Top 35 Edward W. Robertson Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “Am I too blunt? If the truth is too hard to swallow, should I feed you soft lies?”

— Edward W. Robertson

2. “One last question,” Sprite said. “Who are you? Special Forces? CIA? Xenobiologist?” “I used to play a lot of World of Warcraft.”

— Edward W. Robertson

3. “It’s better to know nothing than to have to unlearn false wisdom.”

— Edward W. Robertson

4. “I wonder what’s killed more men over the years. Wild animals? Or masculine taunts?”

— Edward W. Robertson

5. “Sitting out on your own life is the best way to make sure the rest of it’s disappointing.”

— Edward W. Robertson

6. “Over the last few decades, that America of old had been stolen, snatched up by nanny state, soft-headed do-gooders on the left and wealth-obsessed sociopaths on the right who clearly believed their money meant they belonged to a superior species. They’d leveraged that money to make the laws reflect their first-class status.”

— Edward W. Robertson

7. “She ran up the hill toward the woods. The moon watched her every step, bathing her in silver suspicion. She ignored it for now. The trees swallowed her up, hiding her.”

— Edward W. Robertson

8. “The worst thing of all was very simple: the disruption of the illusion of safety. That if you were a good person who worked hard and stayed within the law, you’d always be okay.”

— Edward W. Robertson

9. “They may look like dog vomit, but they ain’t dumb.”

— Edward W. Robertson

10. “This was the lesson of the lesser dog: all violence is risk. Even the smallest dog can win if it encourages the strong dogs to take all the risk for themselves.”

— Edward W. Robertson

11. “The woman laughed, shoulders bouncing. “I think the gods eat suffering. That’s why they’ve put it everywhere you look: so anywhere they go, they’ll always be fed.”

— Edward W. Robertson

12. “Most faiths, he thought, could stand to learn the virtue of keeping their devotion to themselves.”

— Edward W. Robertson

13. “How would we even know who to help?” “Easy rule of thumb: you help the side whose village is being burned. In all the wars we’ve seen, have you ever known the village-burners to be on the right side of justice?”

— Edward W. Robertson

14. “Overconfidence is a strong ally. People are always surprised when you try to do things you can’t.”

— Edward W. Robertson

15. “He decided that brains were made of all the parts of the body that the other organs had rejected.”

— Edward W. Robertson

16. “Did anyone know anything at all, or finding times when the truth didn’t suit them, had they all been repeating falsehoods and nonsense for so long they no longer remembered what was fact and what was invention?”

— Edward W. Robertson

17. “There was something wrong with human emotions. The good ones left you as fast as a sneeze while the bad ones hung around like bronchitis.”

— Edward W. Robertson

18. “Exactly. The most convincing argument doesn’t come from pithy sayings or aphorisms, but through stories. A clear line of causality, from one event to the next, that seems to be leading to an inevitable conclusion.” “We are fighting our guerrilla war battle by battle.”

— Edward W. Robertson

19. “Speech is a dangerously imprecise form of communication even when we try to be as exact as we can be. If we’re sloppy on purpose who knows what disasters might come of it?”

— Edward W. Robertson

20. “I am sorry. My mother once told me I’d have to learn a blade to protect myself from my tongue.” “Smart woman.”

— Edward W. Robertson

21. “Too much lust for knowledge was the trappings and vanity of an unreal world.”

— Edward W. Robertson

22. “If you want to change the world for the good, you have to be willing to put on the mask of the villain.”

— Edward W. Robertson

23. “Rules are a luxury for those with the power to play by them.”

— Edward W. Robertson

24. “When the day comes for them to strike, they want you ignorant of everything, especially their intent to destroy you.”

— Edward W. Robertson

25. “Your loyalty is all you have. If you forfeit that, you burn the forest of your soul.”

— Edward W. Robertson

26. “Meanwhile, the few norren who desired political office were typically those who lacked the brains to ever be granted it. Many of the most thoughtful spoke little at all, preferring to be thought of as mentally crippled rather than exposing the wisdom of their philosophies and thus putting them at risk of a sudden promotion to power.”

— Edward W. Robertson

27. “Sleep’s more important than history, as evidenced by the fact the latter puts you to the former.”

— Edward W. Robertson

28. “When it comes to learning, most people cripple themselves by running to their teachers for help the instant things get hard. Yet if you train yourself right, you can reason your way forward far more often than you’d think, using far less hard knowledge and evidence than you’d believe possible. Getting good at that process is vital. If you try to rely on me for all your answers, you’re never going to reach them.”

— Edward W. Robertson

29. “Morality is a form of arrogance.”

— Edward W. Robertson

30. “Men are the ones who keep trying to drag the gods down to earth. The gods don’t give a damn what we do to ourselves.”

— Edward W. Robertson

31. “Process is simple. It’s got to be, if you fools hope to follow it. First comes the Listing of the Few. You think somebody would make a good leader? You call out their name. And no, smart guy, there’s no nominating yourself. Next comes the Declarations of Worth. If your nominee accepts the offer, then you get the honor of standing up and telling us why you think they’d make such a fine chief. When all the speeches are done, we vote.”

— Edward W. Robertson

32. “But this was why you needed others: their brains operated differently. Frustratingly so, too often, but sometimes their shape of crazy was the perfect complement for your own.”

— Edward W. Robertson

33. “I think,” Blays said, “that it’s time to switch to Plan Flee.”

— Edward W. Robertson

34. “It’s one of those things that’s worked, no matter how crazy it sounds, so it’s hardly worth getting into why it works.”

— Edward W. Robertson

35. “She wagged her finger. “Knife, too.” He glanced at his ankle in mock surprise. “Oh, this isn’t one of those killing knives. This one’s purely sentimental.” “Oh? What cherished memories does it carry?” “... killing things.” He handed it over. She.”

— Edward W. Robertson

36. “Oops!” “We should probably put that on our tombstones.” “That or ‘It seemed like a good idea at the time.”

— Edward W. Robertson

37. “It was like old people were terrified of dying without duplicating their minds on those who would replace them.”

— Edward W. Robertson

38. “You should know this about giants: when one decides not to crush you, that’s because he means to eat you instead.”

— Edward W. Robertson