Top 150 David Gemmell Quotes (2025 Update)
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51. “Blood always aids blood, my friend.”

— David Gemmell

52. “The world would be a sadder place without stories.”

— David Gemmell

53. “Heroes are people who face down their fears. It is that simple. A child afraid of the dark who one day blows out the candle; a women terrified of the pain of childbirth who says, ‘It is time to become a mother’. Heroism does not always live on the battlefield.”

— David Gemmell

54. “I would have offered you a forest of truth, but you wish to speak of a single leaf.”

— David Gemmell

55. “Hold on to your dreams, Kiall. They are more important than you realise.”

— David Gemmell

56. “This world has few redeeming features, and one is the capacity for people to love one another with great, enduring passion.”

— David Gemmell

57. “I think maybe it is better to believe than not to believe. But I couldn’t tell you why.”

— David Gemmell

58. “I don’t know yet whether I fully believe in fate, but certain things do happen in a man’s life that he cannot explain.”

— David Gemmell

59. “A man with wife and daughters has no place losing his temper.”

— David Gemmell

60. “Any good that I may do, let me do it now, for I may not pass this way again.”

— David Gemmell

61. “A man must know his limitations.”

— David Gemmell

62. “Love is not about conquest. The truth is a man can only find true love when he surrenders to it. When he opens his heart to the partner of his soul and says: “Here it is! The very essence of me! It is yours to nurture or destroy.”

— David Gemmell

63. “Men don’t change. They just learn to disguise the lack of change.”

— David Gemmell

64. “Every man has his own reason for every deed. Usually it is selfish.”

— David Gemmell

65. “Most wars are fought for greed, but we are luckier here we fight for our lives and the lives of the people we love.”

— David Gemmell

66. “Fear cannot be trusted... It exaggerates everything. It is both treacherous and dishonest.”

— David Gemmell

67. “Be at peace, my friend. One thing I have learnt about Death is that his bark is worse than his bite.”

— David Gemmell

68. “I was a man before I was a king, and no true man walks away when a friend needs him.”

— David Gemmell

69. “If there is one sound the follows the march of humanity, it is the scream.”

— David Gemmell

70. “If you want to fight evil, you have to climb down in the slime to do so.”

— David Gemmell

71. “Come back and stand with us, lad. We will all go down together that’s what makes us who we are.”

— David Gemmell

72. “I am a stranger. You do not need to lie to me or pretend. Only with friends do you need masks...”

— David Gemmell

73. “Life is a struggle, from the agonies of birth to the railing against death. Devour or be devoured. The law of the wild.”

— David Gemmell

74. “You know how it is. Boy meets girl, girl wants boy dead. An everyday story, really.”

— David Gemmell

75. “Evil will never be countered while good men do nothing.”

— David Gemmell

76. “A man needs many things in his life to make it bearable. A good woman. Sons and daughters. Comradeship. Warmth. Food and shelter. But above all these things, he needs to be able to know that he is a man.”

— David Gemmell

77. “Jon Shannow, the King of Kings has spoken the words of your death. I am Rhodaeul the Hunter. Do you have anything to say before you die?’ ‘No,’ said Shannow, palming his gun and blasting Rhodaeul from the saddle. The Atlantean hit the ground hard, a hammering pain in his chest; he tried to draw his pistol, but Shannow rode forward and fired a second shot that smashed his skull.”

— David Gemmell

78. “Everyone makes mistakes. Everyone fails at something.”

— David Gemmell

79. “When a fool sees himself as he is, then he is a fool no longer; and when a wise man learns of his own wisdom, then he becomes a fool.” This caused me great trouble, for it seemed mere word play. But after many years I have come to this conclusion: that only in certainty is there moral danger. Doubt is the gift we must cherish, for it forces us to question our motives constantly. It guides us to truth.”

— David Gemmell

80. “I don’t want eternal life. I want a little joy, a large amount of pleasure, and a swift death once I lose the appetite for either.”

— David Gemmell

81. “Only a fool loves war,” said Calvar, “or a man who has never seen it. The trouble is that the survivors forget about the horrors and remember only the battle lust. They pass on that memory, and other men hunger for it.”

— David Gemmell

82. “All legends have a base in fact.”

— David Gemmell

83. “How simple love would be, Younger Brother, if we only had to bestow it on those who deserved it. Yet what would it be worth? If you gave a poor man a silver coin then that would be a gift. If you expected him to pay you back, then that would make it a loan. We do not loan our love, Lantern. We give it freely.”

— David Gemmell

84. “While men compete in war, there will be warriors. While there are warriors, there will be princes among warriors. Among the princes will be kings, and among the kings an emperor.”

— David Gemmell

85. “Are you the Deathwalker?’ called the man. ‘Yes.’ ‘You are old and fat. It pleases me.’ ‘Good! Remember that when next we meet, for I have marked you, Loudmouth, and my axe knows the name of your spirit. Now, what is your message?”

— David Gemmell

86. “Old age is not as honorable as death, but most people seek it.”

— David Gemmell

87. “Hatred is like a plague. It is all-consuming, and it springs from man to man.”

— David Gemmell

88. “What do all men seek? I want to be happy. I would like a wife and sons one day. But I want them to grow in a land where there is hope for the future, where men do not take to the road. If that is a hopeless dream – and maybe it is – then I will sire no sons. I will wander, and play my harp, and weave my magick until the end.”

— David Gemmell

89. “Our modern world, though infinitely more complex than that of ancient Greece, is also far more superficial. Where the Greeks offered simple psychological training, we live in an age of style and spin in which perceptions of good and evil slither and shift with the political view of the moment.”

— David Gemmell

90. “A man should not risk his life for beauty alone, Kiall, for that fades. You might as well risk it for a rose. Think on it.”

— David Gemmell

91. “Fear is an aid to the warrior. It is a small fire burning. It heats the muscles, making us stronger. Panic comes when the fire is out of control, consuming all courage and pride.”

— David Gemmell

92. “Societies need heroes. So we travel to places where the revisionists cannot dismantle the great.”

— David Gemmell

93. “Get rid of your doubts. Yesterday is dead. Past mistakes are like smoke in the breeze.”

— David Gemmell

94. “You do not convince me. You rationalize your actions and because the result is favorable you become right.”

— David Gemmell

95. “Less of a Galahad than a Lancelot, thought Archer. A flawed knight in a flawed world, unstable yet unyielding.”

— David Gemmell

96. “Like light and shadow, love and hate were inseparable. One could not exist without the other.”

— David Gemmell

97. “Foolish: It’s all foolish. Life is a farce a stupid, sickening farce played out by fools.”

— David Gemmell

98. “I remember an old teacher of mine once saying that behind every dark cloud the sun was just waiting to boil you to death.”

— David Gemmell

99. “Death haunts everyone and never fails.”

— David Gemmell

100. “Love is both wondrous and yet full of peril. Love is a gateway through which hatred – disguised and unrecognized – can pass.”

— David Gemmell