The thoughts of all men arise from the darkness. If you are the movement of your soul, and the cause of that movement precedes you, then how could you ever call your thoughts your own? How could you be anything other than a slave to the darkness that comes before? R. Scott Bakker
About This Quote

The thoughts of all men arise from the darkness. If you are the movement of your soul, and the cause of that movement precedes you, then how could you ever call your thoughts your own? How could you be anything other than a slave to the darkness that comes before? It’s a wonderful statement about free will and individual responsibility. People have an effect on those around them and those around them have an effect on those individuals. This quote reminds us to take responsibility for our actions and to understand that the reason we do what we do is because we have been presented with a certain set of circumstances. We can choose to do something different but there is no way for us to know what that choice would be or whether or not it would be any good.

Source: The Darkness That Comes Before

Some Similar Quotes
  1. A day without laughter is a day wasted. - Nicolas Chamfort
  2. You talk when you cease to be at peace with your thoughts. - Kahlil Gibran
  3. One, remember to look up at the stars and not down at your feet. Two, never give up work. Work gives you meaning and purpose and life is empty without it. Three, if you are lucky enough to find love, remember it is there and... - Stephen Hawking
  4. There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so. - William Shakespeare
  5. You're not to be so blind with patriotism that you can't face reality. Wrong is wrong, no matter who does it or says it. - Malcolm X
More Quotes By R. Scott Bakker
  1. The thoughts of all men arise from the darkness. If you are the movement of your soul, and the cause of that movement precedes you, then how could you ever call your thoughts your own? How could you be anything other than a slave to...
  2. Any fool can see the limits of seeing, but not even the wisest know the limits of knowing. Thus is ignorance rendered invisible, and are all Men made fools.
  3. So he came to realize that learning a language was perhaps the most profound thing a man could do. Not only did it require wrapping different sounds around the very movement of your soul, it involved learning things somehow already known, as though much of...
  4. Though all men be equally frail before the world, the differences between them are terrifying.
  5. Here we find further argument for Gotagga’s supposition that the world is round. How else could all men stand higher than their brothers?
Related Topics