed it leaving him bereft, without guidance. It had been hard to be so rudderless in a sea of chaos and war. This, however, was much worse, because now there was the chill, the bone-deep cold that had seeped into him in the Ally’s domain and lingered on here in this world of myriad paths, all seemingly so dark. And the words, of course, those words that hounded him from the Beyond. We will make an ending, you and I.”

— Anthony Ryan