40k Quotes

Everything is darkest," Xaphen mused, "before the dawn." "That, my brother, is an axiom that sounds immensely profound until you realize it's a lie.

You came to me asking how my faith survived the Day of Judgement. I will tell you a secret. When the stars fell, when the seas boiled and the earth burned, my faith didn’t die. That is when I began to believe. God was real, and he hated us.

The rewards of tolerance are treachery and betrayal.

You brothers-such a nest of rivalries. I warned him to make you sisters, that it would make things more civilized. He thought I was joking, I wasn't." - Malcador

Regard the books,' Sinderman said, 'Are there some I should read? Will you prepare a list for me?' (asked Loken) 'Read them all. Read them again. Swallow the learning and ideas of our predecessors whole, for it can only improve you as a man...

I heard from a contact on Mars, Jaghatai, that you do strange things to your ships." The Khan shot him a heavy-lidded stare. "I heard from a contact that you do strange things to your warriors.

We do not know what our chances of survival are, so we fight as if they were zero. We do not know what we are facing, so we fight as if it was the dark gods themselves. No one will remember us now and we may never be buried beneath Titan, so we will build our own memorial here. The Chapter might lose us and the Imperium might never know we existed, but the Enemy — the Enemy will know. The Enemy will remember. We will hurt it so badly that it will never forget us until the stars burn out and the Emperor vanquishes it at the end of time. When Chaos is dying, its last thought will be of us. That is our memorial — carved into the heart of Chaos. We cannot lose, Grey Knights. We have already won." ~Justicar Alaric

There is no time to plan, there is no space to think. No respite. No forgiveness. There is only war.

Remember, my Jokers, a dropzone is like a woman. Land on her firmly, and make sure you have the vital parts located before you get going.’ Hurtado Bronzi

There must come a moment when the soul knows: this far, and no further. But we are cursed never to hear that warning until it is too late.’ – attributed to the remembrancer Ignace Karkasy [M31]

The sound of mechanized brutality that could only come from one species.

The gods demand entertainment. They demand trial and contest. We could not be allowed to defeat our own daemons, for that would be boring, and boredom is the only thing the eternals fear. We are being lined up, one by one, to tear at each other's throats. I do not think they wish to see a victor. I think they wish us to fight forever, locked in madness until the universe's end

All of creation suffers, young ones. Only in accepting our own mortality can we make a difference. Only in bearing the burden of our failures can we find the strength to go on. Only in detachment from glory, or honour, or jealousy... from life itself can we hope to spare others from grief. We are Doom Eagles. And we are dead already. -- Librarian Secundus Thryn of the Doom Eagles

But they are many and he is alone. This has not come to pass yet, he thinks, this is not happening. I am not dying. This is my fate, what shall be. This is the future, it has not happened yet.

For more than a hundred centuries the Emperor has sat immobile on the Golden Throne of Earth. He is the Master of Mankind by the will of the gods and master of a million worlds by the might of his inexhaustible armies. He is a rotting carcass writhing invisibly with power from the Dark Age of Technology. He is the Carrion Lord of the Imperium, for whom a thousand souls die every day, for whom blood is drunk and flesh eaten. Human blood and human flesh – the stuff of which the Imperium is made. To be a man in such times is to be one amongst untold billions. It is to live in the cruellest and most bloody regime imaginable. This is the tale of those times. Forget the power of technology, science and common humanity. Forget the promise of progress and understanding, for there is no peace amongst the stars, only an eternity of carnage and slaughter and the laughter of thirsting gods.

Sometimes the threat is so grave, the worst of enemies must become the best of friends.

And in the end. It's just a man killing his son with a stone...then the galaxy burns

They’re so busy playing, they’ve taken their eyes off the board

Words and poetic sentiment did not change the truth of a thing. A kill was a kill, a life a life, and an executioner a murderer by any other name.

I asked myself in the aftermath of the Siege of Terra whether the so-called victory was worth the cost. Now I wonder if we won at all.

If we cannot laugh at cruelty, then it has already bested us.

What would you know of struggle, perfect son? When have you fought against the mutilation of your mind? When have you had to do anything other than tally compliance's and polish your armor? The people of your world named you "Great One". The people of mine called me slave. Which one of us landed on a paradise of civilization to be raised by a foster father, Roboute? Which one of us was given armies to lead after training in the halls of the Macraggian High Riders? Which one of us inherited a strong, cultured kingdom? And which one of us had to rise up against a kingdom with nothing but a horde of starving slaves? Which one of us was a child enslaved on a world of monsters, with his brain cut up by carving knives? Listen to your blue clad wretches yelling courage and honor, courage and honor, courage and honor! Do you even know the meaning of those words? Courage is fighting the kingdom which enslaves you, no matter that their armies outnumber yours by ten-thousand to one. You know nothing of courage! Honor is resisting a tyrant when all others suckle and grow fat on the hypocrisy he feeds them. You know nothing of honor!

The world goes quiet and warm. I am dying, he thinks, I have failed and there will be nothing left, nothing but ash and hungering darkness. Something within him dims, fluttering to nothing like a flame fading to cold embers. He tries to raise his sword. He is falling… He was… … running the ashes of a dead world through his fingers.

Victory slipped through our fingers the moment Horus chose to reach into the dark and something reached back. We sacrificed our ambitions on the altar of his hubris, and when he fell, he dragged us all down inexorably with him. And not just Horus- Fulgrim as well. And Angron. Magnus. Lorgar. The gods you worship are nothing save lies, hidden behind masks of folklore and superstition. Interdimensional cancers, their mindless hunger confused for sentience amongst the lost and the damned".

Nostramo. A lawless and sunless place. It burned not because it was guilty but because we failed to keep it innocent. Our laws failed the moment we sailed away to the stars and in desperate embarrassment our father incinerated the evidence of his failure.

You’ll scream just as he did,’ Xarl said with a smile. The Champion showed no reaction. He didn’t even move. ‘I knew that warrior,’ he said with solemn care. ‘He was Caleus, born of Newfound, and I know he died as he lived: with courage, honour, and knowing no fear.’ Xarl swept his chainsword across the scene, gesturing at the prone forms of First Claw. ‘I know all of these warriors. They are First Claw, and I know they’ll die as they lived: trying to run away.

We are but motes of dust, drifting in an endless sea; sparks that flare all too briefly. Our light does little to illuminate the fading universe, but it is in our nature to fight, to wrestle back the encroaching dark, to find a way. Thus, we open not our eyes, but our minds, and we are terrified by what it is we see.

It cannot, of course, be stated with absolute certainty that no elements can combine with argon; but it appears at least improbable that any compounds will be formed. [This held true for a century, until in Aug 2000, the first argon compound was formed, argon fluorohydride, HArF, but stable only below 40 K (−233 °C).]

I cannot allow my own convictions to get in the way of truth, for only in knowing the truth can victory be secured.

When inquisitors fall, in my experience, they do so very hard indeed.

Iron does not take a single form whilst forsaking all others. The strength of iron is in its flexibility, its capacity to adapt to suit any situation.

To break with ritual is to break with faith, brother...

I’m not sure you even know where your truths end and your lies begin.

Nothing better awaited her in the long night ahead.

It was going to be a long night.

Victory needs no explanation, defeat allows none.

When one has no power, one will seek hope from any source.

Luck runs out, Blackmane. Aye. But not today, singer.

Presence of mind in all things, I counsel. Be aware of thyself before all else.

As I said, be careful from whom one gains knowledge and be aware of the price of its acquisition.

The first steps of damnation are always wrapped in the costume of piety.

It takes a vast amount of self control to be this dangerous.

Claims of innocence mean nothing: they serve only to prove a foolish lack of caution.’ – Judge Traggat, Selected Sayings, Vol. III, Chapter IV

And in a sunless realm, the sun rose at last.

What will you do now?’ ‘Whatever I can. As useless as that might be.

Do not underestimate the evils men will do for a small advantage.

Your pride is oh so very great, and your fall will be oh so very far…

Death is nothing compared to vindication

Each man is a spark in the darkness. Would that we all burn as bright.

Praise be unto the God-Emperor. From the jaws of defeat, He brings victory. From the driest desert, He shall call forth the purest springs.

It was always that way with cruelty, Sigismund knew — it did not have to sacrifice, or struggle; it had only to be patient.

Perhaps I overestimate the intelligence of our species. Perhaps we are little more than psychopathic apes, driven to fashion clubs and smash out the brains of our closest neighbours.

He did not answer, nor did he watch as I left. He was seeing Sigismund again, dwelling on replies he could never speak to a brother he had once admired and who had died despising him.

The days of mankind are nearly done. For years I have been seeing it. All we can do while we are here is live. All any human ever has been able to do is live. That is all I tried to do.

Want to see how the investment income changes with a change in principal? Simply divide the figures by the change in principal. With a $20M portfolio (twice the principal) just multiply by two: instead of $40,000/month, you’d receive $80,000/month and $1M per year. With a $1M portfolio, divide the results by ten: instead of $40K per month, you’d live comfortably passive on $4,000/month and nearly $50,000/year.

The war is over, Diocletian. Win or lose, Horus has damned us all. Mankind will share in his ignorance until the last man or woman draws the species’ last breath. The warp will forever be a cancer in the heart of all humans. The Imperium may last a hundred years, or a thousand, or ten thousand. But it will fall, Diocletian. It will fall. The shining path is lost to us. Now we rage against the dying of the light.

I don't care if every man jack of them forgets his own mother's name and wets himself, they must still know how to hold a line, fire and reload, adore the Emperor and respond to orders. - Inquisitor Eisenhorn

This is not a foxhole. This is the rich earth of my world. Dirt I threw in handfuls on the coffins of troopers that came before me. Those who stood in the ranks on the bastion wall, lasgun in hand, And told the Eye it would not have our future. This is not a foxhole, this is my world. This is not a foxhole, it is my home. The place I have shared with my comrades, eating, laughing, A hole that does not feel empty, for we fill it with light and courage, And where I have seen them pass into the Emperor's light. This is not a foxhole, it is my home. This is not a foxhole, it is my fortress. It is home, world, a kasr I have dug with my own hands A legacy that was bequeathed to me, to meet the enemy blade first As we have always, and I will not leave it, not surrender it Not take one step back for I have dug my fortress, and will hold it. For this is not a foxhole, it is a grave.

I am told to demand millions of men and women from these new worlds, to make them take up arms in the Emperor's hordes, and I am told to call this a tithe, or recruitment, because we are too scared of the truth. We refuse to call it slavery.

The universe has never seen a living being who loathed being alive as much as my father. His life was broken in seeking to prove how humanity could be controlled, and his death was a sacrifice to prove that the species was ultimately wretched.

Truth is, Frauka, none of us know you very well at all. We can't read you.' 'Story of my life. You have no idea whatsoever how hard it is to be an untouchable. Everyone feels the absence, and it makes them uncomfortable. You get treated like shit. Working for Ravenor's the only decent job I've ever had, the only time I've felt worth anything. I guess that's over now, isn't it? Get off my back. I've covered yours long enough, and I deserve more respect, even if I make you uncomfortable.

Loken tried to imagine the future, but the image would not form. Death would wipe them all from history. Not even the great First Captain Ezekyle Abaddon would survive forever. There would be a time when Abaddon no longer waged bloody war across the territories of humanity. Loken sighed. That would be a sad day indeed. Men would cry out for Abaddon’s return, but he would never come. He tried to picture the manner of his own death. Fabled, imaginary combats flashed through his mind. He imagined himself at the Emperor’s side, fighting some great, last stand against an unknown foe. Primarch Horus would be there, of course. He had to be. It wouldn’t be the same without him. Loken would battle, and die, and perhaps even Horus would die, to save the Emperor at the last. Glory. Glory, like he’d never known. Such an hour would become so ingrained in the minds of men that it would be the cornerstone of all that came after. A great battle, upon which human culture would be based. Then, briefly, he imagined another death. Alone, far away from his comrades and his Legion, dying from cruel wounds on some nameless rock, his passing as memorable as smoke. Loken swallowed hard. Either way, his service was to the Emperor, and his service would be true to the end.

Perhaps everything you say is true and these are the death throes of the human race, but even if that was true, I would not lose faith. There must be hope, and I must fight for my Emperor against Chaos and it's servants. That is insanity. Wrong, it's being human.

Win or lose, the gods feast on our deeds. A man pets a stray, and his small pleasure in the act of kindness feeds Slaanesh. A woman strikes her crying child and that awful moment of elation she feels feeds Khorne. A Munitorum drone considers suicide. Nurgle grows fat on his despair. A merciful strategist devises a plan for bloodless victory, and Tzeentch is content. The Word Bearers think the gods crave worship. But the gods care for nothing save filling their bellies with our sorrows. Intentionally or not, we are all meat for the beast. Even you.

The lion snorted. 'You treat all as a game. That is why they sent for me - Malcador cannot trust you. No one can trust you. Your Legion is a rabble that would brawl among themselves if you were not there to smack their heads together.' 'If only they were more like yours,' said Russ, mockingly. 'Yes,' replied the Lion, exasperated. 'Yes. Is that so hard to imagine?' Russ loosened his arms, letting Krakenmaw swing lazily before him. 'I know why you do this. I know why you conquer, world after world, driving your sons after every campaign Malcador finds for you. But our father won't do it, brother. He won't choose a favourite. And if He did, it wouldn't be you - it would be Sanguinius, or Rogal, or Horus. So you're wasting yourself, trying to be noticed. It doesn't work like that.' The Lion let slip a scornful laugh. 'Not all of us are so without friends in the Palace, Leman, and you have no idea who our father favours.

They say he is elusive,' he said. 'You will hear that a lot. But listen: he is not elusive; he is at the centre. Wherever he is, that is the centre. He will seem to have broken the circle, drifted to the edge, right until the end, and then you will see that the world has come to him, and he has been waiting for it all along.

These things were in the past now, many long years ago, though the memory remained as solid and present as his heartbeats. Time's passage had made the events seem almost crazed, hyper-real, stretched across a surreal dreamscape that felt more like a skjald's embellished saga than the intact past. Perhaps it had not happened like that. Perhaps the Lion had taken his Stormbirds to the Tyrant's fortress, and he himself had teleported in. Perhaps it had not been Ogvai there, but Gunn, or someone else. Had Bjorn been there too? It was a long time ago, so doubtful, but Bjorn seemed to always have been there, right from the start, just waiting for his time to come to maturity.

The Hall of Tra was cold and lightless. His wolf-eye caught the ghost radiation of barely smouldering firepits. In terms of heat and light, the Wolves were making no allowances for human tolerances of comfort. They had given him a pelt and an eye to see through the dark with. What more could he want? He realised he wasn’t alone. The company was all around him. Their body heat was barely detectable, dimmer than the dull firepits. The Hall was a massive natural cavern, ragged and irregular, and the Astartes were ranged around it, huddled and coiled in their furs, as immobile as a sibling pack of predators, gone to ground overnight, dormant and pressed close for warmth. Faces cowled by animal skin hoods were watching his approach. There were occasional grumbles and murmurs, like animals growling in their sleep or tussling over bones. As his eye resolved the scene better, the Upplander saw some evidence of movement. He saw hands casually raise silver bowls and dishes so that men could sip black liquid from them. He saw hunched shapes engaged in the counter game, hneftafl, that the Upplander had seen Skarsi playing.

Sometimes, I consider whether the Emperor hated the Primarchs the way Fulgrim hates us." "Speak for yourself. Our father does not hate us." "Of course he does. From afar, you feel the lie of his warmth, the false affection you all so urgently crave. And he gives it to you but always from pity. You are his champion, yet still you cannot see it. You will never be as close to him as I was. You never see the way he really looks at us. Never seeing the wonders we wrought, only the limitations. Not our triumphs, just our flaws. He hates us, Lucius, because to Fulgrim, we are not his sons. We are a mirror, holding up an image before him that he can never do anything other than hate. We are his own failure made manifest, the miscarriage that comes about when a father tries to mould his children into something better than himself.

We know no fear. It was cut from our souls at birth. We can feel it only as an absence, as an empty shadow cast by the light of annihilation. In the face of a future of atrocity I stand mute, numb to the only feeling that would make me human. But I remember what fear was: its cold pulse in my veins; its echo in my ears. I remember fear, and remember that I was once human. I look towards what must come to pass and I wish that I could meet it as my ancestors did, with fear. The future deserves that, it deserves fear.

We are all damaged now,’ said Arvida, watching the approach. ‘All but you.’ Yesugei sat back against the curve of the hull. ‘No living thing is undamaged.’ ‘Yet you still smile. You still believe.’ ‘So do the rest. They need to remember, that is all. For now, all they see is slow defeat. They forget they have been... magnificent. They fight alone when all others are lost or manning walls far away. They come at enemy out of the glare of the sun. They have made him halt, turn back, come after us. They have forsaken the world they loved, have let it pass into ruin, all for this.’ Yesugei thought of Qin Xa then, from whom there had never been a murmur of unbelief. ‘They will remember, before the end. Other Legions have failed this test – they let their souls change.

He remembered being blinded by his father's light. He remembered refusing to abandon his brothers and sisters, beneath a blue sky at high-sun, far from the city of Desh'ea. He remembered the mechanical thunder of absolute betrayal, when he was stolen from the death he'd so richly earned. He remembered the cold moment of truth as he stood in the dark, his hurting eyes healing, that every day he breathed was an unwanted gift. He was walking another man's destiny now. His destiny was to be with the men and women who needed him, who called for him, who followed him into the mountains, and died without him. A destiny denied. He was Angron of Desh'ea. After that, nothing mattered. He'd listened to the others that begged him, that needed it all to matter. He'd played their games, living another man's life. He'd led his fleets, he'd embraced his sons, he'd told himself that blood was thicker than water, and that the Eaters of Worlds were the army he wanted and the horde he deserved. He'd sustained himself on lies, letting none see how he starved. And he served in his cold-hearted father's empire, enduring the silent sneers of brothers he despised.

You are a ghost, a figure that stands between light and dark, trapped amid the grey. And I have need of such a man." - Malcador the Sigillite

For what terrible sins of the past must we bear the torments of the present and the dark shadow of the future?

Soldiers,' he made an insult of the word. 'Once we were crusaders Khayon, and now we're warriors, but we were never soldiers. Keep that foolishness to yourself.' I swallowed my argument, following his train of thought. It was not the first time legionaries have disagreed over those semantics, and it would be far from the last. Some believed soldiering came down to discipline, or fighting for a state or a leader rather than for yourself. Some believed warriorhood was a matter of heart that elevated them above a soldier's station, while others considered it a state of barbarity that dragged them beneath it. Some questions have no answers. No matter how seriously we took warfare, no matter how adamantly we clung to our disciplined roots as a Space Marine Legion, many of our number were ultimately the raiders and marauders that time had made them. For better or worse, we would never have the ironclad discipline of a Throne-loyal Adeptus Astartes force. Even back then, we had lost much of the discipline we had once possessed as Legions of the Great Crusade.

In my experience, you mon-keigh make a great many claims when it comes to your own prowess, awarding yourselves title after title, your psyches awash with the hope that such posturing will intimidate your foes." "Undeniably true, though that seems harsh criticism from a species that attaches poetic nonsense like" The Storm of Silence" and "The Cry of the Wind" to its demigods, no?

Your loyalty to your companion is commendable, but displays signs of attachment. You cannot be husband to one, you must be brother to all.

Mortarion was still the greater of them. He was still the stronger, the more steeped in preternatural gifts, but now all that he felt was doubt, rocked by the remorseless fury of one who had never been anything more than flighty, self-regarding and unreliable. All Mortarion could see just then was one who wished to kill him - who would do anything, sacrifice anything, fight himself beyond physical limits, destroy his own body, his own heart, his own soul, just for the satisfaction of the oaths he had made in the void. 'If you know what I did,' Mortarion cried out, fighting on now through that cold fog of indecision, 'then you know the truth of it, brother - I can no longer die.' It was as if a signal had been given. The Khan's bloodied head lifted, the remnants of his long hair hanging in matted clumps. 'Oh, I know that,' he murmured, with the most perfect contempt he had ever mustered. 'But I can.' Then he leapt. His broken legs still propelled him, his fractured arms still bore his blade, his blood-filled lungs and perforated heart still gave him just enough power, and he swept in close. If he had been in the prime of condition, the move might have been hard to counter, but he was already little more than a corpse held together by force of will, and so Silence interposed itself, catching the Khan under his armour-stripped shoulder and impaling him deep. But that didn't stop him. The parry had been seen, planned for, and so he just kept coming, dragging himself up the length of the blade until the scythe jutted out of his ruptured back and the White Tiger was in tight against Mortarion's neck. For an instant, their two faces were right up against one another - both cadaverous now, drained of blood, drained of life, existing only as masks onto pure vengeance. All their majesty was stripped away, scraped out across the utilitarian rockcrete, leaving just the desire, the violence, the brute mechanics of despite. It only took a split second. Mortarion's eyes went wide, realising that he couldn't wrench his brother away in time. The Khan's narrowed. 'And that makes the difference,' Jaghatai spat. He snapped his dao across, severing Mortarion's neck cleanly in an explosion of black bile, before collapsing down into the warp explosion that turned the landing stage, briefly, into the brightest object on the planet after the Emperor's tormented soul itself.

So much contempt for your own species." "Yes, contempt! If you had seen what I have seen, watched what a human may become when left alone in the dark, you would share it. You were lucky, Jaghatai. Your world was no Caliban. We tell you of Old Night and you barely believe us, but that is not how most places were. The lie is noble. It is there to protect, to guard, not to deceive, for they are not ready." I have heard this before. There were empires on my homeworld that offered freedom to their slave castes, but only when they were ready. That moment, strangely enough, never came. In the end, they had to take it for themselves, to die for it, and even then there were some who said the day had come too soon. The truth will come out. You won't be able to hold the blindfold in place, and once it slips, the fury of those you deceived will be limitless.

Adelynn raises her sword. ‘Fight,’ she says. ‘Suffer. Stand, until you cannot.

The door opened. I stopped. Beyond it, orks lined both sides of the corridor. They had been watching for me. The moment I appeared, they roared their approval. They did not attack. They simply stood, clashed guns against blades, and hooted brute enthusiasm. I had been subjected to too many celebratory parades on Armageddon not to recognise one when it confronted me. I went numb from the unreality before me. I stepped forward, though. I had no choice. I walked. It was the most obscene victory march of my life. I moved through corridor, hold and bay, and the massed ranks of the greenskins hailed my passage. I saw the evidence of the destruction I had caused around every bend. Scorch marks, patched ruptures, buckled flooring, collapsed ceilings. But it hadn’t been enough. Not nearly enough. Only enough for this… this… At length, I arrived at a launch bay. There was a ship on the pad before the door. It was human, a small in-system shuttle. It was not built for long voyages. No matter, as long as its vox-system was still operative. I knew that it would be. Ghazghkull Mag Uruk Thraka awaited me beside the ship’s access ramp. I did not let my confusion or the sense that I had slipped into an endless waking nightmare slow my stride. I did not hesitate as I strode towards the monster. I stopped before him. I met his gaze with all the cold hatred of my soul. He radiated delight. Then he leaned forward, a colossus of armour and bestial strength. Our faces were mere centimetres apart. My soul bears many scars from the days and months of my defeat and captivity. But there is one memory that, above all others, haunts me. By day, it is a goad to action. By night, it murders sleep. It lives with me always, the proof that there could hardly be a more terrible threat to the Imperium than this ork. Thraka spoke to me. Not in orkish. Not even in Low Gothic. In High Gothic. ‘A great fight,’ he said. He extended a huge, clawed finger and tapped me once on the chest. ‘My best enemy.’ He stepped aside and gestured to the ramp. ‘Go to Armageddon,’ he said. ‘Make ready for the greatest fight.’ I entered the ship, my being marked by words whose full measure of horror lay not in their content, but in the fact of their existence. I stumbled to the cockpit, and discovered that I had a pilot. It was Commander Rogge. His mouth was parted in a scream, but there was no sound. He had no vocal cords any longer. There was very little of his body recognisable. He had been opened up, reorganised, fused with the ship’s control and guidance systems. He had been transformed into a fully aware servitor. ‘Take us out of here,’ I ordered. The rumble of the ship’s engines powering up was drowned by the even greater roar of the orks. I knew that roar for what it was: the promise of war beyond description.

I will give you NOTHING! Shall I tell you what I believe, Thagus?...I believe you are likewise trapped in the storm. I believe the Warp aided your pursuit of us, then cut you adrift in our wake, leaving you becalmed and with no idea why. I believe that the malignant essences we call Gods have brought us together in the heart of this storm to play out a game of kings and pawns, just to see where their favour should fall...I believe, most of all, that you are frightened of us. You fear us because despite your raving speeches that we are betraying the Legions, and despite your petty crusades to destroy us, we not only survive, but THRIVE. We grow with every conflict. The icons of the failed Legions are sheared from ever more suits of armour, and the colours of shame are eclipsed in numbers no other warband can match. You fear that we are right and you are wrong. You fear us, more than any other reason, because you had to chase us. Because we were here first. Because we are the ones on the verge of breaking free, despite all your attempts in these last decades to hinder us. We have been working towards this fate, while you have done nothing but seek to stop us. We've fought for true unity, all brothers beneath the black banner, while you've fought against it in the guise of preserving the old, failed ways. We, Thagus, have acted. You have reacted. And here we stand at our prison's edge. Even now you have no answers to give your men. Instead, you force this meeting with us, praying you can glean insight into our plans and scavenge victory through threats. You'll lose this war, Thagus. You'll lose because you desire the Gods' favour and you fear it falling upon anyone else.

Heretics are the only ones worth trusting,’ the voice said, ‘for they have everything to gain and everything to lose.

Age is a matter of perspective.

They do say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery./b>

One mind is sometimes all it takes to change fate,’ Ulthran said defiantly.

By the chapel door, Meryn shrank back against the old wood panels as though he was willing the palace to swallow him up. He could hear the killing, the screams. He could smell the blood. There was going to be another slaughter. And it was going to make the first one pale into insignificance. He started to laugh, unable to stop himself, because there was nothing funny left in the world.

Your technology may look more advanced than mine, but I have the Machine-God on my side.

I marveled that their stunted species had ever reached the stars.

You don’t need to hear to listen to the truth.

What is memory but the fashioning of a deep and personal fiction? In memory, we shape the world around ourselves, as if to prove our own existence, to demonstrate the mark we have left upon the universe. We become heralds of something better; the guiding light by which we believe all others might navigate. This, then, is the comfort we award ourselves for the act of living, for to comprehend the truth – that the universe is cold and ambivalent at best, and at worst despises our very existence – is to contemplate madness. So it is that we grow to love the lie.

A single, simple longing was enough to damn him.

‘If you have nothing, then no one can steal from you. Desire nothing and nothing can tempt you. Lose everything and you can take anything.’ - Aphorism of the Nepenthe Collegium of the Scholastia Psykana

My last mission ended with me drifting for a hundred years in a warp storm.’ ‘Well, we all have our moments.

You cannot make the sun rise before it is ready to, no matter how fearsome you may be.

He charged headlong into dangerous territory. He should have stopped, but anger propelled him.

He was posturing. So much posturing. Humans never tired of it.

You claim to be a man, but that is a lie revealed to any who can see you here. You deny you wish godhood, yet you raise up an empire to praise you. You call yourself the Master of Mankind, and perhaps that is the ONLY truth you ever spoke- that you wish to make your children slaves"- Horus Lupercal

The only way to kill me was to welcome his own death, and he did it the moment the chance arose.

This Imperium is ours. We fought for it. We built it with blood and sweat and wrath. We forged it with the worlds we took. The empire is built upon foundations of our brothers' bones...We didn't rebel out of petty spite, Sigismund. We rebelled because our Lord and master played us false. We were useful tools to bring the galaxy to heel, but He would have cleansed us from the Imperium the way He purged the Thunder Legion before us, wiping us all from history like excrement from His golden boots.