Horus Heresy Quotes

“So I fight for a Father who I never loved, against a brother that I did. I defend an empire that never wanted me against an army that would have taken me in a heartbeat.”
― Chris Wraight, The Path of Heaven

“Loken tried to imagine the future, but the image would not form. Death would wipe them all from history. Not even the great First Captain Ezekyle Abaddon would survive forever. There would be a time when Abaddon no longer waged bloody war across the territories of humanity.
Loken sighed. That would be a sad day indeed. Men would cry out for Abaddon’s return, but he would never come.
He tried to picture the manner of his own death. Fabled, imaginary combats flashed through his mind. He imagined himself at the Emperor’s side, fighting some great, last stand against an unknown foe. Primarch Horus would be there, of course. He had to be. It wouldn’t be the same without him. Loken would battle, and die, and perhaps even Horus would die, to save the Emperor at the last.
Glory. Glory, like he’d never known. Such an hour would become so ingrained in the minds of men that it would be the cornerstone of all that came after. A great battle, upon which human culture would be based.
Then, briefly, he imagined another death. Alone, far away from his comrades and his Legion, dying from cruel wounds on some nameless rock, his passing as memorable as smoke.
Loken swallowed hard. Either way, his service was to the Emperor, and his service would be true to the end.”
― Dan Abnett, Horus Rising

“And in the end. It's just a man killing his son with a stone...then the galaxy burns”
― Dan Abnett, The End and the Death: Volume III

“Sometimes the best move in politics is to refuse the game in the first place.”
― Guy Haley, The Lost and the Damned

“We must find our friends where we can, and make those bonds count.”
― Dan Abnett, Saturnine

“To know is to be tempted.”
― Gav Thorpe, The First Wall

“And in a sunless realm, the sun rose at last.”
― Aaron Dembski-Bowden, The Master of Mankind

“What empire has ever been anything more than the ruins that are discovered by the one that rises after it? They never last, Khârn. Ever. And neither will this one.”
― Ian St. Martin, Angron: Slave of Nuceria

“It takes a vast amount of self control to be this dangerous.”
― Dan Abnett, Prospero Burns

“There can be no justice without fear, no fear without suffering.”
― Guy Haley, Konrad Curze: The Night Haunter

“How much of this nightmare might have been avoided if there was but one amongst us who could speak one word to another that was true?”
― David Guymer, Dreadwing

“Only a fool ignores the advice of a brilliant man. Oy an idiot denies the good practice of an enemy.”
― Dan Abnett, Saturnine

“Terra,’ he whispered to himself. By the time he was brought to Loken, who awaited him in one of the fortress’s upper chambers, the word had become ‘terror’ without him realising it.”
― Dan Abnett, Horus Rising

“Service, loyalty, honour, these are both the
debt and the payment.”
― John French, Tallarn: Siren

“You claim to be a man, but that is a lie revealed to any who can see you here.

You deny you wish godhood, yet you raise up an empire to praise you.

You call yourself the Master of Mankind, and perhaps that is the ONLY truth you ever spoke- that you wish to make your children slaves"- Horus Lupercal”
― John French

“This Imperium is ours. We fought for it. We built it with blood and sweat and wrath. We forged it with the worlds we took. The empire is built upon foundations of our brothers' bones...We didn't rebel out of petty spite, Sigismund. We rebelled because our Lord and master played us false. We were useful tools to bring the galaxy to heel, but He would have cleansed us from the Imperium the way He purged the Thunder Legion before us, wiping us all from history like excrement from His golden boots.”
― Aaron Dembski-Bowden, Black Legion

“He remembered being blinded by his father's light. He remembered refusing to abandon his brothers and sisters, beneath a blue sky at high-sun, far from the city of Desh'ea. He remembered the mechanical thunder of absolute betrayal, when he was stolen from the death he'd so richly earned.

He remembered the cold moment of truth as he stood in the dark, his hurting eyes healing, that every day he breathed was an unwanted gift. He was walking another man's destiny now. His destiny was to be with the men and women who needed him, who called for him, who followed him into the mountains, and died without him. A destiny denied.

He was Angron of Desh'ea. After that, nothing mattered. He'd listened to the others that begged him, that needed it all to matter. He'd played their games, living another man's life. He'd led his fleets, he'd embraced his sons, he'd told himself that blood was thicker than water, and that the Eaters of Worlds were the army he wanted and the horde he deserved. He'd sustained himself on lies, letting none see how he starved.

And he served in his cold-hearted father's empire, enduring the silent sneers of brothers he despised.”
― Aaron Dembski-Bowden, Betrayer

“…Corswain saw the daemon. How he had not before was not fathomable. There at the heart of the chamber, in the void between all the platforms and apparatus, burned a sun. It was golden, rayed, its light the light of a new day on gently rolling waves. He looked at it and felt the heaviness of his thoughts fall away. The burdens of will and command, of certain death and hopeless struggle, vanishing. He had never realised he was carrying so much, that he had borne the weight of existence on his shoulders. It was gone now. He was free. He was the master of his universe. From here, only what he desired and willed would exist.
‘ ”
― John French, Mortis: The Horus Heresy - Siege of Terra (The Horus Heresy: Siege of Terra 5)

“It gives me no pleasure to do this,’ said Sharrowkyn. ‘You are nothing to me, simply a rabid dog that needs to be put down.”
― Graham McNeill, Angel Exterminatus

“I do not doubt your visions. But what do they change? Shall we stare up at the shadows and let our blades fall from our hands? Know this, son of Magnus. There is more under the arch of heaven than victory or defeat. We may fall back but not forever. We may feint and we may weave, but not forever. We may yet be doomed to lose all that we cherish, but we shall do so in the knowledge that we could have turned away, and did not. We remained true. They can never have this, not if they burn all we built and scorn us through the dancing flames. You hear me? We remained true.”
― Chris Wraight, The Path of Heaven

“There is nowhere left to hide. We know you now. We shall hunt you in every plane of reality. We will cleanse the void, then we will cleanse the warp. So look on me now, yaksha, and know your slayer.”
― Chris Wraight, The Path of Heaven

“Jaghatai started to cough, sending more bloody spurts out over the ripped-apart ground. His shattered gauntlet still clutched the hilt of his blade, but the arm must have been broken in many places. Only slowly, as he trudged back, did Mortarion realise that the sound was bitter laughter.

'I… absorbed,' Jaghatai rasped, 'the… pain.'

Mortarion halted. 'What do you mean?'

'I… know,' Jaghatai said, his voice a liquid slur. 'The Terminus Est. You… gave up. I… did not.' And then he grinned – his split lips, his flayed cheeks, his lone seeing eye, twisting into genuine, spiteful pleasure. 'My endurance is… superior.'

So that was what they all believed. Not that he had done what needed to be done. Not that he had sacrificed everything to make his Legion invincible, even suffering the ignominy of using Calas as his foil, even condemning himself to the permanent soul-anguish of daemonhood so that the change could never be undone by anyone, not even his father.

That he had been weak.”
― Chris Wraight, Warhawk

“It is not the descent toward the shadow nor the rise toward the light that makes us superior, it is the endless struggle between the two where greatness of character resides." - Sanguinius”
― James Swallow, Fear to Tread

“The search for perfection is a subtle drug. It draws the mind along circuitous routes, deeper and deeper into itself, until nothing can be seen except the ideal. Desire blinds one to purpose, and thus renders true perfection impossible.”
― Joshua Reynolds, Fulgrim: The Palatine Phoenix

“You know as well as I that this doesn’t end with kill teams or assassins or a pre-emptive strike thousands of light years from Terra. It ends with me looking into my father’s eyes, my hands around His neck, and showing Him everything he loves burned to ash by His lies.”
― Graham McNeill, Vengeful Spirit

“Angron staggered to his brother’s side, drooling and dizzy – a flawed statue of the perfect warrior, ruined by mistreatment. As bloodstained as they both were, they could almost have been twins.”
― Aaron Dembski-Bowden, Butcher's Nails

“So much contempt for your own species."

"Yes, contempt! If you had seen what I have seen, watched what a human may become when left alone in the dark, you would share it. You were lucky, Jaghatai. Your world was no Caliban. We tell you of Old Night and you barely believe us, but that is not how most places were. The lie is noble. It is there to protect, to guard, not to deceive, for they are not ready."

I have heard this before. There were empires on my homeworld that offered freedom to their slave castes, but only when they were ready. That moment, strangely enough, never came. In the end, they had to take it for themselves, to die for it, and even then there were some who said the day had come too soon. The truth will come out. You won't be able to hold the blindfold in place, and once it slips, the fury of those you deceived will be limitless.”
― Chris Wraight, Jaghatai Khan: Warhawk of Chogoris

“You mean to topple whoever finally claims Terra's throne and take it for yourself."

"Who among my brothers is as remotely suited as I for such a position? Horus is already so rank with stolen powers that he burns from the inside out and sees it not. Perturabo might once have had the imagination to make such a leap, but it has been ground out of him. Angron or Mortarion are lords only of corpses and maggots, and as for Konrad and Fulgrim, they are not fit to rule themselves, let alone a galaxy.”
― Graham McNeill, Fury of Magnus

“What can we really do for this Imperium? Can we sustain it now, bearing its weight on our shoulders? Not the way we were made. But we can kill for it. We can break, we can burn, we can unmake. We have done everything they asked of us. We have held their battle line, scored it with our own blood, and it has not been enough. If we are to die here, on a world that has no soul and no open sky to rejoice in, then we will die doing what we were schooled to do.”
― Chris Wraight, Warhawk

“You don’t need to hear to listen to the truth.”
― John French, Black Oculus