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“That's a nice song," said young Sam, and Vimes remembered that he was hearing it for the first time.
"It's an old soldiers' song," he said.
"Really, sarge? But it's about angels."
Yes, thought Vimes, and it's amazing what bits those angels cause to rise up as the song progresses. It's a real soldiers' song: sentimental, with dirty bits.
"As I recall, they used to sing it after battles," he said. "I've seen old men cry when they sing it," he added.
"Why? It sounds cheerful."
They were remembering who they were not singing it with, thought Vimes. You'll learn. I know you will.”
― Terry Pratchett, Night Watch

“If the world is full of monsters, someone has to be keeping us safe. Someone has to be fighting for us out there.”
― Craig Schaefer, Redemption Song

“There were plotters, there was no doubt about it. Some had been ordinary people who'd had enough. Some were young people with no money who objected to the fact that the world was run by old people who were rich. Some were in it to get girls. And some had been idiots as mad as Swing, with a view of the world just as rigid and unreal, who were on the side of what they called 'the people'. Vimes had spent his life on the streets, and had met decent men and fools and people who'd steal a penny from a blind beggar and people who performed silent miracles or desperate crimes every day behind the grubby windows of little houses, but he'd never met The People.

People on the side of The People always ended up disappointed, in any case. They found that The People tended not to be grateful or appreciative or forward-thinking or obedient. The People tended to be small-minded and conservative and not very clever and were even distrustful of cleverness. And so the children of the revolution were faced with the age-old problem: it wasn't that you had the wrong kind of government, which was obvious, but that you had the wrong kind of people.
As soon as you saw people as things to be measured, they didn't measure up. What would run through the streets soon enough wouldn't be a revolution or a riot. It'd be people who were frightened and panicking. It was what happened when the machinery of city life faltered, the wheels stopped turning and all the little rules broke down. And when that happened, humans were worse than sheep. Sheep just ran; they didn't try to bite the sheep next to them.”
― Terry Pratchett, Night Watch

“All witches are selfish, the Queen had said. But Tiffany’s Third Thoughts said: Then turn selfishness into a weapon! Make all things yours! Make other lives and dreams and hopes yours! Protect them! Save them! Bring them into the sheepfold! Walk the gale for them! Keep away the wolf! My dreams! My brother! My family! My land! My world! How dare you try to take these things, because they are mine!

I have a duty!”
― Terry Pratchett, The Wee Free Men

“No it's not!" said Constable Visit. "Atheism is a denial of a god."

"Therefore It Is A Religious Position," said Dorfl. "Indeed, A True Atheist Thinks Of The Gods Constantly, Albeit In Terms of Denial. Therefore, Atheism Is A Form Of Belief. If The Atheist Truly Did Not Believe, He Or She Would Not Bother To Deny.”
― Terry Pratchett, Feet of Clay

“Anyway, it's like with bikes,' said the first speaker authoritatively. 'I thought I was going to get this bike with seven gears and one of them razorblade saddles and purple paint and everything, and they gave me this light blue one. With a basket. A girl's bike.'
'Well. You're a girl,' said one of the others.
'That's sexism, that is. Going around giving people girly presents just because they're a girl.”
― Terry Pratchett, Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch

“William: "I'm sure we can all pull together, sir."
Vetinari: "Oh, I do hope not. Pulling together is the aim of despotism and tyranny. Free men pull in all kinds of directions.”
― Terry Pratchett, The Truth: Stage Adaptation

“Oh, I feel very angry a lot of the time," said Tiffany, "but I just put it away somewhere until I can do something useful with it.”
― Terry Pratchett, I Shall Wear Midnight

“Granny Weatherwax was often angry. She considered it one of her strong points. Genuine anger was one of the world's greatest creative forces. But you had to learn how to control it. That didn't mean you let it trickle away. It meant you dammed it, carefully, let it develop a working head, let it drown whole valleys of the mind and then, just when the whole structure was about to collapse, opened a tiny pipeline at the base and let the iron-hard stream of wrath power the turbines of revenge.”
― Terry Pratchett, Wyrd Sisters

“There are many horrible sights in the multiverse. Somehow, though, to a soul attuned to the subtle rhythms of a library, there are few worse sights than a hole where a book ought to be.”
― Terry Pratchett, Guards! Guards!

“The librarians were mysterious. It was said they could tell what book you needed just by looking at you, and they could take your voice away with a word.”
― Terry Pratchett, Wintersmith

“A book has been taken. A book has been taken? You summoned the Watch," Carrot drew himself up proudly, "because someone's taken a book? You think that's worse than murder?"
The Librarian gave him the kind of look other people would reserve for people who said things like "What's so bad about genocide?”
― Terry Pratchett, Guards! Guards!

“I'll never be like this again . . . I'll never again feel as tall as the sky and as old as the hills and as strong as the sea. I've been given something for a while, and the price of it is that I have to give it back.

And the reward is giving it back, too. No human could live like this. You could spend a day looking at a flower to see how wonderful it is, and that wouldn't get the milking done. No wonder we dream our way through our lives. To be awake, and see it all as it really is...no one could stand that for long.”
― Terry Pratchett, The Wee Free Men

“Night, forever. But within it, a city, shadowy and only real in certain ways.
The entity cowered in its alley, where the mist was rising. This could not have happened!
Yet it had. The streets had filled with�� things. Animals! Birds! Changing shape! Screaming and yelling! And, above it all, higher than the rooftops, a lamb rocking back and forth in great slow motions, thundering over the cobbles��
And then bars had come down, slamming down, and the entity had been thrown back.
But it had been so close! It had saved the creature, it was getting through, it was beginning to have control�� and now this��
In the darkness of the inner city, above the rustle of the never-ending rain, it heard the sound of boots approaching.
A shape appeared in the mist.
It drew nearer.
Water cascaded off a metal helmet and an oiled leather cloak as the figure stopped and, entirely unconcerned, cupped its had in front of its face and lit a cigar.
Then the match was dropped on the cobbles, where it hissed out, and the figure said: “What are you?��
The entity stirred, like an old fish in a deep pool. It was too tired to flee.
“I am the Summoning Dark.�� It was not, in fact, a sound, but had it been, it would have been a hiss. “Who are you?��
“I am the Watchman.��
“They would have killed his family!�� The darkness lunged, and met resistance. “Think of the deaths they have caused! Who are you to stop me?��
“He created me. Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? Who watches the watchmen? Me. I watch him. Always. You will not force him to murder for you.��
“What kind of human creates his own policeman?��
“One who fears the dark.��
“And so he should,�� said the entity, with satisfaction.
“Indeed. But I think you misunderstand. I am not here to keep the darkness out. I am here to keep it in.�� There was a clink of metal as the shadowy watchman lifted a dark lantern and opened its little door. Orange light cut through the blackness. “Call me�� the Guarding Dark. Imagine how strong I must be.��
The Summoning Dark backed desperately into the alley, but the light followed it, burning it.
“And now,�� said the watchman, “get out of town.”
― Terry Pratchett, Thud!

“I have given my love to what is worthy of love. Is that not the kingdom and the unperishing spring?”
― Ursula K. Le Guin, The Farthest Shore

“But each deed you do, each act, binds you to itself and to its consequences, and makes you act again and yet again. Then very seldom do you come upon a space, a time like this, between act and act, when you may stop and simply be. Or wonder who, after all, you are.”
― Ursula K. Le Guin, The Farthest Shore

“Why are men afraid of women?"
"If your strength is only the other's weakness, you live in fear," Ged said.
"Yes; but women seem to fear their own strength, to be afraid of themselves."
"Are they ever taught to trust themselves?" Ged asked, and as he spoke Therru came in on her work again. His eyes and Tenar's met.
"No," she said. "Trust is not what we're taught." She watched the child stack the wood in the box. "If power were trust," she said. "I like that word. If it weren't all these arrangements - one above the other - kings and masters and mages and owners - It all seems so unnecessary. Real power, real freedom, would lie in trust, not force."
"As children trust their parents," he said.”
― Ursula K. Le Guin, Tehanu

“What are we so afraid of? Why don't we let 'em tell us we're afraid? What is it they're afraid of?" She picked up the stocking she had been darning, turned it in her hands, was silent awhile; finally she said, "What are they afraid of us for?”
― Ursula K. Le Guin, Tehanu

“So maybe the difference isn't language. Maybe it's this: animals do neither good nor evil. They do as they must do. We may call what they do harmful or useful, but good and evil belong to us, who chose to choose what we do. The dragons are dangerous, yes. They can do harm, yes. But they're not evil. They're beneath our morality, if you will, like any animal. Or beyond it. They have nothing to do with it.
We must choose and choose again. The animals need only be and do. We're yoked, and they're free. So to be with an animal is to know a little freedom...”
― Ursula K. Le Guin, The Other Wind

“Read at every wait; read at all hours; read within leisure; read in times of labor; read as one goes in; read as one goest out. The task of the educated mind is simply put: read to lead.”
― Cicero

“A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself. For the traitor appears not a traitor; he speaks in accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their arguments, he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of the city, he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to fear.”
― Taylor Caldwell, A Pillar of Iron

“Politicians are not born; they are excreted.”
― Marcus Tullius Cicero

“The enemy is within the gates; it is with our own luxury, our own folly, our own criminality that we have to contend.”
― Marcus Tullius Cicero

“Men decide far more problems by hate, love, lust, rage, sorrow, joy, hope, fear, illusion or some other inward emotion, than by reality, authority, any legal standard, judicial precedent, or statute.”
― Cicero Marcus Tullius

“In this statement, my Scipio, I build on your own admirable definition, that there can be no community, properly so called, unless it be regulated by a combination of rights. And by this definition it appears that a multitude of men may be just as tyrannical as a single despot and indeed this is the most odious of all tyrannies, since no monster can be more barbarous than the mob, which assumes the name and mask of the people.”
― Marcus Tullius Cicero

“They who say that we should love our fellow-citizens but not foreigners, destroy the universal brotherhood of mankind, with which benevolence and justice would perish forever”
― Marcus Tullius Cicero

“The welfare of the people is the highest law”
― Cicero

“To make a mistake is only human; to persist in a mistake is idiotic.”
― Cicero

“To be ignorant of what occurred before you were born is to remain always a child. For what is the worth of human life, unless it is woven into the life of our ancestors by the records of history?”
― Marcus Tullius Cicero

“He must protect the lives and interests of the people, appeal to his fellow citizens' patriotic interests, and, in general, set the welfare of the community above his own”
― Cicero, Marcus Tullius