Dio > Dio's Quotes

“I know that words cannot move mountains, but they can move the multitude - we've proven that time and time again. People are more ready to fight and die for a word than for anything else. Words shape thought, stir feeling, and force action. They kill and revive, corrupt and cure.”
― Dan Abnett, Horus Rising

“Everything is darkest," Xaphen mused, "before the dawn."

"That, my brother, is an axiom that sounds immensely profound until you realize it's a lie.”
― Aaron Dembski-Bowden, The First Heretic

“Striving for perfection is not foolish, but assuming you have achieved it most certainly is.”
― Mike Brooks, Alpharius: Head of the Hydra

“You came to me asking how my faith survived the Day of Judgement. I will tell you a secret. When the stars fell, when the seas boiled and the earth burned, my faith didn’t die. That is when I began to believe.

God was real, and he hated us.”
― Aaron Dembski-Bowden, The First Heretic

“Maybe belief is the biggest lie. In ages past, the earliest philosophers tried to explain the stars in the sky and the world around them. One of them conceived of the notion that the universe was mounted on giant crystal spheres controlled by a giant machine, which explained the movements of the heavens. He was laughed at and told that such a machine would be so huge and noisy that everyone would hear it. He simply replied that we are born with that noise all around us, and that we are so used to hearing it that we cannot hear it at all.”
― Dan Abnett

“Remember, my Jokers, a dropzone is like a woman. Land on her firmly, and make sure you have the vital parts located before you get going.’
Hurtado Bronzi”
― Dan Abnett, Legion

“We will spend our lives fighting to secure this Imperium, and then I fear we will spend the rest of our days fighting to keep it intact. There is such involving darkness amongst the stars. Even when the Imperium is complete, there will be no peace. We will be obliged to fight on to preserve what we have fought to establish. Peace is a vain wish. Our crusade may one day adopt another name, but it will never truly end. In the far future, there will be only war.”
― Dan Abnett, Horus Rising

“The difference between gods and daemons largely depends upon where one is standing at the time.”
― Dan Abnett, Horus Rising

“Loken tried to imagine the future, but the image would not form. Death would wipe them all from history. Not even the great First Captain Ezekyle Abaddon would survive forever. There would be a time when Abaddon no longer waged bloody war across the territories of humanity.
Loken sighed. That would be a sad day indeed. Men would cry out for Abaddon’s return, but he would never come.
He tried to picture the manner of his own death. Fabled, imaginary combats flashed through his mind. He imagined himself at the Emperor’s side, fighting some great, last stand against an unknown foe. Primarch Horus would be there, of course. He had to be. It wouldn’t be the same without him. Loken would battle, and die, and perhaps even Horus would die, to save the Emperor at the last.
Glory. Glory, like he’d never known. Such an hour would become so ingrained in the minds of men that it would be the cornerstone of all that came after. A great battle, upon which human culture would be based.
Then, briefly, he imagined another death. Alone, far away from his comrades and his Legion, dying from cruel wounds on some nameless rock, his passing as memorable as smoke.
Loken swallowed hard. Either way, his service was to the Emperor, and his service would be true to the end.”
― Dan Abnett, Horus Rising

“Xaphen swore an oath never to fail his primarch.

Argal Tal did not. He spoke in a voice soft enough to break hearts, "We are heretics, father.”
― Aaron Dembski-Bowden, The First Heretic

“Long ago, an edict was made by the planetary government that only certain fields of land could ever be used for burial. So cemetery space is at an optimum. Hence, the Law of Decipherability.’ ‘Which is?’ ‘The law states that once the eroding hands of time and the elements have made the last names on a field’s gravestones illegible, the anonymous dead may be exhumed, the bones buried in a pit, and the field reused.”
― Dan Abnett, Malleus

“One tends to accept most things my father says. It is not a matter of His word being law, although it unquestionably is. It is more the case that His word is truth. You come to see that, of course, what He has said must be the case. And if it is not, by some standard of measurement, the truth, then you can be sure that steps will be taken to ensure that it becomes true. In such a manner does my father organize the world to His desires.”
― Chris Wraight, Jaghatai Khan: Warhawk of Chogoris

“A wise man of Old Earth had once claimed that science would destroy mankind, not through its weapons of mass destruction, but through finally proving that there was no god.”
― Graham McNeill, False Gods

“The truth is useless if no one can hear it.”
― Graham McNeill, False Gods

“History is a relentless master. It has no present, only the past rushing into the future."

- Warmaster Horus”
― Graham McNeill, False Gods

“I know that words cannot move mountains, but they can move the multitude - we've proven that time and time again. People are more ready to fight and die for a word than for anything else. Words shape thought, stir feeling, and force action. They kill and revive, corrupt and cure. If being an iterator has taught me anything, it's that men of words - priests, prophets and intellectuals - have played a more decisive role in history than any military leaders or statesmen."

- Kyril Sindermann”
― Graham McNeill, False Gods

“Ignorance and fear create the gods, enthusiasm and deceit adorn them, and human weakness worships them.”
― Graham McNeill, False Gods

“Genetically altered to be physically superior to all men, with thousands of years of experience and granted strength by the Ruinous Powers, the Traitor Space Marines were among the most fearsome warriors ever known. The Adeptus Custodes were better.”
― Andy Clark, The Gate of Bones

“Going from the pursuit of perfection in all things to ultimate depravity isn’t a journey anybody makes in one step, it’s a series of small ones – each one justifiable in its own isolated way. But after you’ve taken a hundred of those small steps, you’re a long way from who you were at the start.”
― Graham McNeill, Fulgrim

“You fuss too much over making the "right" choice Gaius. All we need do is make a good choice, see it through, and accept the consequences.”
― Graham McNeill, Fulgrim

“there is no man, however wise, who has not at some time in his youth said or done things that are so unpleasant to him in later life that he would gladly expunge them from his memory if he could. In years to come, I will not be haunted by the guilt of all the good I didn’t do.”
― Graham McNeill, Fulgrim

“One human effort is nothing, but together, we are the greatest empire there has ever been. Be reassured, that your insignificant toil here aggregates with that of billions of others into something fine and mighty. In that way we serve, though we are but humble.”
― Guy Haley, Avenging Son

“All we have is life. It is the only thing that is ours.”
― Guy Haley, Avenging Son

“There's always a first time. With death, it's also the last.”
― Guy Haley, Avenging Son

“Has it ever occured to you, Master Ninefingers, that a sword is different from other weapons? Axes and maces and so forth are lethal enough, but they hang on the belt like dumb brutes. But a sword...a sword has a voice.
Sheathed it has little to say, to be sure, but you need only put your hand on the hilt and it begins to whisper in your enemy's ear. A gentle word. A word of caution. Do you hear it?
Now, compare it to the sword half drawn. It speaks louder, does it not? It hisses a dire threat. It makes a deadly promise. Do you hear it?
Now compare it to the sword full drawn. It shouts now, does it not? It screams defiance! It bellows a challenge! Do you hear it?”
― Joe Abercrombie, The Blade Itself

“I’ve fought in three campaigns,” he began. “In seven pitched battles. In countless raids and skirmishes and desperate defences, and bloody actions of every kind. I’ve fought in the driving snow, the blasting wind, the middle of the night. I’ve been fighting all my life, one enemy or another, one friend or another. I’ve known little else. I’ve seen men killed for a word, for a look, for nothing at all. A woman tried to stab me once for killing her husband, and I threw her down a well. And that’s far from the worst of it. Life used to be cheap as dirt to me. Cheaper.

“I’ve fought ten single combats and I won them all, but I fought on the wrong side and for all the wrong reasons. I’ve been ruthless, and brutal, and a coward. I’ve stabbed men in the back, burned them, drowned them, crushed them with rocks, killed them asleep, unarmed, or running away. I’ve run away myself more than once. I’ve pissed myself with fear. I’ve begged for my life. I’ve been wounded, often, and badly, and screamed and cried like a baby whose mother took her tit away. I’ve no doubt the world would be a better place if I’d been killed years ago, but I haven’t been, and I don’t know why.”

He looked down at his hands, pink and clean on the stone. “There are few men with more blood on their hands than me. None, that I know of. The Bloody-Nine they call me, my enemies, and there’s a lot of ’em. Always more enemies, and fewer friends. Blood gets you nothing but more blood. It follows me now, always, like my shadow, and like my shadow I can never be free of it. I should never be free of it. I’ve earned it. I’ve deserved it. I’ve sought it out. Such is my punishment.”
― Joe Abercrombie, The Blade Itself

“The more you learn, the more you realize how little you know. Still, the struggle itself is worthwhile. Knowledge is the root of power, after all.”
― Joe Abercrombie, The Blade Itself

“Treat a man like a dog and sooner or later he’ll bite you,”
― Joe Abercrombie, The Blade Itself

“ Always make sure your enemy is dead.
If you must fight an Ultramarine, pray you kill him. If he is still alive, then you are dead.
'You are dead, Lorgar. You are dead. You are dead.”
― Dan Abnett, Know No Fear

“'We march for Macragge!' The seargent declares
'No, not today,' Ventanus replied. 'Today, we march for Calth.'”
― Dan Abnett, Know No Fear