Top 300 Terry Goodkind Quotes (2026 Update)
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51. “The only thing you can be is yourself nothing more nothing less.”

— Terry Goodkind

52. “Once you teach me something, it’s mine to use.”

— Terry Goodkind

53. “To love someone means that you sometimes are fulfilled the most by putting thier deepest desires above your own.”

— Terry Goodkind

54. “No one ever goes into battle thinking God is on the other side.”

— Terry Goodkind

55. “The light of a new day always chases the shadows of the night away, and shows us that the shape of our fears is only the ghost of our own minds.”

— Terry Goodkind

56. “Wizard’s Tenth Rule Willfully turning aside from the truth is treason to one’s self.”

— Terry Goodkind

57. “Many people believe everything others say, even though what they see with their own eyes, should be enough to tell them otherwise.”

— Terry Goodkind

58. “Honor is honesty to what is, not blind duty to what you wish to be.”

— Terry Goodkind

59. “Celebrating faith over reason is merely a way of denying what is, in favor of embracing any whim that strikes your fancy.”

— Terry Goodkind

60. “Fools who won’t see the truth are deadly.”

— Terry Goodkind

61. “People need an enemy to feel a sense of purpose.”

— Terry Goodkind

62. “I’d rather look a fool than be right and fail to act.”

— Terry Goodkind

63. “Fate occasionally touches us all in ways we don’t always understand...”

— Terry Goodkind

64. “Culture carries no privilege to exist. Cultures do not have value simply because they are. Some cultures, the world is better off without.”

— Terry Goodkind

65. “Reasons are the spoils of victory. When you’ve destroyed the enemy, then your leaders write down the reasons in books, and give moving speeches about them. If you’ve done your job, then there aren’t any of the enemy left to dispute your leader’s reasons. At least not until the next war.”

— Terry Goodkind

66. “Make sure the shadow you chase is not the one you cast.”

— Terry Goodkind

67. “It is said that the greatest cruelty is drawn from those with the kindest hearts.”

— Terry Goodkind

68. “The mice think they are right, but my cat eats them anyways. This is the point, reality is nothing, perception is everything.”

— Terry Goodkind

69. “Right and wrong are not the product of census.”

— Terry Goodkind

70. “You can’t argue with the fools in the world. It’s better to let them have their way, then trick them when they’re not paying attention.”

— Terry Goodkind

71. “I’m surprised you don’t know more about magic, Sister Verna. There is a word that is magic. It can accomplish more than you might think. Maybe you have heard it before. It is the word ’please.”

— Terry Goodkind

72. “The worse you are at thinking, the better you are at drinking.”

— Terry Goodkind

73. “But if used for retribution, magic is vengeance incarnate.”

— Terry Goodkind

74. “Wizard’s Seventh Rule Life is the future, not the past.”

— Terry Goodkind

75. “In the darkest hours we must believe in ourselves.”

— Terry Goodkind

76. “Faith and feelings are the darkness to reason’s light. “Reason is the very substance of truth itself. The glory that is life is wholly embraced through reason, through this rule. In rejecting it, in rejecting reason, one embraces death.”

— Terry Goodkind

77. “We can’t live our lives according to what might have been. We have to live by what is.”

— Terry Goodkind

78. “If something is wrong, it matters not if a thousand men are for it; you must still oppose it. If something is just, no amount of popular outcry should stay you from your course.”

— Terry Goodkind

79. “One of the things that defines our character is how we handle mistakes.”

— Terry Goodkind

80. “Fantasy allows you bend the world and the situation to more clearly focus on the moral aspects of what’s happening. In fantasy you can distill life down to the essence of your story.”

— Terry Goodkind

Featured in: Quotes About Stories

81. “After that, I came back every year. Everyone said, ‘Well, when you retire you can move there.’ But I said, ‘Why should I live my whole life where I don’t want to be.’”

— Terry Goodkind

82. “Wrong doing must be punished. If not, it will proliferate until anarchy wears the robes of tolerance and understanding.”

— Terry Goodkind

83. “Never let a beautiful woman pick your path for you when there is a man in her line of sight.”

— Terry Goodkind

84. “The training of a Mord-Sith takes years – to learn to handle the pain. I guess it’s also why only women are Mord-Sith, men are too weak.”

— Terry Goodkind

85. “Dancing with death meant being committed to killing, committed with your heart and soul.”

— Terry Goodkind

86. “Charity, if you have the means, is a personal choice, but charity which is expected or compelled is simply a polite word for slavery.”

— Terry Goodkind

87. “Everyone has an effect on others. Some people inspire others to do great things. Some take people into crime with them. Those with the gift affect those around them even more.”

— Terry Goodkind

88. “Fussing keeps you sharp. When you get old, you need to stay sharp.”

— Terry Goodkind

89. “We reap a reward merely in the act of helping others. We never know how, or if, that reward will come back to us. Helping is the reward; none other is needed nor better.”

— Terry Goodkind

90. “Sometimes, it is necessary to step beyond what you have known and to reach for something more.”

— Terry Goodkind

91. “Every person’s life is theirs by right. An individual’s life can and must belong only to to himself, not to any society or community, or he is then but a slave.”

— Terry Goodkind

92. “The power needs truth to work. Truth is reality, the laws of nature. They’re inseparable. That relationship is represented by the word woven into the hilt. That makes this sword meant to serve more than just the power. It is also meant to serve the truth. This is the Sword of Truth.”

— Terry Goodkind

93. “In her eyes he saw something that attracted him more than anything else. Intelligence. He saw it flaring there, burning in her, and through it all he felt an overriding sense of her integrity. Richard felt safe.”

— Terry Goodkind

94. “To those who would dominate you, knowledge must be crushed, because people who understand are people who will stand against the unfairness of the elite.”

— Terry Goodkind

95. “Life is the future, not the past.”

— Terry Goodkind

96. “It is a mistake to say something cannot be done simply because you don’t know how to do it.”

— Terry Goodkind

97. “There are times when there is no choice but to act immediately; even then it must be with your best judgment, using all your experience and everything you do know.”

— Terry Goodkind

98. “To the right person, the person who is truly born to it, duty is a form of love, through which all is possible. Duty is not always a denial of things, but an expansion of them to others. Duty is not always a chore, but is best carried out with love.”

— Terry Goodkind

99. “Perception was easily accomplished, required little effort, and it never had to stand the test of reality.”

— Terry Goodkind

100. “This is how tyrants win the will of the people: with lies.”

— Terry Goodkind