Pierce Brown

I will learn to lead _ets. I will win. I will sharpen myself into asword. I will give my soul. I will dive to hell in hopes of one day rising to freedom. I willsacri_e. And I will grow my legend and spread it amongst the peoples of all the worldsuntil I am _ to lead the armies that will break the chains of bondage, because I am notsimply an agent of the Sons of Ares. I am not simply a tactic or a device in Ares__schemes. I am the hope of my people. Of all people in bondage.

She will not come back, but her beauty, her voice, will echo until the end of time. She believed in something beyond herself, and her death gave her voice power it didn__ have in life. She was pure, like your father. We, you and I_ _ he touches my chest with the back of his index finger _ __re dirty. We are made for blood. Rough hands. Dirty hearts. We are lesser creatures in the grand scheme of things, but without us men of war, no one except those of Lykos would hear Eo__ song. Without our rough hands, the dreams of the pure hearts would never be built.

Wisdom is found in the heart not the head.

How could any boy know that freedom is lost the moment you become a man. Things start to count. To press in. Constricting slowly, inevitably, creating a cage of inconveniences and duties and deadlines and failed plans and lost friends.

Pity is not forgiveness, nor is gratitude absolution.

You will fall to ruin because you believe that exceptions to the rule make new rules. That an evil man can shed the trappings of wickedness because you want him to. Men do not Change... Learn the lesson now, so you don't have to learn it with a knife in your back later... Reputations exist for a reason.

The foolish families worry over blood. I care nothing for purity of family or ancestry. That is a vain thing. I care only for strength. What a man can do to other men, women.

My people sing, we dance, we love. That is our strength. But we also dig. And then we die. Seldom do we get to choose why. That choice is power. That choice has been our only weapon. But it is not enough.

Mustang...' I rest my hand on her wrist. Despite her strength, it's frail in my hands. Frail as the other girl's was when I held her in the deepmines. I couldn't help that girl. And now I feel like I can't help this woman. Would that my hands were meant to build. I would know what to say. What to do. Maybe in another life I would have been that man. In this one, my words, like my hands, are clumsy. All they can do is cut. All they can do is break.

Society has three stages: Savagery, Ascendance, Decadence. The great rise because of Savagery. They rule in Ascendance. They fall because of their own Decadence."He tells how the Persians were felled, how the Romans collapsed because their rulers forgot how their parents gained them an empire. He prattles about Muslim dynasties and European effeminacy and Chinese regionalism and American self-loathing and self-neutering. All the ancient names."Our Savagery began when our capital, Luna, rebelled against the tyranny of Earth and freed herself from the shackles of Demokracy, from the Noble Lie - the idea that men are brothers and are created equal." Augustus weaves lies of his own with that golden tongue of his. He tells of the Goldens' suffering. The Masses sat on the wagon and expected the great to pull, he reminds. They sat whipping the great until we could no longer take it. I remember a different whipping. "Men are not created equal; we all know this. There are averages. There are outliers. There are the ugly. There are the beautiful. This would not be if we were all equal. A Red can no more command a starship than a Green can serve as a doctor!"There's more laughter across the square as he tells us to look at pathetic Athens, the birthplace of the cancer they call Demokracy. Look how it fell to Sparta. The Noble Lie made Athens weak. It made their citizens turn on their best general, Alcibiades, because of jealousy. "Even the nations of Earth grew jealous of one another. The United States of America exacted this idea of equality through force. And when the nations united, the Americans were surprised to find that they were disliked! The Masses are jealous! How wonderful a dream it would be if all men were created equal! But we are not.It is against the Noble Lie that we fight. But as I said before, as I say to you now, there is another evil against which we war. It is a more pernicious evil. It is a subversive, slow evil. It is not a wildfire. It is a cancer. And that cancer is Decadence. Our society has passed from Savagery to Ascendance. But like our spiritual ancestors, the Romans, we too can fall into Decadence.

Personally, I do not want to make you a man. Men are so very frail. Men break. Men die. No, I__e always wished to make a god.

We never asked to bow. Who is he to say Red and Browns toiling to death is for the greater good? Who is he to say Pink children being harvested for rape, Obsidians and Grays for battle, is a necessity? How can he sit there and say that he alone knows what is best for me, for my family? It__ not his right

Life. All this. Why do they need to make us do this? Why do they treat us like we're their slaves?""Power.""Power isn't real. It's just a word.

...power doesn__ shift. Power is resolute. It is the mountain, not the wind. To shift so easily is to lose trust.

Power is the crown that eats the head,_...

Home isn't where you're from, it's where you find light when all grows dark.

Now I am their sword. And I do not forgive. I do not forget. So let him lead me onto his shuttle. Let him think he owns me. Let him welcome into his house, so I might burn it down. But then his daughter takes my hand, and I feel all the lies fall heavy on my shoulders. They say a kingdom divided against itself cannot stand. They made no mention of the heart.

Words are weapons stronger than he knows. And songs are even greater. The words wake the mind. The melody wakes the heart.