...silence of love...

'So I thought. This is twice now I have been most impressed by the gallantry of your actions.'
'Then it is on two occasions that I have been pleased you were there to witness it.'
'You interest me, Mr. Kenway. And your own interest in me has not gone unremarked.'
I stayed silent. And we walked for a while. And even though no words were spoken there was meaning in our silence. As though we acknowledged our feelings for each other. I felt the closeness of her riding boot. Above the heat and scent of the horse, I thought I could smell the powder she wore. Never before had I been so aware of a person, of the nearness of a person. (pag. 49)

(Edward Kenway & Caroline Scott)

(Oliver Bowden - " Assasin's Creed - Black Flag")

Symptoms...

'We should be sharing what we know with Lee, not Washington...' I said irritably as we walked.
'You seem to think I favour him,' replied Connor. His guard was down and his black hair shone in the sun. Here, away from the city, it was as if his native side had bloomed. 'But my enemy is a notion, not a nation. It is wrong to compel obedience - whether to the British Crown or the Templar cross. And I hope in time that the loyalists will see this too, for they are also victims.'
I shook my head. 'You oppose tyranny. Injustice. But these are symptoms, son. Their true cause is human weakness. Why do yo think I keep trying to show you the error of your ways?' (pag. 449)

(Haytham Kenway & Connor)

(Oliver Bowden - " Assasin's Creed - Forsaken")

Inspire...

I gave a dry laugh. 'Indeed, Reginald. Indeed you are. What you did is a corruption of everything I believe, and do you know why? You did it not with the application of our ideals but with deceit. How can we inspire belief when what we have in our hearts is lies?'
He shook his head disgustedly. 'Oh,come on, that's naive rubbish. I'd have expected it of you as a young Adept, but now? During a war, you do what you can to secure victory. It's what you do with that victory that counts.'
'No. We must practice what we preach. Otherwise, our words are hollow.' (pag. 364)

(Haytham Kenway & Reginald Birch)

(Oliver Bowden - " Assasin's Creed - Forsaken")

The power of words...

I looked around. It's quite something, really watching a place that's finally found its feet.'
'Feet awash in the blood of others, I'm afraid.'
'Ah, that's a story old as time itself, and one that is not likely to change. We're cruel and desperate creatures, set in our conquering ways. The Saxons and the Franks. The Ottomans and Safavids. I could go on for hours. The whole human history is but a series of subjugations.'
'I pray one day we rise above it,' replied Charles earnestly.
'While you pray, I'll act. We'll see who finds success first, hmm?'
'It was an expression,'he said with a wounded edge to his voice.
'Aye. And a dangerous one. Words have power. Wield them wisely.' (pag. 215)

(Haytham Kenway & Charles Lee)

(Oliver Bowden - " Assasin's Creed - Forsaken")

Goodbye Letter

When I was a young man, I had liberty,but did not see it; I had time, but did not know it; and I had love, but I did not feel it. Many decades would pass before I understood the meaning of all three. And now, in the twilight of my life, this understanding has passed into contentment. Love, liberty and time, once so much at my disposal, are the fuels that drive me forward. Love, most especially, my dearest, for you, our children, our brothers and sisters... and for the vast and wonderful world that gave us life and keeps us guessing. With endless affection, my Sofia, I am forever yours.

Ezio Auditore

(pag. 502)


(Oliver Bowden - " Assasin's Creed - Revelations")

Hiding in plain sight...

Father used to say,'To see differently, we must think differently,'and it sounds stupid, and you might laugh, or I might look back on this in years to come and laugh myself, but at times it felt as though I could feel my brain actually expand to look at the world in Father's way. He had a way of looking at the world that nobody else had, so it seemed; a way of looking at the world that challenged the very idea of truth.
Of course, I questioned Old Mr Fayling. I challenged him one day, during Scriptures, and earned myself a whack across the knuckles with his cane, along with the promise that he would be informing my father, which he did. Later, Father took me into his study and, after closing the door, grinned and tapped the side of his nose, 'It's often best, Haytham, to keep your thoughts to yourself. Hide in plain sight.' (pag. 34)

(Haytham Kenway & Edward Kenway)

(Oliver Bowden - " Assasin's Creed - Forsaken")

Disease

”More than anything they feared disease. I suppose because you cannot reason with disease; you can't bribe it or take arms against it, and it respects neither wealth nor standing. It is an implacable foe.
And of course it attacks without warning.” (pag. 6)

(Haytham Kenway)

(Oliver Bowden - " Assasin's Creed - Forsaken")

Life...books

She looked at him.'These last few months - almost a year now - I have learned that there is life outside books.'
'All life is outside books.'
'Spoken like a true scholar!'
'Life enters books. It isn't the other way round.' (pag. 454)

(Sofia Sartor&Ezio Auditore)


(Oliver Bowden - " Assasin's Creed - Revelations")

Keeping the balance...

"Mark this and remember. It is never your choice to give up the fight for justice. Even when it seems that it can never be won, that all hope is lost, the fight, the fight ensures the survival of justice, the survival of the world. You live balanced on the edge of a cliff, you cannot help that. Your job is to ensure that the balance never tips too far to the wrong side. And there is one more thing you can do which will make certain that it never does: you can love." (pag. 446)

(Tinia)

(Oliver Bowden - " Assasin's Creed - Revelations")

Truth

'That is just further evidence of his decline!To take up arms against his own son? It's shameful.'
'Do not bend the truth to match the contours of your passion, efendim,'the fourth man rebuked him.'It was Selim, after all, who attacked our Sultan first.' (pag. 286-287)

(Talk among Janissaries)

(Oliver Bowden - " Assasin's Creed - Revelations")

Final battle...

Both men were tiring, and confronted each other panting.
Ezio replied,'Your new regime will bring tyranny and misery to all.'
'I know what is best for the people of Italy, not a bunch of old men who wasted their energy fighting to get to the top years ago.'
'Your mistakes are worse than theirs.'
'I do not make mistakes. I am the Enlightened One!'
'Enlightenment comes through years of thought , not through blind conviction.'
(...)
'The throne was mine!' he said, like a child who has lost a toy.
'Wanting something does not give you the right to have it.' (pag. 520-521)

(Ezio Auditore&Cesare Borgia)

(Oliver Bowden - " Assasin's Creed - Renaissance")

Sonnet

How every hope of ours raised in vain,

How spoiled the plans we laid so well,

How ignorance throughout the earth doth reign,

Death, who is mistress of us all, can tell.

In song and dance and jousts some pass their days,

Some vow their talents unto gentle arts,

Some hold the world in scorn and all its ways,

Some hide the impulses that move their hearts.

Vain thoughts and wishes, cares of every kind

Greatly upon this erring earth prevail

In various presence after nature's lore;

Fortune doth fashion with inconstant mind,

All things are transient here below and frail,

Death only standeth fast for evermore. (Lorenzo - pag. 463)

(Oliver Bowden - " Assasin's Creed - Renaissance")

Dreamers... dream...

He changed the subject then started to talk about Venice, La Serenissima, aloof from the rest of Italy and often looking eastwards more than westwards, both for trade and in trepidation, from the Ottoman Turks held sway as far as halfway up the northern Adriatic coast these days. He talked of the beauty and the treachery of Venice, of the city's dedication to moneymaking, of its richesse, its weird construction - a city of canals  rising out of fenland and built on a foundation of hundreds of thousands of huge wooden stakes - its ferocious independence, and its political power: not three hundred years earlier, the Doge of Venice had diverted an entire crusade from the Holy Land to serve his own purposes, to destroy all commercial and military competition and opposition to his city-state and to bring the Byzantine Empire to its knees. He talked of the secret, ink-dark backwaters, the towering, candlelit palazzi, the curious dialect of Italian they spoke, the silence that hoovered, the gaudy splendor of their dress, their magnificent painters, of whom the prince was Giovanni Bellini, whom Leonardo was eager to meet, of their music, their masked festivals, their flashy ability to show off, their mastery of the art of poisoning. "And all this", he concluded, "I know just from books. Imagine what the real thing will be like."

It will be dirty and human, thought Ezio coldly. Like everywhere else. Buth showed his friend an agreeable smile. Leonardo was a dreamer. Dreamers should be allowed to dream. (pag. 246)

(Oliver Bowden - " Assasin's Creed - Renaissance")

Assurance

Mario placed his hands on Ezio's shoulders and looked at him gravely for a long moment.'Our fate is only partially in our own hands. There is only a certain amount of it that we can control. But never forget - never forget, nephew - that whatever happens to you or me this day, there is never a feather lost by a sparrow that is not brushed away by the finger of God.' (pag. 60)

(Mario&Ezio Auditore)

(Oliver Bowden - " Assasin's Creed - Brotherhood")

Victim?!

Girolamo lowered his voice,'They say the Devil has given him unnatural speed and strength.'
Stefano looked at him. 'The Devil? No,my friend. These are gifts he gave himself,through rigorous training over years.'He paused, his scrawny body bent at a pensive angle.'You know, Girolamo, I find it disturbing that you are so unwilling to credit people for their own circumstances. I think you'd make victims out of the entire world if you could.' (pag. 229)

(Brother Girolamo&Stefano da Bagnone)

(Oliver Bowden - " Assasin's Creed - Renaissance")

Wish...

"Do you concentrate on painting?" asked Ezio, thinking of the diversity he'd seen in the studio.
Leonardo looked thoughtful. "That's a hard question. To tell the truth, I'm finding it difficult to settle down to anything, now I'm on my own. I adore painting, and I know I can do it, but... somehow I can see the end before I get there, and that makes it hard to finish things sometimes. I have to be pushed! But that's not all. I often feel that my work lacks... I don't know... purpose. Does that make any sense?"
"You should have more faith in yourself, Leonardo," said Maria.
"Thank you, but there are moments when I think I'd rather do more practical work, work that has a direct bearing on life. I want to understand life - how it works, how everything works."
"Then you would have to be one hundred men in one." said Ezio.
"If only I could be! I know what I want to explore: architecture, anatomy, engineering even. I don't want to capture the world with my brush, I want to change it!" (pag.45)

(Ezio &Maria Auditore + Leonardo DaVinci)

(Oliver Bowden - " Assasin's Creed - Renaissance")

Open minded?!...

”You must destroy the Apple, Altair,” she said. ”It's twisting your mind. It is one thing to have a mind that is open. It is quite another to have a mind so open that the birds can shit into it.”

(Maria - pag. 383)

(Oliver Bowden - " Assasin's Creed - The Secret Crusade - The untold story of Altair - The Master Assasin")

Truth... information...

"Why did you hide the truth from me?" he asked the Master.
"That you may pierce the veil yourself. Like any task, knowledge precedes action. Information learned is more valuable than information given..."

(Altair&Al Mualim - pag. 158)

(Oliver Bowden - " Assasin's Creed - The Secret Crusade - The untold story of Altair - The Master Assasin")