For my brothers will not surrender to fate with dignity. You and your kin are to be my hand on the throat of the future.

As mankind dies, so it nurtures its own replacement, all unknowing. Generation upon generation, their strength breeding true.

They, and their children, carry on my teachings into the dark. The rest are scattered across the galaxy, burrowed into the flesh of a dying empire, so that they might best guide it to its well-deserved and long overdue grave. Of them all, I kept only you and your closest siblings. In your generation, there were five hundred. But first, you - we - must teach them how to survive, until that moment. “The day will come, my dear, when your children's children stride the galactic rim as the kings and queens of all they survey. You know nothing of courage! Honor is resisting a tyrant when all others suckle and grow fat on the hypocrisy he feeds them. Which one of us landed on a paradise of civilization to be raised by a foster father, Roboute? Which one of us was given armies to lead after training in the halls of the Macraggian High Riders? Which one of us inherited a strong, cultured kingdom? And which one of us had to rise up against a kingdom with nothing but a horde of starving slaves? Which one of us was a child enslaved on a world of monsters, with his brain cut up by carving knives? Listen to your blue clad wretches yelling courage and honor, courage and honor, courage and honor! Do you even know the meaning of those words? Courage is fighting the kingdom which enslaves you, no matter that their armies outnumber yours by ten-thousand to one. “What would you know of struggle, perfect son? When have you fought against the mutilation of your mind? When have you had to do anything other than tally compliance's and polish your armor? The people of your world named you 'Great One'.

Warhammer 40k black templars quotes