Rules from the Sword of Truth (and their explanations)

Every book is a piece of wisdom passed from the storyteller to the people.  I should have remembered that.  I read this series twice through as a child, and when the last book was finished, I met the author himself.  I can say that I've fallen prey to these quite a bit, because I had forgotten, but they have stuck with me since the first time that I read them.  I should have remembered them.

But now I DO remember. And now I have to ask my self:  What would a Seeker of Truth do?

 

1. People will believe a lie because they want it to be true; or they're afraid it's true.

Given proper motivation, almost anyone will believe almost anything. Because people are stupid, they will believe a lie because they want to believe its true, or because they're afraid it might be true. Peoples' heads are full of knowledge, facts and beliefs, and most of it is false, yet they think it all true. People are stupid; they can only rarely tell the difference between a lie and the truth, and yet they are confident they can, and so are all the easier to fool.

Wizard's First Rule: Chapter 36, page 397

2. The greatest harm can result from the best intentions.

Kindness and good intentions can be an insidious path to destruction. Sometimes doing what seems right is wrong, and can cause harm. The only counter to it is knowledge, wisdom, forethought, and understanding the First Rule. Even then, that is not always enough.

Stone of Tears: Chapter 63, page 634

3. Passion rules reason, For better or for worse.

Letting your emotions control your reason may cause trouble for yourself and those around you.

Blood of the Fold: Chapter 43, page 360

4. There is magic in sincere forgiveness; in the forgiveness you give, but more so in the forgiveness you receive.

Temple of the Winds: Chapter 41, page 318

5. Mind what people do, not only what they say, for deeds will betray a lie.

Soul of the Fire: Chapter 28, page 205

6. The only sovereign you can allow to rule you is reason.

The first law of reason is this: what exists, exists; what is, is; and from this irreducible bedrock principle, all knowledge is built. It is the foundation from which life is embraced.

Thinking is a choice. Wishes and whims are not facts nor are they a means to discover them. Reason is our only way of grasping reality; it is our basic tool of survival. We are free to evade the effort of thinking, to reject reason, but we are not free to avoid the penalty of the abyss that we refuse to see. Faith and feelings are the darkness to reason's light. In rejecting reason, refusing to think, one embraces death.

Faith of the Fallen: Chapter 41, page 318

7. Life is the future, not the past.

The past can teach us, through experience, how to accomplish things in the future, comfort us with cherished memories, and provide the foundation of what has already been accomplished. But only the future holds life. To live in the past is to embrace what is dead. To live life to its fullest, each day must be created anew. As rational, thinking beings, we must use our intellect, not a blind devotion to what has come before, to make rational choices.

Pillars of Creation: Chapter 60, page 549

8. Talga Vassternich, Translation: Deserve Victory.

Be justified in your convictions. Be completely committed. Earn what you want and need rather than waiting for others to give you what you desire.

Naked Empire: Chapter 61, page 626

9. A contradiction can not exist in reality. Not in part, nor in whole.

To believe in a contradiction is to abdicate your belief in the existence of the world around you and the nature of the things in it, to instead embrace any random impulse that strikes your fancy - to imagine something is real simply because you wish it were. A thing is what it is, it is itself. There can be no contradictions.

Faith is a device of self-delusion, a sleight of hand done with words and emotions founded on any irrational notion that can be dreamed up. Faith is the attempt to coerce truth to surrender to whim. In simple terms, it is trying to breathe life into a lie by trying to outshine reality with the beauty of wishes. Faith is the refuge of fools, the ignorant, and the deluded, not of thinking, rational men.

In reality, contradictions cannot exist. To believe in them you must abandon the most important thing you possess: your rational mind. The wager for such a bargain is your life. In such an exchange, you always lose what you have at stake.

Chainfire: Chapter 48, page 489

10. Willfully turning aside from the truth is treason to one's self.

Phantom: Chapter 12, page 127

11. The "Rule Unspoken", the "Rule Unwritten", "The rule from the beginning of time."

You are going to have to read the books to find out for yourself...