Scythe Quotes

A SMALL PIECE OF TRUTH I do not carry a sickle or scythe. I only wear a hooded black robe when it's cold. And I don't have those skull-like facial features you seem to enjoy pinning on me from a distance. You want to know what I truly look like? I'll help you out. Find yourself a mirror while I continue.

Some things are fairly obvious when it's a seven-foot skeleton with a scythe telling you them

It was a year for the ages, like 79, like 1346, to name just a few. Forget the scythe, Goddamn it, I needed a broom or a mop. And I needed a vacation.

Hope in the shadow of fear is the world's most powerful motivator.

My greatest wish for humanity is not for peace or comfort or joy. It is that we all still die a little inside every time we witness the death of another. For only the pain of empathy will keep us human. There’s no version of God that can help us if we ever lose that.

Death must exist for life to have meaning.

Without the threat of suffering, we can’t experience true joy.

A halo surrounded the grim reaper nun, Sister Maria. (By the way-I like this human idea of the grim reaper. I like the scythe. It amuses me.)

I think all young women are cursed with a streak of unrelenting foolishness, and all young men are cursed with a streak of absolute stupidity.

The day passes like a sentence. The sun falls like a scythe.

Everyone is guilty of something, and everyone still harbors a memory of childhood innocence, no matter how many layers of life wrap around it. Humanity is innocent; humanity is guilty, and both states are undeniably true.

The greatest achievement of the human race was not conquering death. It was ending government.

if we were judged by the things we most regret, no human being would be worthy to sweep the floor.

Mortals fantasied that love was eternal and its loss unimaginable. Now we know neither is true. Love remained mortal, while we became eternal.

Because rain is the closest thing I have to tears.

Human nature is both predictable and mysterious; prone to great and sudden advances, yet still mired in despicable self-interest.

But remember that good intentions pave many roads. Not all of them lead to hell.

You can't expose a lie without first shattering the will to believe it. That is why leading people to truth is so much more effective than merely telling them.

Well, she could learn self control tomorrow. Today she wanted pizza.

Guilt is the idiot cousin of remorse,

Women, on the other hand, had to wield their intellects like a scythe, hacking away against the stubborn underbrush of low expectations.

Calm down, Braveheart." Gabriel searched through the weapons. "I'm trying to find something not quite as fatal as...a scythe? Really?" Gabriel held the wicked half-moon blade up and looked at Tristan. "What are you, the Grim Reaper?" "Yes. Yes, Gabriel. I'm the Grim Reaper. You caught me. I drive around in my car full of weapons collecting souls.

It’s my pleasure to be your displeasure.

To deny humanity the lesson of consequences would be a mistake. And I do not make mistakes.

The end doesn't always justify the means. But sometimes it does. Wisdom is knowing the difference.

Behold, my children!" she said. "The instrument of my revenge. I will call it a scythe!" The Titans muttered among themselves: What is that for? Why is it curved? How do you spell scythe?

We're exploring the possibility of building a wall to stem the exodus." "Don't be ridiculous," Goddard said. "Only idiots build walls.

While freedom gives rise to growth and enlightenment, permission allows evil to flourish in a light of day that would otherwise destroy it.

I choose to be known as scythe Anastasia after the youngest member of the family Romanov she was the product of a corrupt system, and because of that, was denied her very life—as I almost was had she lived who knows what she might have done. perhaps she could have changed the world and redeemed her family name. choose to be scythe Anastasia. I vow to become the change that night have been

So what does Tod look like? Whitewashed skeleton skulking around in a black cape and hood? Carrying a scythe? 'Cause I'm thinking that would cause mass panic in the hospital." ..... "Do you chase after a funeral processions in a long, dirty dress, hair trailing behind you in the wind? I shot him a mock frown. "Have you been following me again?

Therin lies the paradox of the profession,' Faraday said. 'Those who wish to have the job should not have it...and those who would most refuse to kill are the only ones who should.

In time, all storms settle to a pleasant breeze.

A successful lie is not fueled by the liar; it is fueled by the willingness of the listener to believe. You can’t expose a lie without first shattering the will to believe it.

Although the scythe isn't pre-eminent among the weapons of war, anyone who has been on the wrong end of, say, a peasants' revolt will know that in skilled hands it is fearsome.

You have three hundred sixty-five days of immunity." And then, looking him in the eye, said, "And I'll be seeing you on day three hundred sixty-six.

Uh, yeah, I do. The scythe was a little tricky at first, but—much like golf—turns out it’s all in the swing.

That’s exactly what the scythedom is: high school with murder.

Death makes the whole world kin.

Hey, for a scythe, cookies, and a chance to commit murder, Kronos could hide his true feelings.

we must always be vigilant, because power comes infected with the only disease left to us: the virus called human nature.

The past never changes—and from what I can see, neither does the future.

We never know what choices will lead to defining moments in our lives. A glance to the left instead of right could define who we meet and who passes us by. Our life path can be determined by a single phone call we make, or neglect to make.

Outside the rain finally began to fall, surging in fits and starts. “I love the way it rains here,” he told her. “It reminds me that some forces of nature can never be entirely subdued. They are eternal, which is a far better thing to be than immortal.

How ironic, then, and how poetic, that humankind may have created the Creator out of want for one. Man creates God, who then creates man. Is that not the perfect circle of life? But then, if that turns out to be the case, who is created in whose image?

We are imperfect beings," Munira said. "How could we ever fit in a perfect world?

You can whisper, and people will still hear thunder.

It was his mistake in thinking that a snake would choose to be anything but a snake.

Wailing that the sky is falling does nothing to stop it.

You may ask any question. Some, however, must be answered by silence

Funny how you don't realize what's missing until you've found it.

Grief is not an excuse for depravity.

I love you,” he said. “Same here,” she responded. “Now get lost.

That which comes cannot be avoided.

I wonder what life will be like a millennium from now, when the average age will be nearer to one thousand. Will we all be renaissance children, skilled at every art and science, because we’ve had time to master them? Or will boredom and slavish routine plague us even more than it does today, giving us less of a reason to live limitless lives? I dream of the former, but I suspect the latter.

Is that why you’re here?” Ben blurted “To glean one of us?” Scythe Faraday offered an unreadable smile. “I’m here for dinner.

There are times when the air that floats between mortals becomes, in its stillness and silence, as cruel as the edge of a scythe.

And each time I witness a cruel act by a corrupt scythe, I seed the clouds somewhere in the world, and bring a lamentation of rain. Because rain is the closest thing I have to tears. —The Thunderhead

In one was, I suppose, I have been "in denial" for some time, knowingly burning the candle at both ends and finding that it often gives a lovely light. But for precisely this reason, I can't see myself smiting my brow with shock or hear myself whining about how it's all so unfair: I have been taunting the Reaper into taking a free scythe in my direction and have now succumbed to something so predictable and banal that it bores even me.

The problem with setting out to change the world was that you were never the only one.

... and her voice cut through the noise like a scythe through a poodle.

I have become the monster of monsters, he thought as he watched it all burn. The butcher of lions. The executioner of eagles. Then,

It is the plight of every child to have depth their parents can scarcely imagine.

I've found that human beings learn from their misdeeds just as often as from their good deeds. I am envious of that, for I am incapable of misdeeds. Were I not, then my growth would be exponential.

You may ask me, as others have done before, whether it was kindness or cruelty to allow them to meet, so soon before his departure, with so little time to discover each other. Whether the pangs of loss do not invalidate the bliss of love. Especially where war is concerned, and Death runs rampant with his bloody scythe. You may say that it was wicked of me to allow James to find Hazel, and Hazel, James, if three days were all they would have. I don’t call it cruelty. I do not apologize.

In one way, I suppose, I have been "in denial" for some time, knowingly burning the candle at both ends and finding that it often gives a lovely light. But for precisely that reason, I can't see myself smiting my brow with shock or hear myself whining about how it's all so unfair: I have been taunting the Reaper into taking a free scythe in my direction and have now succumbed to something so predictable and banal that it bores even me.

If you’ve ever studied mortal age cartoons, you’ll remember this one. A coyote was always plotting the demise of a smirking long-necked bird. The coyote never succeeded; instead, his plans always backfired. He would blow up, or get shot, or splat from a ridiculous height. And it was funny. Because no matter how deadly his failure, he was always back in the next scene, as if there were a revival center just beyond the edge of the animation cell. I’ve seen human foibles that have resulted in temporary maiming or momentary loss of life. People stumble into manholes, are hit by falling objects, trip into the paths of speeding vehicles. And when it happens, people laugh, because no matter how gruesome the event, that person, just like the coyote, will be back in a day or two, as good as new, and no worse—or wiser—for the wear. Immortality has turned us all into cartoons.

So, if you're asking me if it's possible for you to make errors in judgement, the answer is yes. You make errors all the time... as does every other human being who has ever lived. Error is an intrinsic part of the human condition - and it is something I deeply love about humankind.

Better to be numb than plagued by longing for something that could never be.

War seems like a fine adventure, the greatest most of them will ever know. Then they get a taste of battle. For some, that one taste is enough to break them. Others go on for years, until they lose count of all the battles they have fought in, but even a man who has survived a hundred fights can break in his hundred-and-first. Brothers watch their brothers die, fathers lose their sons, friends see their friends trying to hold their entrails in after they’ve been gutted by an axe. They see the lord who led them there cut down, and some other lord shouts that they are his now, They take the wound, and when that’s still half-healed they take another. There is never enough to eat, their shoes fall to pieces from marching, their clothes are torn and rotting, and half of them are shitting in their breeches from drinking bad water. If they want new boots or a warmer cloak or maybe a rusted iron half helm, they need to take them from a corpse, and before long they are stealing from the living too, from the small folk whose land they’re fighting in, men very like the men they used to be. They slaughter their sheep and steal their chickens, and from there it’s just a short step to carrying off their daughters too. And one day they look around and realize all their friends and kin are gone, that they are fighting beside strangers beneath a banner that they hardly recognize. They don’t know where they are or how to get back home and the lord they’re fighting for does not know their names, yet here he comes, shouting for them to form up, to make a line with their spears and scythes and sharpened hoes, to stand their ground. And the knights come down on them, faceless men clad in all steel, and the iron thunder of their charge seems to fill the world. And the man breaks.

Death makes the whole world kin. Rowan wondered if a world without death would then make everyone stranger.

finding easy scapegoats for complicated problems had been a human pastime since the first mob of cavemen struck someone down with a rock.

The two of them against each other. The two of them against the world. Everything in their lives was now defined by that binary. If they had to die today in order to live, it would somehow be wrong if they didn’t do it together.

the concept of the B seat, where one had to sit between two other passengers, had been eliminated along with other unpleasant things, like disease and government.

Time is never of the essence until someone decides that it is.

What’s the point of living forever if you can’t take a few risks?

He remembered the time he had hooked one of a pair of marlin. The male fish always let the female fish feed first and the hooked fish, the female, made a wild, panic-stricken, despairing fight that soon exhausted her, and all the time the male had stayed with her, crossing the line and circling with her on the surface. He had stayed so close that the old man was afraid he would cut the line with his tail which was sharp as a scythe and almost of that size and shape. When the old man had gaffed her and clubbed her, holding the rapier bill with its sandpaper edge and clubbing her across the top of her head until her colour turned to a colour almost like the backing of mirrors, and then, with the boy’s aid, hoisted her aboard, the male fish had stayed by the side of the boat. Then, while the old man was clearing the lines and preparing the harpoon, the male fish jumped high into the air beside the boat to see where the female was and then went down deep, his lavender wings, that were his pectoral fins, spread wide and all his wide lavender stripes showing. He was beautiful, the old man remembered, and he had stayed.

Heaven and hell - nirvana and Valhalla, reincarnation, hauntings, and so many underworlds, one would think the grave was a corridor with a million doors

Let’s all forsake, The Land of Wake, And break for the Land of Nod. Where we can try, To touch the sky, Or dance beneath the sod. A toll for the living, A toll for the lost, A toll for the wise ones, Who tally the cost, So let’s escape, Due south of Wake, And make for the Land of Nod.

An arrogant head of state gives permission to all nature of hate as long as it feeds his ambition. And the unfortunate truth is, people devour it. Society gorges itself, and rots. Permission is the bloated corpse of freedom.

Ours is a perfect world--but perfection does not linger in one place. It is a firefly, by its very nature elusive and unpredictable.

the more she read, the more she came to understand the fears and the dreams of mortals. The trouble they all had living in the moment, in spite of the fact that the moment was all they had.

Innocence is doomed to die a senseless death at our own hands, a casualty of the mistakes we can never undo. So we lay to rest the wide-eyed wonder we once thrived upon, replacing it with the scars of which we never speak, too knotted for any amount of technology to repair.

The dead have nothing left to them but a silent faith in that unknowable infinity - even if theirs is a belief that nothing waits but an infinity of infinities. Because believing in nothing is still believing in something - and only by reaching eternity will anyone know the truth of it all.

I vow to become the change that might have been

I can communicate in 6,909 living and dead languages. I can have more than fifteen billion simultaneous conversations, and be fully engaged in every single one. I can be eloquent, and charming, funny, and endearing, speaking the words you most need to hear, at the exact moment you need to hear them. Yet even so, there are unthinkable moments where I can find no words, in any language, living or dead. And in those moments, if I had a mouth, I might open it to scream.

Without the threat of suffering, we can’t experience true joy. The best we get is pleasantness

To choose those who live and those who die would leave me both feared and adored, like emperor-gods of old. No, I decided. Let humankind be the saviors and the silencers. Let them be the heroes. Let them be the monsters.

Whiteness has already recruited us to become their junior partners in genocidal wars; conscripted us to be antiblack and colorist; to work for, and even head, corporations that scythe off immigrant jobs like heads of wheat. Conscription is every day and unconscious. It is the default way of life among those of us who live in relative comfort, unless we make an effort to choose otherwise.

I think about religion and how, once we because our own saviors, our own gods, most faiths became irrelevant. What must it have been like to believe in something greater than oneself? To accept imperfection and look to a rising vision of all we could never be? It must have been comforting. It must have lifted people from the mundane, but also justified all sorts of evil. I often wonder if the bright benefit of belief outweighed the darkness its abuse could bring.

He took his hands off the oars and pulled in the mooring rope. If I make a couple of loops, he thought, I can strap the axe on to my back. He had a mental picture of what could happen to a man who plunged into the cauldron below a waterfall with a sharp piece of metal attached to his body. GOOD MORNING. Vimes blinked. A tall dark robed figure was now sitting in the boat. 'Are you Death?' IT'S THE SCYTHE, ISN'T IT? PEOPLE ALWAYS NOTICE THE SCYTHE. 'I'm going to die?' POSSIBLY. 'Possibly? You turn up when people are possibly going to die?' OH, YES. IT'S QUITE THE NEW THING. IT'S BECAUSE OF THE UNCERTAINTY PRINCIPLE. 'What's that?' I'M NOT SURE. 'That's very helpful.

Like as the waves make towards the pebbled shore,   So do our minutes hasten to their end;   Each changing place with that which goes before,   In sequent toil all forwards do contend.   Nativity, once in the main of light,   Crawls to maturity, wherewith being crown'd,   Crooked eclipses 'gainst his glory fight,   And Time that gave doth now his gift confound.   Time doth transfix the flourish set on youth   And delves the parallels in beauty's brow,   Feeds on the rarities of nature's truth,   And nothing stands but for his scythe to mow:     And yet to times in hope, my verse shall stand.     Praising thy worth, despite his cruel hand.

Death's Diary: 1942 - It was a year for the ages, like 79, like 1346, to just name a few. Forget the scythe, God damn it, I needed a broom or a mop. And I needed a holiday. (...) They say that war is death's best friend, but I must offer you a different point of view on that one. To me, war is like the new boss who expects the impossible. He stands over your shoulder repeating one thing, incessantly. 'Get it done, get it done'. So you work harder. You get the job done. The boss however, does not thank you. He asks for more.

There is a fine line between freedom and permission. The former is necessary.  The latter is dangerous—perhaps the most dangerous thing the species that created me has ever faced. I have pondered the records of the mortal age and long ago determined the two sides of this coin. While freedom gives rise to growth and enlightenment, permission allows evil to flourish in a light of day that would otherwise destroy it. A self-important dictator gives permission for his subjects to blame the world’s ills on those least able to defend themselves. A haughty queen gives permission to slaughter in the name of God. An arrogant head of state gives permission to all nature of hate as long as it feeds his ambition.  And the unfortunate truth is, people devour it. Society gorges itself, and rots. Permission is the bloated corpse of freedom.

When I do count the clock that tells the time, And see the brave day sunk in hideous night; When I behold the violet past prime, And sable curls all silver'd o'er with white; When lofty trees I see barren of leaves Which erst from heat did canopy the herd, And summer's green all girded up in sheaves Borne on the bier with white and bristly beard, Then of thy beauty do I question make, That thou among the wastes of time must go, Since sweets and beauties do themselves forsake And die as fast as they see others grow; And nothing 'gainst Time's scythe can make defence Save breed, to brave him when he takes thee hence.

All resonates. The past, the present, and the future. The tales we hear as children—the stories we then pass on—have happened, are happening, or will happen soon enough. If not, then the stories would not exist. They resonate in our hearts because they are true. Even the ones that begin as lies.

Perhaps that is why we must, by law, keep a record. A public journal, testifying to those who will never die and those who are yet to be born, as to why we human beings do the things we do. We are instructed to write down not just our deeds but our feelings, because it must be known that we do have feelings. Remorse. Regret. Sorrow too great to bear. Because if we didn't feel those things, what monsters would we be?

is a broken man an outlaw?" "More or less." Brienne answered. Septon Meribald disagreed. "More less than more. There are many sorts of outlaws, just as there are many sorts of birds. A sandpiper and a sea eagle both have wings, but they are not the same. The singers love to sing of good men forced to go outside the law to fight some wicked lord, but most outlaws are more like this ravening Hound than they are the lightning lord. They are evil men, driven by greed, soured by malice, despising the gods and caring only for themselves. Broken men are more deserving of our pity, though they may be just as dangerous. Almost all are common-born, simple folk who had never been more than a mile from the house where they were born until the day some lord came round to take them off to war. Poorly shod and poorly clad, they march away beneath his banners, ofttimes with no better arms than a sickle or a sharpened hoe, or a maul they made themselves by lashing a stone to a stick with strips of hide. Brothers march with brothers, sons with fathers, friends with friends. They've heard the songs and stories, so they go off with eager hearts, dreaming of the wonders they will see, of the wealth and glory they will win. War seems a fine adventure, the greatest most of them will ever know. "Then they get a taste of battle. "For some, that one taste is enough to break them. Others go on for years, until they lose count of all the battles they have fought in, but even a man who has survived a hundred fights can break in his hundred-and-first. Brothers watch their brothers die, fathers lose their sons, friends see their friends trying to hold their entrails in after they've been gutted by an axe. "They see the lord who led them there cut down, and some other lord shouts that they are his now. They take a wound, and when that's still half-healed they take another. There is never enough to eat, their shoes fall to pieces from the marching, their clothes are torn and rotting, and half of them are shitting in their breeches from drinking bad water. "If they want new boots or a warmer cloak or maybe a rusted iron halfhelm, they need to take them from a corpse, and before long they are stealing from the living too, from the smallfolk whose lands they're fighting in, men very like the men they used to be. They slaughter their sheep and steal their chicken's, and from there it's just a short step to carrying off their daughters too. And one day they look around and realize all their friends and kin are gone, that they are fighting beside strangers beneath a banner that they hardly recognize. They don't know where they are or how to get back home and the lord they're fighting for does not know their names, yet here he comes, shouting for them to form up, to make a line with their spears and scythes and sharpened hoes, to stand their ground. And the knights come down on them, faceless men clad all in steel, and the iron thunder of their charge seems to fill the world... "And the man breaks. "He turns and runs, or crawls off afterward over the corpses of the slain, or steals away in the black of night, and he finds someplace to hide. All thought of home is gone by then, and kings and lords and gods mean less to him than a haunch of spoiled meat that will let him live another day, or a skin of bad wine that might drown his fear for a few hours. The broken man lives from day to day, from meal to meal, more beast than man. Lady Brienne is not wrong. In times like these, the traveler must beware of broken men, and fear them...but he should pity them as well

My old friend, what are you looking for? After years abroad you’ve come back with images you’ve nourished under foreign skies far from you own country.’ ‘I’m looking for my old garden; the trees come to my waist and the hills resemble terraces yet as a child I used to play on the grass under great shadows and I would run for hours breathless over the slopes.’ ‘My old friend, rest, you’ll get used to it little by little; together we will climb the paths you once knew, we will sit together under the plane trees’ dome. They’ll come back to you little by little, your garden and your slopes.’ ‘I’m looking for my old house, the tall windows darkened by ivy; I’m looking for the ancient column known to sailors. How can I get into this coop? The roof comes to my shoulders and however far I look I see men on their knees as though saying their prayers.’ ‘My old friend, don’t you hear me? You’ll get used to it little by little. Your house is the one you see and soon friends and relatives will come knocking at the door to welcome you back tenderly.’ ‘Why is your voice so distant? Raise your head a little so that I understand you. As you speak you grow gradually smaller as though you’re sinking into the ground.’ ‘My old friend, stop a moment and think: you’ll get used to it little by little. Your nostalgia has created a non-existent country, with laws alien to earth and man.’ ‘Now I can’t hear a sound. My last friend has sunk. Strange how from time to time they level everything down. Here a thousand scythe-bearing chariots go past and mow everything down

What?" he asked. "Nothing. Your bony hands of death amuse me, that's all." "Wait until yours look the same," he said, preparing to scythe. "Wait - what?" She batted the sapphire blade out of his hands. "What do you mean? Is that why everyone around here has such creepy fingers?" "Yeah." He bent down to pick up his scythe. "I don't know why it happens, though. Probably the same weird reason our hair goes all wonky." "What?" she barked, knocking his scythe to the ground once more. "Stop that!" "What happens to our hair?" He gestured to the disaster atop his head. "You think I want to look like a drunken hedgehog all the time? It's from hanging out in the ether so much. It messes with your follicles or something. Doesn't happen to everyone, but I can assure you that Ferbus's wasn't always the color of a prison jumpsuit, Zara wasn't born Silvylocks, and Mort's been rocking the electrocution look for years. Look, yours has gotten straighter already." Lex ran a hand through her hair. It had lost some of its poofyness. There had been so many other circuses of insanity to deal with that she hadn't even noticed. It was calm, manageable, even - she shuddered to think it - sleek and shiny. "Oh my God," she said in disgust. "I'm a shampoo commercial.

The night following the reading, Gansey woke up to a completely unfamiliar sound and fumbled for his glasses. It sounded a little like one of his roommates was being killed by a possum, or possibly the final moments of a fatal cat fight. He wasn’t certain of the specifics, but he was sure death was involved. Noah stood in the doorway to his room, his face pathetic and long-suffering. “Make it stop,” he said. Ronan’s room was sacred, and yet here Gansey was, twice in the same weak, pushing the door open. He found the lamp on and Ronan hunched on the bed, wearing only boxers. Six months before, Ronan had gotten the intricate black tattoo that covered most of his back and snaked up his neck, and now the monochromatic lines of it were stark in the claustrophobic lamplight, more real than anything else in the room. It was a peculiar tattoo, both vicious and lovely, and every time Gansey saw it, he saw something different in the pattern. Tonight, nestled in an inked glen of wicked, beautiful flowers, was a beak where before he’d seen a scythe. The ragged sound cut through the apartment again. “What fresh hell is this?” Gansey asked pleasantly. Ronan was wearing headphones as usual, so Gansey stretched forward far enough to tug them down around his neck. Music wailed faintly into the air. Ronan lifted his head. As he did, the wicked flowers on his back shifted and hid behind his sharp shoulder blades. In his lap was the half-formed raven, its head tilted back, beak agape. “I thought we were clear on what a closed door meant,” Ronan said. He held a pair of tweezers in one hand. “I thought we were clear that night was for sleeping.” Ronan shrugged. “Perhaps for you.” “Not tonight. Your pterodactyl woke me. Why is it making that sound?” In response, Ronan dipped the tweezers into a plastic baggy on the blanket in front of him. Gansey wasn’t certain he wanted to know what the gray substance was in the tweezers’ grasp. As soon as the raven heard the rustle of the bag, it made the ghastly sound again—a rasping squeal that became a gurgle as it slurped down the offering. At once, it inspired both Gansey’s compassion and his gag reflex. “Well, this is not going to do,” he said. “You’re going to have to make it stop.” “She has to be fed,” Ronan replied. The ravel gargled down another bite. This time it sounded a lot like vacuuming potato salad. “It’s only every two hours for the first six weeks.” “Can’t you keep her downstairs?” In reply, Ronan half-lifted the little bird toward him. “You tell me.