Author:: Brandon Sanderson
Full Title:: Words of Radiance
Tags:#media/book
- themes::
- theme 1
- Summary::
- summary 1
* highlights from 2021-02-08
* “Spren are those ideas—the ideas of collective human experience—somehow come alive. Shadesmar is where that first happens, and it is their place. Though we created it, they shaped it. They live there; they rule there, within their own cities.” ([Location 647](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DA6YEKS&location=647))
* Power is an illusion of perception.” ([Location 764](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DA6YEKS&location=764))
* Light makes shadow. Truth makes lies. ([Location 2026](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DA6YEKS&location=2026))
* Do not let your assumptions about a culture block your ability to perceive the individual, or you will fail. ([Location 3529](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DA6YEKS&location=3529))
* **Tags**: [[orange]]
* Progress is learning to control your world. ([Location 3843](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DA6YEKS&location=3843))
* **Tags**: [[orange]]
* Progress was taking nature and putting a box around it. ([Location 3844](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DA6YEKS&location=3844))
* **Tags**: [[orange]]
* “Stupidity is a function of one’s surroundings, ([Location 4050](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DA6YEKS&location=4050))
* **Tags**: [[orange]]
* Expectation wasn’t just about what people expected of you. It was about what you expected of yourself. ([Location 4409](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DA6YEKS&location=4409))
* **Tags**: [[orange]]
* “Sapience,” Pattern said. “Thought. Life. These are of humans. We are ideas. Ideas that wish to live.” ([Location 4943](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DA6YEKS&location=4943))
* Careful planning was, indeed, the water that nourished innovation. ([Location 8042](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DA6YEKS&location=8042))
* **Tags**: [[orange]]
* Part of her didn’t want to go forward with it, obviously, and her mind was trying to distract her. She was becoming increasingly aware of this defense of hers. She used it, she needed it, but she couldn’t let it control her life. ([Location 9606](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DA6YEKS&location=9606))
* “I ain’t grouchy,” Teft snapped. “I just have a low threshold for stupidity.” ([Location 9889](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DA6YEKS&location=9889))
* Ignoring her own panic, her discomfort, she moved into the darkness. Because if she did not, then it meant that none of them were resisting, that nothing would change. ([Location 10293](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DA6YEKS&location=10293))
* “What think you? Can beauty be taken from a man? If he could not touch, taste, smell, hear, see . . . what if all he knew was pain? Has that man had beauty taken from him? ([Location 10457](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DA6YEKS&location=10457))
* **Tags**: [[orange]]
* “Then beauty, to that person, would be the times when the pain lessens. Why are you telling me this story? ([Location 10460](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DA6YEKS&location=10460))
* **Tags**: [[orange]]
* “To be human is to seek beauty, Shallan. Do not despair, do not end the hunt because thorns grow in your way. ([Location 10461](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DA6YEKS&location=10461))
* **Tags**: [[orange]]
* Love . . . love is like a classical melody.” Shallan grinned. “If you end your performance too quickly, your audience is disappointed? ([Location 11090](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DA6YEKS&location=11090))
* **Tags**: [[orange]]
* As I fear not a child with a weapon he cannot lift, I will never fear the mind of a man who does not think.’” ([Location 15862](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DA6YEKS&location=15862))
* Jasnah had once defined a fool as a person who ignored information because it disagreed with desired results. ([Location 18716](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DA6YEKS&location=18716))
* Contradictions. Those were what made people real. Jasnah exhausted, yet somehow still strong—stronger, even, because of the vulnerability she revealed. Jasnah terrified, yet also brave, for one allowed the other to exist. Jasnah overwhelmed, yet powerful. ([Location 18915](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DA6YEKS&location=18915))
* “It frightens me,” Shallan said, “because we all see the world by some kind of light personal to us, and that light changes our perception. I don’t see clearly. I want to, but I don’t know if I ever truly can.” ([Location 18940](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DA6YEKS&location=18940))
* Instead, he started dancing with the rain. He went through spear forms, doing his best to avoid putting weight on his wounded leg. He splashed in the waters. He sought peace and purpose in the comfortable forms. He didn’t find either. His balance was off, and his leg screamed. The rain didn’t accompany him; it just annoyed him. Worse, the wind didn’t blow. The air felt stale. ([Location 19547](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DA6YEKS&location=19547))
* “It’s right to remove the wounded limb,” Kaladin whispered. “This is what we have to do. To . . . To . . .” To stay alive. Where had those words come from? Gotta do what you can to stay alive, son. Turn a liability into an advantage whenever you can. Tien’s death. That moment, that horrible moment, when he watched unable to do anything as his brother died. Tien’s own squadleader had sacrificed the untrained to gain a moment’s advantage. ([Location 19560](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DA6YEKS&location=19560))
* “I will protect even those I hate,” Kaladin whispered through bloody lips. “So long as it is right.” ([Location 20334](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DA6YEKS&location=20334))
* “You sent him to the sky to die, assassin,” Kaladin said, Stormlight puffing from his lips, “but the sky and the winds are mine. I claim them, as I now claim your life.” ([Location 20547](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DA6YEKS&location=20547))