A.J. Darkholme Quotes

The most fulfilling adventures happen when you start your journey without knowing where you’re going, because only then are you free to experience the unexpected detours you’re meant to take.

Never overestimate the strength of the torchbearer's arm, for even the strongest arms grow weary.

To get to where you need to be, you have to go where you don't feel prepared to go.

Far too many people allow broken egos and wounded prides to convince them to seek justice before they seek understanding.

Emotional states change like the wind, and to indulge them only gives them more power over a person.

Let your fear drive you to evolve into greatness.

The amount of gold someone has is never the issue, but rather the love of it and the want of more for personal gain that consumes the hearts of many good people.

They say you can’t change the past despite the fact it never stops changing you – but that doesn't mean we have to sit back and take it. It may change us, but we have ultimate control over how we let it.

Being a leader is not about finding ways to get others to serve you, but knowing how to serve your followers.

Life is what you make it and legacy is what you leave it. Stop trying to be perfect, stop waiting for perfection to find you, and start making your environment a product of you instead of the other way around.

Sometimes it feels like you have nothing, or aren't going anywhere, but while you’re waiting for fortune to deliver you, there is always something you can do to help yourself, or teach yourself to better your situation.

We live our days in the microscopic, but something within us calls us to dream in the cosmic – every one of us. And within us exists those two worlds: the world as it is and the world as we think it ought to be.

It is unwise to waste in thought what could be earned and secured in action.

We are united by something greater and more valuable than our beliefs alone: the freedom to have those beliefs, and believe what we want without persecution - we must protect that at all costs.

Gaining satisfaction through accomplishments is and will always be a slippery slope, because there will come a time when you realize you have accomplished all that is within your power to accomplish in the realm of good, and will have nowhere else to turn but to the realms of greed and powerlust to find the satisfaction you crave.

Like waking up in our home one night to find ourselves in a blazing fire, we must be arsonists of emotion, forcing ourselves to grab only what is truly important to us before our life-rafters collapse in on us and we can no longer escape alive.

This day, you are free, because you have chosen to be free – and because of your choice, your days of insignificance are over.

If you choose to keep your true face secret, then the people who know you by one mask, must never meet those who know you by another.

When you’re looking for a needle in a haystack, don’t afraid to burn the haystack to save yourself from spending half your life picking through strands of straw.

Words give inspiration, nothing more. You want redemption? The very thing you seek inspiration for? Fight for it like your life depended on it, because it always does.

What you withhold in this life will be withheld from you in the next.

Never judge a woman by her age.

Sometimes to submit is to know you have a life worth living for a higher purpose, worth seeing through.

If someone was going to kill someone dear to you, and you could stop that person by killing them instead, would you kill them, knowing it was an effective way to save your loved one?

Why spend your life working on defense when no defense can be made truly impenetrable? Take the offensive – learn the vulnerabilities of the world around you and be the change you wish to see rather than living in constant fear of what may happen to you instead.

Though there is much we still want, there is much we already have, and that means we have much to lose as well. It’s that potential loss that can keep us bound so tightly that we never reach our biggest dreams, because the biggest dreams require the most risk.

Greed robs you of more value than the price of what you've gained.

In times of war, skepticism can be just cause for execution.

Anything you dream [can] be yours simply because you've focused on the steps you could take instead of the distance to get there.

Sometimes it's best to trade an ideal for something more practical that you can guarantee.

All things are possible; if something seems like it’s not, it’s only because enough people aren't being deceived into the possibilities yet.

Despite our human intelligence, we are very much like our friends in the wild; the world we live in is a survival of the fittest. But to this I say, let the fittest survive! Survival is overrated. We’re alive; we die. How long we survive for is of little significance. Our true significance lies not in the endless comparing of ourselves to one another, trying to see who is the fittest, using scales of evaluation and meaning that differ in the heart and mind of every individual; no - it lies in our deeds alone with the time we have.

Always hear others out and remain open-minded the day you think you know everything is the day you have the most yet to learn.

Trust is always a risk, but when placed in the right people after a trial period where they prove themselves worthy of it, it is a reward transcendent of all the emotional mire that bogs down a person’s potential.

The older you get, the faster time passes in your mind, so use your time according to what is most important.

We must humble ourselves before [others] so we may learn from what others have lived. It is only when we have added their expertise to our own that we can truly excel towards our most ambitious goals and reach our fullest potential.

Admiration provides no saving grace for the inconvenient.

The weakest link in any chain of security is not the technology itself, but the person operating it; iron gates have no compassion to appeal to, nor fears to exploit, nor insecurities to use to one’s advantage. They are, however, operated by us – by beings of unlimited vulnerability and limited energy. Why waste time brute-forcing what can be easily circumvented by a clever façade and a crimson tongue?

Every choice in life sets us on a different path and carries its own set of “what ifs” and consequences that we could worry about, but what’s the use? Rather than plaguing our thoughts with the unknown, we should focus on and accept only what we do know – and all we know is the path we’re currently on.

No matter what, don't live a life where you're too scared to die for what you believe in. Always go at it with everything you've got, even if it doesn't seem to be enough.

The power to give everything or take it all away is the inborn power contained in every confident woman’s grasp – the only way for a man to regain that power, is to keep her happy enough that she forgets she even has it.

Awareness is not a prerequisite for change.

Being an authority on paper does not immediately grant you authority over a group until it is earned by you and given by them.

People respond more to the authority of status, than the authority of truth.

If we are to be truly free, that freedom will come through cooperation and tolerance with one another.

Anything you don’t want to deal with can always be written off as being “in the past” and ignored, but in doing so, you sweep it under a rug where it doesn't go away with time – it becomes time itself, and takes on the illusion of life as we think we know it.

Sometimes the best way to learn a lesson isn't just hearing the words, but putting it into practice by experimenting with it and finding its truth for yourself instead of taking someone else’s word for it.

Our unity will always be a greater force with mixed ideals than if we demand that others change for us, to what we believe.

The only way we succeed as a group is not simply following directions, but in keeping each other accountable for our actions.

Seek counsel; though we are all skilled and experienced in many ways, no one can experience all that life has to offer in the limited time we are given in this world.

When you give meaning to even the most meaningless of things around you, you will always stand to be taught something new, have what you already know reinforced, or be reminded of what you've forgotten.

We must always be careful never to make more enemies than we could handle if they were all to attack at once.

We are not slaves of the past, nor servants of the present, but masters of the future.

Sic vis pacem para bellum - if you want peace, prepare for war.

It’s amazing how just dressing differently can affect your influence; dress like a beggar and your assumed poverty gains you looks of contempt; dress in gold-lined robes and people are more willing to accommodate you; sport armour and you look strong, dutiful, and prepared.

Express [yourself] without worrying what everyone else will think. Those people are your limits. Ignore them.

Our emotions hold more power over us than blade or poison alike. To embrace freely the entire spectrum of our emotions is to allow a multitude of Trojan horses containing hidden emotional poisons to circumvent the walls of rationalization – walls we need to protect our trust, confidence, understanding, and self-control.

Our lives consist of a series of internal battles, deep within us, where weapons don't exist and technology is unable to create devices that better the best of yesterday. Our knowledge is our only defense; caution, our only friend.

A man is no more than breath until his breath fashions the words that others cannot forget.

Your biggest dreams can become reality, not by brute-forcing the end-goal, but breaking it down into smaller, more manageable parts. If your goal takes years, breaking it down into months and days will let you improve your lot little bits at a time.