The eyes are a window to the soul. Literally. Looking unto the eyes of someone is an uncomfortable, intense experience for anyone. If you don’t believe me, pick a stranger sometime and just go up to them and stare them in the eye until, the movement where there’s a sudden acknowledgement of lowered barriers, that moment that inspires awkward silence and racing hearts. The eyes reveal a lot about a person. They express emotions and give clues to what thoughts are lurking behind them. Nearly everyone underestimates how powerful the touch of another human being is. The need to be touched is something so primal, so fundamentally part of out existence as human beings that its true impact upon us cannot be put into words. -Jim Butcher “The way you get meaning into your life is to devote yourself to loving others, devote yourself to your community around you, and devote yourself to creating something that gives you purpose and meaning.” When all this started, I asked myself, 'Am I going to withdraw from the world, like most people do, or am I going to live?' I decided I am going to live-or at least try to live-the way I want, with dignity, with courage, with humor, with composure.” “No life is a waste. The only time we waste is the time we spend thinking we are alone.” “All parents damage their children. It cannot be helped. Youth, like pristine glass, absorbs the prints of its handlers. Some parents smudge, others crack, a few shatter childhoods completely into jagged little pieces, beyond repair.” “I traded lots of dreams for a bigger paycheck, and I never realized I was doing it,” "Holding anger is a poison. It eats you from the inside. We think that hating is a weapon that attacks the person that harmed us. But hatred is a curved blade. And the harm we do, we do to ourselves." -All from novels by Mitch Albom "Dancing with death means being committed to the value of life, committed with your mind, heart, and soul, so that you are truly prepared to do what is necessary to preserve life." War Wizard’s Primary Edict It means only one thing, and everything: cut. Once committed to fight, cut. Everything else is secondary. Cut. That is your duty, your purpose, your hunger. There is no rule more important, no commitment that overrides that one. Cut. The lines are a portrayal of the dance. Cut from the void, not from bewilderment. Cut the enemy as quickly and directly as possible. Cut with certainty. Cut decisively, resolutely. Cut into his strength. Flow through the gaps in his guard. Cut him. Cut him down utterly. Don't allow him a breath. Crush Him. Cut him without mercy to the depths of his spirit. It is the balance to life: death. It is the dance with death. Wizards First Rule People are stupid; given proper motivation, almost anyone will believe almost anything. Because people are stupid, they will believe a lie because they want to believe its true, or because they’re afraid it might be true. Peoples’ heads are full of knowledge, facts and beliefs, and most of it is false, yet they think it all true. People are stupid; they can only rarely tell the difference between a lie and the truth, and yet they are confident they can, and so are all the easier to fool. Wizards Second Rule The greatest harm can result from the best of intentions. Wizards Third Rule Passion rules reason. Wizards Fourth Rule There is magic in forgiveness; in the forgiveness you give, but more so in the forgiveness you receive. Wizards Fifth Rule Mind what people do, not only what they say for deeds will betray a lie. Wizards Sixth Rule The only sovereign you can allow to rule you is reason. The first law of reason is this: what exists, exists, what is, is and from this irreducible bedrock principle, all knowledge is built. It is the foundation from which life is embraced. Thinking is a choice. Wishes and whims are not facts nor are they a means to discover them. Reason is our only way of grasping reality; it is our basic tool of survival. We are free to evade the effort of thinking, to reject reason, but we are not free to avoid the penalty of the abyss that we refuse to see. Faith and feelings are the darkness to reasons light. In rejecting reason, refusing to think, one embraces death. Wizards Seventh Rule Life is the future, not the past. The past can teach us, through experience, how to accomplish things in the future, comfort us with cherished memories, and provide the foundation of what has already been accomplished. But only the future holds life. To live in the past is to embrace what is dead. To live life to its fullest, each day must be created anew. As rational, thinking beings, we must use our intellect, not a blind devotion to what has come before, to make rational choices. Wizards Eighth Rule Deserve Victory. Wizards Ninth Rule A contradiction can not exist in reality. Not in part, nor in whole. To believe in a contradiction is to abdicate your belief in the existence of the world around you and the nature of the things in it, to instead embrace any random impulse that strikes your fancy – to imagine something is real simply because you wish it were. A thing is what it is, it is itself. There can be no contradictions. Faith is a device of self-delusion, a sleight of hand done with words and emotions founded on any irrational notion that can be dreamed up. Faith is the attempt to coerce truth to surrender to whim. In simple terms, it is trying to breath life into a lie by trying to outshine reality with the beauty of wishes. Faith is the refuge of fools, the ignorant, and the deluded, not of thinking, rational men. In reality, contradictions cannot exist. To believe in them you must abandon the most important thing you possess: your rational mind. The wager for such a bargain is your life. In such an exchange, you always lose what you have at stake. Wizard's Tenth Rule Willfully turning aside from the truth, is treason to oneself. -All from Terry Goodkind “Man can be destroyed, but not defeated” “While much of life may seem meaningless, a man must do what a man must do. Doing it as well as he can without complaint or shirking is what gives meaning to a life.” -Ernest Hemingway, The Old Man and The Sea