Immortal Words

The Immortal Words are a set of rules by which the Knights Radiant lived, and guided the things they did. These Ideals were based on the lessons taught in Nohadon's book, The Way of Kings.
 
There are five Ideals. The First Ideal is the motto of the Knights Radiant and was shared by all ten orders. The four later Ideals were said to be different for each order of Radiants. That said, according to Brandon, these Ideals have to be spoken in a specific order. But the oath can vary depending on the individual's own interpretation and feeling about it.Oathbringer release party, Provo, UT, 11/13/17
The sequence is fixed. The oaths for each order are essentially a progression of understanding of the kind of person that each order of Knights Radiant is trying to produce. The specific wording of each Ideal is not fixed, but the overall idea of each Ideal, and the order in which they are spoken, is.When Worlds Collide 2014, Calgary, AB, 8/9/14
To embody these Ideals and act accordingly upon them, according to a particular spren ...
==The First Ideal==
*Life before death - The Radiant seeks to defend life, always. He never kills unnecessarily, and never risks his own life for frivolous reasons. Living is harder than dying. The Radiant's duty is to live.
*Strength before weakness - All men are weak at some time in their lives. The Radiant protects those who are weak, and uses his strength for others. Strength does not make one capable of rule; it makes one capable of service.*
*Journey before destination - There are always several ways to achieve a goal. Failure is preferable to winning through unjust means. Protecting ten innocents is not worth killing one. In the end, all men die. How you lived will be far more important to the Almighty than what you accomplished.
==The Second Ideal==
==The Third Ideal==
==The Fourth Ideal==
==The Fifth Ideal==
Called the Ideal of Law, this requires the Skybreaker to swear an oath that they will become a personification of law and truth. Nale is the only current Skybreaker to have achieved it - and the only Herald - as it has been centuries since anyone mastered the Fifth Ideal.
==Notes==
*According to Brandon, there are several sorts of ways that he interprets this, and like all of them, he wants to interpret them differently throughout the books. Rhythm of War digs into "strength before weakness" a little bit more. Like the other two (i.e., "life before death" and "journey before destination") "strength before weakness" has a natural sort of sense to it. We are strong and everyone will be weak. And the idea is that one is strong for the weak when the weak cannot be strong, because someone will need to be there for the other to be strong when one is weak. Everybody is weak sometimes; everybody is strong sometimes, and we need each other. That's kind of the philosophy behind "strength before weakness."JordanCon 2021, Atlanta, GA, 7/17/21
==Theory==
It has been theorized by fans that the "most important words", in King Gavilar's message to Dalinar, given with his last breath: 
... were a reference to the Immortal Words and Gavilar's way to set his brother on the path he would take for the rest of the novel.
==References==
Category:Knights Radiant
Category:Culture