“What is belief—what is faith—if you don't continue it after failure?”
“How could anyone understand the pain of a faith betrayed? He had believed. And yet, when he had needed hope the most, he had found only emptiness... Belief isn’t simply a thing for fair times and bright days, I think. What is belief—what is faith—if you don’t continue in it after failure. . . .”
“Belief isn't simply a thing for fair times and bright days...What is belief - what is faith - if you don't continue in it after failure?...Anyone can believe in someone, or something that always succeeds...But failure...ah, now, that is hard to believe in, certainly and truly. Difficult enough to have value. Sometimes we just have to wait long enough...then we find out why exactly it was that we kept believing...There's always another secret.”
“I continue to wonder,' he said, glancing down at Min, 'why you all assume that I am too dense to see what you find so obvious. Yes, Nynaeve. Yes, this hardness will destroy me. I know.' ...You all claim that I have grown too hard, that I will inevitably shatter and break if I continue on. But you assume that there needs to be something left of me to continue on. ...That's the key, Nynaeve. I see it now. I will not live through this, and so I don't need to worry about what might happen to me after the Last Battle. I don't need to hold back, don't need to salvage anything of this beaten up soul of mine.”
“What responsibility are you avoiding...He wasn't avoiding responsibility...Though there was one thing he clung to. An excuse, perhaps, like the dead emperor. It was the soul of the wretch. Apathy. The belief that nothing was his fault, the belief that he couldn't change anything. If a man was cursed, or if he believed he didn't have to care, then he didn't need to hurt when he failed. Those failures couldn't have been prevented. Someone or something else had ordained them.”
“Belief?""Yes," Sazed said. "Tell me, Mistress. What is it that you believe?"Vin frowned. "What kind of question is that?""The most important kind, I think.”
“It's easy to believe in something when you win all the time...The losses are what define a man's faith.”