Thus is our treaty written; thus is agreement made. Thought is the arrow of time; memory never fades. What was asked is given; the price is paid.
Interpretation
This quote reflects on the permanence of memories and the nature of time in relation to agreements and actions.
In this quote by Robert Jordan, the author emphasizes the significance of thoughts and memories in the flow of time, suggesting that once something is committed to thought or action, it remains lasting and immutable. The phrase indicates that agreements and the consequences of our actions—what we ask of life—are intrinsically tied to the way we perceive and remember them, highlighting the weight of responsibility that comes with our decisions.
In practice
During a discussion on the importance of keeping promises, one might say this quote to emphasize the significance of agreements.
Fantasy is an area where it is possible to talk about right and wrong, good and evil, with a straight face. In mainstream fiction and even in a good deal of mystery, these things are presented as simply two sides of the same coin. Never really more than a matter of where you happen to be standing.
The Wheel of Time turns, and Ages come and pass, leaving memories that become legend. Legend fades to myth, and even myth is long forgotten when the Age that gave it birth comes again. In one Age, called the Third Age by some, an Age yet to come, an Age long past, a wind rose in the Mountains of Mist. The wind was not the beginning. There are neither beginnings nor endings to the turning of the Wheel of Time. But it was a beginning.
Til shade is gone, til water is gone Into the shadow with teeth bared Screaming defiance with the last breath To spit in Sightblinder’s eye on the Last Day.
He came like the wind, like the wind touched everything, and like the wind was gone. -from The Dragon Reborn. By Loial, son of Arent son of Halan, the Fourth Age.
The oak fought the wind and was broken, the willow bent when it must and survived.
Duty is heavier than a mountain, Dai Shan.' That time, Lan did flinch. How long had it been since someone had been able to do that to him with mere words? He remembered teaching that same concept to a youth out of the Two Rivers. A sheepherder, innocent of the world, fearful of the fate laid out before him by the Pattern.
I doubt that religion can survive deep understanding. The shallows are its natural habitat. Cranks and fundamentalists are too often victimised as scapegoats for religion in general. It is only quite recently that Christianity reinvented itself in non-fundamentalist guise, and Islam has yet to do so.
The most difficult idea to reconcile in war is the notion that anything is going to be solved by killing a stranger, or in risking your life for a cause anchored in some distant political arena.
We all create the person we become by our choices as we go through life. In a real sense, by the time we are adults, we are the sum total of the choices we have made.
When I'm older I'll understand" said Lucy, " I am older and I don't think I want to understand", replied Edmund
Those reformers who preach against image-worship, or what they denounce as idolatry - to them I say "Brothers, if you are fit to worship God-without-form discarding all external help, do so, but why do you condemn others who cannot do the same?"
The human world is a long way from meeting the needs of the present, and it is borrowing massively from the future - not only by piling up money debt, but also by degrading the resources from which all real wealth ultimately comes.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.