Steven Erikson Quotes

Lying is not only a defense mechanism; it's also a coping mechanism and a survival technique.

Self-Preservation is a full-time occupation.

Appearances to the mind are of four kinds. Things either are what they appear to be; or they neither are, nor appear to be; or they are, and do not appear to be; or they are not, and yet appear to be. Rightly to aim in all these cases is the wise man's task.

The wise speak only of what they know

I learned some invaluable lessons in Nashville that apply to both farming and show business: Do not corner something you know is meaner than you; keep skunks of all kinds at a distance; if you forgive your enemies, it messes up their heads.

Aphorisms are not true or false, but pointed or flat.

There is no proverb that is not true.

Lose no time to contradict her, Nor endeavor to convict her; Only take this rule along, Always to advise her wrong, And reprove her when she's right; She may then grow wise for spite.

Even if a fool lived with a wise man all his life, he would still not recognise the truth, like a wooden spoon cannot recognise the flavour of the soup.

He who is in love is wise and is becoming wiser, sees newly every time he looks at the object beloved, drawing from it with his eyes and his mind those virtues which it possesses.

All knowledge is interesting to a wise man, and the knowledge of nature is interesting to all men.

Look, I learned from your uncle that when the universe turns out to be insane, the wise man embraces insanity.

The supreme guide in life is knowledge.

The truest sayings are paradoxical.

I'm looking for a market for wisdom.

Men of the world who value the Way all turn to books. But books are nothing more than words. Words have value; what is of value in words is meaning. Meaning has something it is pursuing, but the thing that it is pursuing cannot be put into words and handed down. The world values words and hands down books but, though the world values them, I do not think them worth valuing. What the world takes to be values is not real value.

Wisdom and love have nothing to do with each other. Wisdom is staying alive, survival. You're wise if you don't stick your finger in the light plug. Love - you'll stick your finger in anything.

The wise duck keeps his mouth shut when he smells frogs.

I think maybe to survive, I mean to just get through the day - I'm not saying that everything is hilariously funny.

CONTEMPLATE THE workings of this world, listen to the words of the wise, and take all that is good as your own. With this as your base, open your own door to truth. Do not overlook the truth that is right before you.

They say that there are three kinds of people in the world. There are people who never learn one way or another anything; there are people who learn from their own mistakes, eventually and with great pain; and then there are the really wise people who learn from other people's mistakes and spare themselves the suffering.

Gnomic wisdom, however, is notoriously polychrome, and proverbs depend for their truth entirely on the occasion they are applied to. Almost every wise saying has an opposite one, no less wise, to balance it.