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“The war all over again – that’s exactly what they will have if they do win their complete military victory. When the “knock-out blow” has been dealt, they’ll have to go on keeping big armies and building big ships, to consolidate their position as top-dog. And as long as we have big armies and navies, we shall always have wars. The pretty toys have to be used – they can’t be kept for show…”
― Rose Allatini, Despised and Rejected

“For a moment, Poldo’s mind flashed back to when he was a young boy in his family workshop, when his father had sat him down and told him that if nothing else, he could take pride in being a good person. Since then, he’d discovered that being a good person was the last resort of self-esteem.

In the upper echelons of Andarun’s financial industry, people prided themselves on the name of the firm they worked for, the size of the deals they closed, the title on their business card, and anything else that could be quickly boiled down to a sum of gold. With so much to take pride in beyond integrity, many bankers put little stock in it.”
― J. Zachary Pike, Son of a Liche