Eisenhorn Quotes

But my patience isn't limitless... unlike my authority.

If he speaks again without me knowing who he is, I will throw him out of the window. And I won't open it first.

Have you noticed we can breathe in here too? Gosh, I wouldn't have picked up on that.

In my experience, the heavy-handed, terror-inspiring approach closes as many doors as it smashes open.

What the hell are you doing, trooper?” he managed to bark, his pronounced Adam's apple bobbing furiously. “Performing the ministry of the sacred Inquisition,” I told him, and shot him through the head.

The past never lets us go. It is persistent an unalterable. The future, however, is aloof, a stranger. It stands with its back to us, mute and private, refusing to communicate what it knows or what it sees. Except to some." - Gregor Eisenhorn

All my life, I have had a reputation for being cold, unfeeling. Some have called me heartless, ruthless, even cruel. I am not. I am not beyond emotional response or compassion. But I possess - and my masters count this as perhaps my paramount virtue - a singular force of will. Throughout my career it has served me well to draw on this facility and steel myself, unflinching, at all that this wretched galaxy can throw at me. To feel pain or fear or grief is to allow myself a luxury I cannot afford.

One life, Harlon. I learned many things from Eisenhorn, but ruthlessness was not one of them. Thousands may die, millions even, unless Molotch is found and brought to justice. But any count of a million starts with one, and to ignore one life when there is still l a chance of saving it, well, one might as well give up on the other nine hundred and ninety-nine thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine as well." - Gideon Ravenor

You have to understand the rules in the first place if you’re going to break them.

Do you think me weak, flawed? Do you hate me for setting my Inquisitorial role above the needs of one agonised being?

It remains a sad truth of the Imperium that virtually no veteran ever comes back from fighting its wars intact. Combat alone shreds nerves and shatters bodies. But the horrors of the warp, and of foul xenos forms like the tyranid, steal sanity forever, and leave veterans fearing the shadows, and the night and, sometimes, the nature of their friends and neighbours, for the rest of their lives.

The end justifies the means?" He raised his eyebrows and laughed. "Now that's different. That kind of thinking gets a man into trouble. There are some means that no end will ever justify. But fighting dirty, occasionally, is no bad thing. Neither's breaking the rules. Provided you remember one thing." "Which is?" "You have to understand the rules in the first place if you're going to break them.

Long ago, an edict was made by the planetary government that only certain fields of land could ever be used for burial. So cemetery space is at an optimum. Hence, the Law of Decipherability.’ ‘Which is?’ ‘The law states that once the eroding hands of time and the elements have made the last names on a field’s gravestones illegible, the anonymous dead may be exhumed, the bones buried in a pit, and the field reused.

picter in her hand, capturing that transformation. Her story did not end there. She so easily might have been one of the trillions extinguished in the fires that followed. Her name is not commonly known today… except that it is, as Saint Euphrati. She was blessed with divine grace and gifts, and from her – and those few close to her in those bleak years – the essence of the Imperial Creed was born. She was one of the first saints. From her, and those disciples around her, arose the tenets of the Lectitio Divinitatus, the truth of us all, that the Emperor of Mankind is not a man, but a god. It is through her that the truth was recognised. It was in her that our faith was born.

The Malus Codicum. It was an infernal book, thrice damned. I knew of no other copy in existence. One half of the Inquisition would kill me to get their hands on it, the other half would burn me for having it in my possession.

Never argue with a gun-cutter, [...]

The daemonhost surged through the air at me, teeth bared, arms spread, incandescent with light, baying my name. It was like facing the attack run of a supersonic warcraft firing all guns. I know so. It is my misfortune to have experienced that too.

Something vast suddenly crossed my field of vision. By the time I had reacted and adjusted the magnification, it had passed out of sight into the works shed. I had a brief memory of bright, almost gaudy metal and a shimmering, flowing robe. ‘What the hell was that?’ I hissed. Midas looked at me, lowering his scope, actual fear on his face. Fischig also looked disturbed. ‘A giant, a horned giant in jewelled metal,’ Midas said. ‘He came striding out of the modular hab to the left and went straight into the shed. God-Emperor, but it was huge!’ Fischig agreed with a nod. ‘A monster,’ he said. The cones above roared again, and a rain of withering ash fluttered down across the settlement. We shrank back into the thorn-trees. Guard activity seemed to increase. ‘Rosethorn,’ my vox piped. ‘Now is not a good time,’ I hissed. It was Maxilla. He sent one final word and cut off. ‘Sanctum.’ ‘Sanctum’ was a Glossia codeword that I had given Maxilla before we had left the Essene. I wanted him in close orbit, providing us with extraction cover and overhead sensor advantages, but knew that he would have to melt away the moment any other traffic entered the system. ‘Sanctum’ meant that he had detected a ship or ships emerging from the immaterium into realspace, and was withdrawing to a concealment orbit behind the local star. Which meant that all of us on the planet were on our own. Midas caught my sleeve and pointed down at the settlement. The giant had reappeared and stood in plain view at the mouth of the shed. He was well over two metres tall, wrapped in a cloak that seemed to be made of smoke and silk, and his ornately decorated armour and horned helmet were a shocking mixture of chased gold, acidic yellow, glossy purple, and the red of fresh, oxygenated blood. In his ancient armour, the monster looked like he had stood immobile in that spot for a thousand years. Just a glance at him inspired terror and revulsion, involuntary feelings of dread that I could barely repress. A Space Marine, from the corrupted and damned Adeptus Astartes. A Chaos Marine.

Spider legs. Some arachnid form, anyway. A xenos variety of chelicerata. But these limbs were not under a microscope. They were two hundred metres long. 'That's not local,' he said.

Why do you do it?' asked Drusher. 'And don't say "because someone must" or anything like that.' 'Why are you a magos biologis, Drusher, when that calling has apparently given you a life you resent?' 'Because I'm good at it,' said Drusher. 'Yes', said Eisenhorn. 'It's sad, isn't it?

What do you think?’ he asked. ‘Do you think the most incredible thing about it is that it is an original pict, made ten thousand years ago, by the hallowed founder of the Imperial Truth? Or that it is a pict of Horus Lupercal?’ ‘I think the most incredible thing about it,’ I replied, ‘is that it is sitting on sale here and not sequestered in a vault on far-off Terra.

That they showed, in Keeler’s own, authenticated script, that she considered Horus a man, not a transformed, daemonic being. Further, they related that it had been commonly known at the time that the Emperor denied His divinity. He had formally declared that He was not a god, and sought to suppress the notion that He was. The Lectitio Divinitatus was already growing back then. The notes showed that the Emperor wanted it proscribed and forbidden.

Something of the warp,’ said Voriet. ‘Let’s use the word daemon,’ said Eisenhorn. ‘Oh, let’s not!’ exclaimed Drusher.

A twist whore, with an unnecessary number of arms, was sipping her drink, smoking an obscura stick, retouching her make-up and doing something to Phant under the table that he was clearly enjoying.