The best Quotes from The Stormlight Archive

Life breaks us, Teft. Then we fill the cracks with something stronger.

Do not let your assumptions about a culture block your ability to perceive the individual, or you will fail.

I have found, through painful experience, that the most important step a person can take is always the next one.

Life before Death.
Strength before Weakness.
Journey before Destination.

As I fear not a child with a weapon he cannot lift, I will never fear the mind of a man who does not think.

A woman's strength should not be in her role, whatever she chooses to be, but in the power to choose that role.

Expectations were like fine pottery. The harder you held them, the more likely they were to crack.

Somebody has to start. Somebody has to step forward and do what is right, because it is right.

The purpose of a storyteller is not to tell you how to think, but to give you questions to think upon.

"The question," she replied, "is not whether you will love, hurt, dream, and die. It is what you will love, why you will hurt, when you will dream, and how you will die. This is your choice. You cannot pick the destination, only the path."

Yes, I began my journey alone, and I ended it alone.
But that does not mean that I walked alone.

"I will take responsibility for what I have done," Dalinar whispered. "If I must fall, I will rise each time a better man."

This world, it is a tempest sometimes. But remember, the sun always rises again.

As long as you keep trying, there's a chance. When you give up? That's when the dream dies.

To lack feeling is to be dead, but to act on every feeling is to be a child.

In my painful experience, the truth may be simple, but it is rarely easy.

The world isn't fair? What a huge revelation! Some people in power abuse those they have power over? Amazing! When did this start happening?

Words are where most change begins.

"I don't talk to myself because I'm crazy."
"No?"
"I do it because I'm awesome."

One can believe in a story without believing it happened.

In the end, I must proclaim that no good can be achieved of false means. For the substance of our existence is not in the achievement, but in the method.

Plan every battle as if you will inevitably retreat, but fight every battle like there is no backing down.

Expectation wasn't just about what people expected of you. It was about what you expected of yourself.

"Ah, the outdoors," Shallan said. "I visited that mythical place once."

Aim for the sun. That way if you miss, at least your arrow will fall far away, and the person it kills will likely be someone you don't know.

All stories told have been told before. We tell them to ourselves, as did all men who ever were. And all men who ever will be. The only things new are the names.

"The only time you seem honest is when you're insulting someone!"
"The only honest things I can say to you are insults."

Those candle flames were like the lives of men. So fragile. So deadly. Left alone, they lit and warmed. Let run rampant, they would destroy the very things they were meant to illuminate.

In the end, all men die. How you lived will be far more important to the Almighty than what you accomplished.

Strength does not make one capable of rule; it makes one capable of service.

An excuse is what you make after the deed is done, while a justification is what you offer before.

But merely being tradition does not make something worthy, Kadash. We can't just assume that because something is old it is right.

Two blind men waited at the end of an era, contemplating beauty.

I like visiting people in prison. I can say whatever I want to them, and they can't do anything about it.

Can you feel it? Something just changed. I believe that's the sound the world makes when it pisses itself.

The book spoke of a king carrying the burdens of his people. It said that those who led were the lowest of men, for they were required to serve everyone.

What honor can we find on a battlefield while our people starve?