Gwydion Quotes

“I have never known courage to be judged by the length of a man's hair. Or, for the matter of that, whether he has any hair at all.”
― Lloyd Alexander, The Book of Three

“It is beyond any man's wisdom to judge the secret heart of another... for in it are good and evil mixed.”
― Lloyd Alexander, The High King

“It is not the trappings that make the prince,” he said gently, “nor, indeed, the sword that makes the warrior”
― Lloyd Alexander, The Book of Three

“But that’s the only way tyranny can be defeated – when people unite despite their differences to overcome it.”
― Yisei Ishkhan, The Tales of Abel and Mitra: Part I

“Two millennia ago, the Christians hid in these passageways to practice their faith in secret, hiding in the shadows from their persecutors. Eventually, they rose to power–they even converted the emperor. But when they did, the persecuted became the persecutor. The pagans who’d oppressed them for centuries found themselves forced underground, until eventually they died out.”
― Yisei Ishkhan, The Tales of Abel and Mitra: Part I

“The Christians waited three centuries before Constantine came along and granted them rights. He could’ve just as easily chosen Mithraism, Manichaeism, or one of the countless other forgotten sects spreading in the empire at the time. But we’re not waiting for a Constantine of our own to come along and grant us freedom. We’ll seize that freedom ourselves.”
― Yisei Ishkhan, The Tales of Abel and Mitra: Part I

“You don’t get it at all, do you, Papà? We’re all pawns here. Even me.”
― Yisei Ishkhan, The Tales of Abel and Mitra: Part I

“San Hironimo was a military commander. Some call him the ‘Jeanne d’Arc of Nippon’–a charismatic young leader who fought for justice but met martyrdom before his prime. Perhaps it was his military background that made the authorities decide his statue was better suited here than the Pietà. Funny, isn’t it? Symbols can so easily have their meaning changed over time. One generation’s icon of resistance becomes the next generation’s tool of authority. Michelangelo didn’t anticipate his Pietà would inspire rebellion, nor could San Hironimo imagine being glorified one day by a military dictatorship centuries after his death in a land he’d never set his eyes on.”
― Yisei Ishkhan, The Tales of Abel and Mitra: Part I

“You have to be a little insane if you want to change the world.”
― Yisei Ishkhan, The Tales of Abel and Mitra: Part I

“History is written by the victors. One day, people will look back on this moment as a glorious triumph as legendary as the Greek conquest of Troy or Rome’s destruction of Carthage. Did you know that this basilica was built with stones from the Colosseum, which itself was constructed from the ruins of Jerusalem’s Second Temple? Rome triumphed over the Jews, but the Jewish God triumphed over Rome. And now, we enter the dawn of a new era. This is not the end of the Eternal City; it is the beginning of the next chapter!”
― Yisei Ishkhan, The Tales of Abel and Mitra: Part I