Mistborn: The Hero of Ages

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~This page is still under construction~

Author:: [[Brandon Sanderson]]
Highlights::

“Somehow, we'll find it. The balance between whom we wish to be and whom we need to be. But for now, we simply have to be satisfied with who we are.”
“If you give up what you want most for what you think you should want more, you'll end up miserable.”
“Lately, I feel like my life is a book written in a language I don't know how to read.”
“I ask of you your lives,” Elend said, voice echoing, “and your courage. I ask of you your faith, and your honor—your strength, and your compassion. For today, I lead you to die. I will not ask you to welcome this event. I will not insult you by calling it well, or just, or even glorious. But I will say this. “Each moment you fight is a gift to those in this cavern. Each second we fight is a second longer that thousands of people can draw breath. Each stroke of the sword, each koloss felled, each breath earned is a victory! It is a person protected for a moment longer, a life extended, an enemy frustrated!” There was a brief pause. “In the end, they will kill us,” Elend said, voice loud, ringing in the cavern. “But first, they shall fear us!”
“[[Faith]] means that it doesn't matter what happens. You can trust that somebody is watching. Trust that somebody will make it all right.”
“Why did they believe? Because they saw miracles. Things one man took as chance, a man of faith took as a sign. A loved one recovering from disease, a fortunate business deal, a chance meeting with a long lost friend. It wasn't the grand doctrines or the sweeping ideals that seemed to make believers out of men. It was the simple magic in the world around them.”
“It sounds to me, young one," Haddek said, "that you are searching for something that cannot be found." "The truth?" Sazed said. "No," Haddek replied. "A religion that requires no faith of its believers.”

“A religion that does not require the sacrifice of all things never has power sufficient to produce the faith necessary to lead unto life and salvation.” [[Joseph Smith]]

“The nature of the world is that when we create something, we often destroy something else in the process.” #[[Creativity]]
“I don't have much time for stories," Vin said. "Seems that fewer and fewer people do, these days." A canopy kept off the ash, but he seemed unconcerned about the mists. "It makes me wonder what is so alluring about the real world that gives them all such a fetish for it. It's not a very nice place these days.” #Storytelling
“I'm an amalgamation of what I've needed to be. Part scholar, part rebel, part nobleman, part Mistborn, and part soldier. Sometimes I don't even know myself. I had a devil of a time getting all those pieces to work together. And, just when I'm starting to get it figured out, the world up and ends on me.”
“Spook smiled. "Elend is a forgetful scholar - twice as bad as Sazed ever was. He gets lost in his books and forgets about meeting he himself called. He only dresses with any sense of fashion because a Terriswoman bought him a new wardrobe. War has change him some, but on the inside, I think he's still just a dreamer caught in a world with too much violence.”

“Adams himself was ‘sober, almost to gloom or sorrow,’ his eyes inflamed, short, bald, slightly corpulent. He was dressed simply, in an olive frock coat, and seemed to be wearing as well a fine layer of learned dust. ‘It was obvious that he was a student,’ Seward wrote, ‘just called from the labor of his closet.’”

“To believe, it seemed, one had to want to believe.”

[[Alma 32]]:27 But behold, if ye will awake and arouse your faculties, even to an experiment upon my words, and exercise a particle of faith, ^^**yea, even if ye can no more than desire to believe, let this desire work in you, even until ye believe in a manner that ye can give place for a portion of my words.**^^

“Breeze turned to look out the window. "You were always the best of us, Sazed," he said quietly. "Because you believed in something.”
“Vin, Vin. Why can't you see? This isn't about good or evil. [[Morality]] doesn't even enter into it. Good men will kill as quickly for what they want as evil men—only the things they want are different.”
“That's what [[trust]] is, Sazed thought. It's about giving someone else power over you. Power to hurt you.”
"Kell was . . . grand. He wasn't just a man, he was bigger than that. Everything he did was large—his dreams, the way he spoke, the way he thought. . ." "And it wasn't false," Breeze added. "I can tell when a man is being a fake. That's why I started my first job with Kelsier, actually. Amidst all the pretenders and posturers, he was genuine. Everyone wanted to be the best. Kelsier really was." "He was a man," Vin said quietly. "Just a man. Yet, you always knew he'd succeed. He made you be what he wanted you to be." "So he could use you," Breeze said. "But you were better when he was done with you," Ham added” #Leadership
“How did men believe in something that preached love on one hand, yet taught destruction of unbelievers on the other? How did one rationalize belief with no proof? How could they honestly expect him to have faith in something that taught of miracles and wonders in the far past, but carefully gave excuses for why such things didn't occur in the present day?” #Faith
“The best way to fool someone, in Vin’s estimation, was to give them what they wanted. Or, at the very least, what they expected. As long as they assumed that they were one step ahead, they wouldn’t look back to see if there were any steps that they’d completely missed.”
“You hate change. I hate it too. But things can't stay the same- and that's well, for when nothing changes in your life, it's as good as being dead”
“Never let your life depend on the competence of someone whose life isn’t also on the line.” #Incentives
I do want to believe, he thought. That's why I've spent so much time searching. I can't have it both ways. I simply have to decide. Which would it be? He sat for a few moments, thinking, feeling, and—most important—remembering. I sought help, Sazed thought. And something answered. Sazed smiled, and everything seemed a little bit brighter. Breeze was right, he thought, standing and organizing his things as he prepared to go. I was not meant to be an atheist.” #Atheism
“Elend shook his head. "We can survive this. But, the only way that will happen is if our people don't give up. They need leaders who laugh, leaders who feel that this fight can be won. So, this is what I ask of you. I don't care if you're an optimist or a pessimist—I don't care if secretly, you think we'll all be dead before the month ends. On the outside, I want to see you smiling. Do it in defiance, if you have to. If the end does come, I want this group to meet that end smiling. As the Survivor taught us.” #Leadership
“The religions in my portfolio weren't useless after all, he thought, the power flowing from him and remaking the world. None of them were. They weren't all true. But they all had truth.” #Truth

“We believe in all truth, no matter to what subject it may refer. No sect or religious denomination [or, I may say, no searcher of truth] in the world possesses a single principle of truth that we do not accept or that we will reject. ^^**We are willing to receive all truth, from whatever source it may come; for truth will stand, truth will endure.”**^^ [[Joseph F. Smith]]

“[[Faith]] isn't about logic, son," Haddek said. "Perhaps that's your problem. You cannot 'disprove' the things you study, any more than we can prove to you that the Hero will save us. We simply must believe it, and accept the things Preservation has taught us.”
“She remembered Kelsier, standing boldly before a small group of thieves, proclaiming that they would overthrow the Lord Ruler and free the empire. We're thieves, he'd said. And we're extraordinarily good ones. We can rob the unrobbable and fool the unfoolable. We know how to take an incredibly large task and break it down to manageable pieces, then deal with each of those pieces. That day, when he'd written up the team's goals and plans on a small board, Vin had been amazed by how possible he had made an impossible task seem. That day, a little bit of her had begun to believe that Kelsier could overthrow the Final Empire.” #[[First Principles]]
“An easy life taught one very little.”
“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. . . .”
“There was honor in facing the consequences of one’s actions. Wasn’t there?” #Accountability