“Violence harms the one who does it as much as the one who receives it. You could cut down a tree with an axe. The axe does violence to the tree, and escapes unharmed. Is that how you see it? Wood is soft compared to steel, but the sharp steel is dulled as it chops, and the sap of the tree will rust and pit it. The mighty axe does violence to the helpless tree, and is harmed by it. So it is with men, though the harm is in the spirit.”

“So if you are the big tree, we are the small axe. Ready to cut you down, to cut you down.”

“Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.”

“Once he had a grove of oaks chopped down because they were looking at him. And then insisted that they would be given decent funerals; he gave the orations. Do you have any idea how longs it takes to dig graves for twenty-three oak trees?”

“Sandar came to stand beside him, frowning down at the crumpled High Lord. "He does not look so mighty lying there," he said wonderingly. "He does not look so much greater than me.”

“A wise ruler takes advice, but should never be seen to take it. Let them think you know more than you do. It will not harm them, and it will help you.”

“It's so heartbreaking, violence, when it's in a house-like seeing the clothes in a tree after an explosion. You may be prepared to see death but not the clothes in the tree.”