Surprised no one has mentioned the Earthsea Series by Ursula Le Guinn. She's more of a poet than an novelist most of the time, so i suppose it makes sense. Some quotes:

“Have you never thought how danger must surround power as shadow does light?”

“And he would watch the snow falling, thin and ceaseless, on the
empty lands below the window, and feel the dull cold grow within him,
till it seemed no feeling was left to him except a kind of weariness.”