Horner: Overthrowing Mengsk is just the start. This is about building a better tomorrow! Don't you see? We just released every scientist, philosopher and free thinker that ever challenged Mengsk's rule. That was our real victory today.
Tosh: [throws his knife at Horner's desk to silence him] You really that naive? Tomorrow there'll be a new Mengsk, and another one after that. Your great shining dream of the future is just an illusion.
Raynor: So if it's all so bleak, why are you here, Tosh? What do you get out of all this?
Tosh: Same thing as you, brother! I don't quit till Mengsk is dead.
Horner: Vengeance doesn't factor into this. Our revolution's about freedom!
Raynor: You'll see that better future, Matt... [turns towards Tosh] ...but it ain't for the likes of us.
Tosh: [throws his knife at Horner's desk to silence him] You really that naive? Tomorrow there'll be a new Mengsk, and another one after that. Your great shining dream of the future is just an illusion.
Raynor: So if it's all so bleak, why are you here, Tosh? What do you get out of all this?
Tosh: Same thing as you, brother! I don't quit till Mengsk is dead.
Horner: Vengeance doesn't factor into this. Our revolution's about freedom!
Raynor: You'll see that better future, Matt... [turns towards Tosh] ...but it ain't for the likes of us.
— StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty, "A Better Tomorrow"
"Anarchy wears two faces, both creator and destroyer. Thus destroyers topple empires; make a canvas of clean rubble where creators then can build another world. Rubble, once achieved, makes further ruins' means irrelevant. Away with our explosives, then! Away with our destroyers! They have no place within our better world."
— V, V for Vendetta
Galmar Stone-Fist: Your words give voice to what we all feel, Ulfric. And that's why you will be High King. But the day words are enough, will be the day when soldiers like us are no longer needed.
Ulfric Stormcloak: I would gladly retire from the world were such a day to dawn.
Ulfric Stormcloak: I would gladly retire from the world were such a day to dawn.
Claudia: Why do you cling to this corrupt world? You know that only God can save us!
Heather: And save you too? Happy ending? I'd rather go to Hell.
Claudia: No. I don't expect to be saved. And that's fine. Alessa, my dearest...for the pain that I've caused you, I deserve no mercy. Even if it was to save mankind, it was too deep a sin. It was hubris of me to try to hasten the day of Her arrival. Sacrifices were made, and those are my sins.
Heather: And save you too? Happy ending? I'd rather go to Hell.
Claudia: No. I don't expect to be saved. And that's fine. Alessa, my dearest...for the pain that I've caused you, I deserve no mercy. Even if it was to save mankind, it was too deep a sin. It was hubris of me to try to hasten the day of Her arrival. Sacrifices were made, and those are my sins.
Daphnes: Farewell... This is the only world that your ancestors were able to leave you. Please... forgive us.
Zelda: W-Wait! You could... You could come with us! Yes, of course... We have a ship! We can find it. We WILL find it! The land that will be the next Hyrule! So...
Daphnes: ... [smiles] Ah, but child... That land will not be Hyrule. It will be YOUR land!
Zelda: W-Wait! You could... You could come with us! Yes, of course... We have a ship! We can find it. We WILL find it! The land that will be the next Hyrule! So...
Daphnes: ... [smiles] Ah, but child... That land will not be Hyrule. It will be YOUR land!
Sorlie: The end doesn't justify the means.
Mako: It necessitates the means, but it can't ever redeem people like me from the means we've employed. Not even if we save the world.
Sorlie: You've had this argument before.
Mako: In another body. I'm a real monster, Sorlie.
Mako: It necessitates the means, but it can't ever redeem people like me from the means we've employed. Not even if we save the world.
Sorlie: You've had this argument before.
Mako: In another body. I'm a real monster, Sorlie.
"It is the great irony of the Legiones Astartes. Engineered to kill to achieve a victory of peace that they can then be no part of."
— Roboute Guilliman, Know No Fear
"In the mirrors of the many judgments, my hands are the color of blood. I sometimes fancy myself an evil which exists to oppose other evils; and on that great Day of which the prophets speak but in which they do not truly believe, on the day the world is utterly cleansed of evil, then I too will go down into darkness, swallowing curses. Until then, I will not wash my hands nor let them hang useless."
— Corwin of Amber, The Chronicles of Amber
"What can I do for my family? Where do I begin? These questions keep me up at night. Recently, I've been having the same dream. My wife and children look like they're having fun around the dinner table, laughing over simple things. They share moments of joy, happy to be together. But... I'm never at that table. [...] If I truly care about them, I'll stay away."
— Enji "Endeavor" Todoroki, My Hero Academia
"I believe the purpose of foreign assistance should be ending its need to exist."
— Mark Green, Administrator of USAID
"And now, I have given commands to those who will guide this land into its glorious future. There is still one portion undone. If I remain in the land, both nobles and commoners alike will look to me for guidance in governing. As in the past, when they looked to the Emperor. And so the last thing in this new land of mine that must be gotten rid of, is me. I have walked the path of the conqueror. The time has come to walk on the path of the heavens."
— Cao Cao, Dynasty Warriors 6
Luthen: We need heroes, Lonni, and here you are.
Lonni: And what do you sacrifice?
Luthen: [spends a moment thinking about it] ...Calm. Kindness. Kinship. Love. I've given up all chances at inner peace. I've made my mind a sunless space. I share my dreams with ghosts. I wake up every day to an equation I wrote fifteen years ago from which there's only one conclusion: I'm damned for what I do. My anger, my ego, my unwillingness to yield, my eagerness to fight, they've set me on a path from which there's no escape. I yearned to be a savior against injustice without contemplating the cost and by the time I looked down, there was no longer any ground beneath my feet.
What is my sacrifice? I'm condemned to use the tools of my enemy to defeat them. I burn my decency for someone else's future. I burn my life to make a sunrise that I know I'll never see. And the ego that started this fight will never have a mirror or an audience or the light of gratitude. So what do I sacrifice? Everything!
You'll stay with me, Lonni. I need all the heroes I can get.
Lonni: And what do you sacrifice?
Luthen: [spends a moment thinking about it] ...Calm. Kindness. Kinship. Love. I've given up all chances at inner peace. I've made my mind a sunless space. I share my dreams with ghosts. I wake up every day to an equation I wrote fifteen years ago from which there's only one conclusion: I'm damned for what I do. My anger, my ego, my unwillingness to yield, my eagerness to fight, they've set me on a path from which there's no escape. I yearned to be a savior against injustice without contemplating the cost and by the time I looked down, there was no longer any ground beneath my feet.
What is my sacrifice? I'm condemned to use the tools of my enemy to defeat them. I burn my decency for someone else's future. I burn my life to make a sunrise that I know I'll never see. And the ego that started this fight will never have a mirror or an audience or the light of gratitude. So what do I sacrifice? Everything!
You'll stay with me, Lonni. I need all the heroes I can get.
— Andor episode 10 "One Way Out"
Ace: Pops? Pops, what are you doing?! C'mon, we need to get out of here!
Whitebeard: You need to get out of here. You and all the rest of my sons and daughters. I am old, Ace. A relic of an era long past. A new era is dawning, and it's reckless youngsters like you that need to lead it. Not an old fossil like me.
Whitebeard: You need to get out of here. You and all the rest of my sons and daughters. I am old, Ace. A relic of an era long past. A new era is dawning, and it's reckless youngsters like you that need to lead it. Not an old fossil like me.
"He's clearly a man with a mission, but it's not one of vengeance. Bruce is not after personal revenge... He's much bigger than that; he's much more noble than that. He wants the world to be a better place, where a young Bruce Wayne would not be a victim... In a way, he's out to make himself unnecessary. Batman is a hero who wishes he didn't have to exist."
"It's time to give this place back to people who know how to build things. You and me, we're just killers out of history. It's time for us to go."
— Trevor Belmont, Castlevania (2017)
"You and humanity can claim the light that is left after our passing, but I can claim only that I know my nature. And even in the myths of the past, angels were not created for kindness."
— Sanguinius, Horus Heresy: The Passing of Angels
