Funny thing about lessons: the idiot student thinks when he is given a little fact that he owns it—that two and two is always four no matter the circumstance. Just as it was not true for Orwell, it is not true for anyone. True lessons require not only knowing, but that the student practices his knowledge again and again. Thus knowledge becomes us, and we become more than the animal and the machine. That is why the best teachers are students always, and the best students are never fully educated.

But the ugliness of the world does not fade, and fear and grief are not made less by time. We are only made stronger. We can only float together on their tides, as otters do, hand in hand.

Critics of the oldest stories used to say that men believe women to be goals, prizes to be won or bought. They did not understand. No man could think such a thing and remain a man, for to love is in part the attempt to become a creature worthy of love.

So love is not merely an emotion, but a vow made one to another. A vow renewed in each moment, until it hardly needs making at all.
Or until it is not made, and death or deed does them part.*

*Bojack talks about love in general there but it's true here as well.

Always forward, always down, and never left or right. We were in the labyrinth again—or else had never left it—beneath the shadows of those dark trees in my mind.

There are two sorts of men. One hears an order from his better and obeys. The other sees order in himself and obeys that. All men obey something, even if it is only themselves.

But it is always easier to spend what is not yours to give.

We believe our fear destroyed by new bravery. It is not. Fear is never destroyed. It is only made smaller by the courage we find after. It is always there.

Deep truths there may be, but none is deeper than this: Those lost to us do not return, nor the years turn back. Rather it is that we carry a piece of those lost to us within ourselves, or on our backs. Thus ghosts are real, and we never escape them.

For when a war is done, no matter how small, pieces of it remain. Most of this shrapnel is carried in the hearts and souls of those who visited that strange country we call battle. Wherever such people go—be it to the brightest garden—they are at war. To say that such people do not fight wars, as I had, to say such do not win them, was a dishonor. A dismissal of their struggle and pain. I understood that then, as one can only learn by experience.

It is easy for those without wealth to pretend at morality, as if they would not themselves make depraved choices given the means. There is no morality in poverty. It is only that wealth gives the immoral greater opportunity for abuse.

Wars end,” I said coldly. “Wars end,” Kharn agreed, more coldly still. “War does not. And I am not much troubled what form our wars take.

for truth is sharper than falsehood, and [could be] just as poisonous.

Eternity is the chief quality of high art. Depending on no moment, such art belongs to every moment, and so takes us for a time from our time—allowing us to touch eternity for our fleeting instant.

We like to imagine that we are ourselves a unity: one mind, one spirit. Not so. In truth we are each a little legion, a pack of little personae—each one-eyed in its attentions and single-minded in its aim.

Those who say stories are only stories are only fools.

Joy is rare, a thing always of the now, existing without regard for time past or time future, and without depending on them.

you can be too free. That’s chaos. You have to have a goal to aim at and to orient yourself to. Imore says the properly lived life is one which draws the best path between that goal—who you could become—and who you are today, but that this is accomplished by sacrificing certain freedoms. By making choices.”

The world is filled with monsters: dragons in the wilderness, serpents in the garden. We must become monsters to fight them. Anyone who thinks otherwise has never really had to fight for anything.

Some people believe that the painter who works his canvas is not an individual because he acquired his skills at the knee of some earlier master. That the soldier who stands before the enemy is not a hero, but a pawn—and one of many. There is no truth to this. Each of us contains multitudes, but it is not that we are cells in the body of humankind. Rather we are clay, shaped as the mountain is shaped: by the wind, the tramping foot, and the rain. By the world. The mark of other hands is on us, but we are ourselves alone.
One may be part of a community. One is an individual.
They are not mutually exclusive. It is only that the soul, the self, should lead, and our allegiances follow. To do otherwise—to be otherwise—is to make oneself a slave.*

*This one wasn't repliable, gotta think about how to connect it.