“In reading the lives of great men, I found that the first victory they won was over themselves... self-discipline with all of them came first.”

“The first and best victory is to conquer self”

“Thus it is that in war the victorious strategist only seeks battle after the victory is won, whereas he who is destined to defeat first fights and afterwards looks for victory.”

“Here, in Alethkar, men often spoke of the legends -- of mankind's hard-won victory over the Voidbringers. But when weapons created to fight nightmares were turned against common soldiers, the lives of men became cheap things indeed.”

“Genius at first is little more than a great capacity for receiving discipline.”

“The first and last schoolmaster of life is living and committing oneself unreservedly and dangerously to living; to men who know this an Aristotle and a Plato have much to say; but those who have imposed cautions on themselves and petrified themselves in a system of ideas, them the masters themselves will lead into error”