CATEGORIZED QUOTATIONS, PART 1

WARRIORSHIP, HONOR, LOYALTY, VALOR, WILLPOWER, CHARACTER

WARRIORSHIP

"Wherever I go,

Everyone is a little bit safer,

Because I am there."

— from "The Warrior Creed" by Robert L. Humphrey

"New-Age America produces books and workshops on the ‘New Warrior,’ a man or woman who lives impeccably — austere, protecting the weak, willing, perhaps, to stand his or her ground and fight, but more important, calm and graceful — the warrior as metaphor. We imagine the warrior in bed, in the boardroom, in marriage, the warrior on the golf-course. But these writers seem to forget that the warrior’s values, as admirable as they may be, are won at terrible cost. The warrior as metaphor often offends me, because the battlefield stinks of blood and shit, and sings of screams and flies. Certainly the values that writers such as Dan Millman extol are admirable, but I would hesitate to call anyone a warrior unless we are not talking about a fellow ubermenschen, but instead a deeply flawed and guilty human being, who strives at the risk of the loss of comfort, of home, of even his or her own soul to protect what must be protected, to maintain a moral sense in a place where no morality can conceivably exist."

— Ellis Amdur, from Dueling with O-sensei (p. 121)

"Down these mean streets a man must go who is not himself mean, who is neither tarnished nor afraid. . . . He is the hero, he is everything. He must be a complete man and a common man and yet an unusual man. He must be, to use a rather weathered phrase, a man of honor, by instinct, by inevitability, without thought of it, and certainly without saying it. He must be the best man in his world and a good enough man for any world."

— Raymond Chandler, from The Second Chandler Omnibus (pp. 14-15)

"Warriorship is a profession of courage, a calling to valor — not just on the battlefield, but in all of life’s conflicts."

— Forrest E. Morgan

"The warrior preserves and protects but does not conquer, dominate, or subjugate. Only the enemy will have to fear a warrior’s skills."

— Richard Heckler

"The warrior’s role in society is to protect life and social order by placing himself between that which would endanger both."

— Greg Walker

"If there is any hope for the future, it surely must rest upon the ability to stare unflinchingly into the heart of darkness."

— unknown

"To practice Zen or the Martial Arts, you must live intensely, wholeheartedly, without reserve — as if you might die in the next instant."

— Taisen Deshimaru

"A complete warrior is one who can act appropriately. Such an individual can kill if that is necessary to preserve other’s lives, or he can die for others. But such an individual also possesses the power to find a way through conflicts to a non-combative resolution. This power can create a real peace between people. Such a person’s presence, rather than intimidating, calms and gives strength to others."

— Ellis Amdur, from Old School (p. 37)

"A warrior’s strategy is designed to bring his commitment into action, develop his being, and enhance his knowledge. Living strategically requires the warrior to eliminate impulsive, whimsical actions and cease being a slave to his likes and dislikes. Actions and decisions are to be based on the warrior’s strategy and have a well-considered quality to them, even when undertaken with lightning speed. To abandon one’s strategy is to abandon the path itself."

— Robert L. Spencer, from The Craft of the Warrior (p. 33)

"The quest of a true martial artist, in any culture or society, is to preserve life — not destroy it."

— Dan Inosanto, from The Filipino Martial Arts (p. 170)

"Only one who devotes himself to a cause with his whole body and soul can be a true master. For this reason, mastery demands all of a person."

— unknown

"Warriors use their intent and will to shape their lives. All of their actions are conscious, intentional, and complete."

— Kerr Cuhulain

"They don’t join cliques — more times than not, they stand alone — but they recognize and gravitate towards one another. Only warriors understand other warriors."

— Forrest E. Morgan

"A kung fu man lives without being dependant on the opinions of others, and a master, unlike the beginner, holds himself in reserve. He is quiet and unassuming, with no desire to show off."

— Bruce Lee

"It has always been my ideal in war to eliminate all feelings of hatred and to treat my enemy as an enemy only in battle and to honour him as a man according to his courage."

— Ernst Junger

"Beholding them with pity there came an old soldier who asked me if there was any means of curing them. I told him no. At once he approached them and cut their throats gently and, seeing this great cruelty, I shouted at him that he was a villain. He answered me that he prayed to God that should he be in such a state he might find someone who would do the same for him, to the end that he might not languish miserably."

— Ambroise Pare’, speaking of three badly-burnt soldiers, 1536

". . . he was placed in charge of a unit which had suffered extremely heavy casualties, during which time he felt compelled to shoot an American pilot who had been disemboweled in a crash. This act was necessary according to the code of the warrior (an honorable fighting man puts his comrades out of their misery) but resulted in his rejection by a primarily enlisted brotherhood who held a more ‘civilian’ concept of the warrior ethos."

— Joanna Bourke, from An Intimate History of Killing (p. 38)

"People who really study the arts of war are almost without exception nonviolent individuals. The achievement of real skill requires considerable discipline and self control, two traits which eradicate violent behavior."

— Richard Ryan, from Master of the Blade (p. 21)

"Every man is responsible for defending every woman and every child. When the male no longer takes this role, when he no longer has the courage or feels the moral responsibility, then that society will no longer be a society where honor and virtue are esteemed. Laws and government cannot replace this personal caring and commitment. In the absence of the Warrior protector, the only way that a government can protect a society is to remove the freedom of the people. And the sons and daughters of lions become sheep."

— James Williams

"Do every act of your life as if it were your last."

— Marcus Aurelis

"In ourselves our safety must be sought,

By our own right hand it must be wrought."

— William Wordsworth

"It is better to deserve honours and not have them, than to have them and not to deserve them."

— Mark Twain

"The strength of our beliefs and our loyalty to each other has transformed our ideals into the strongest of brotherhoods. We exist, we are the warrior in you, and our message is dangerous to the existing order."

— excerpted from the introduction of Hell’s Angels Forever

"I tell you this. As war becomes dishonored and its nobility called into question those honorable men who recognize the sanctity of blood will become excluded from the dance, which is the warrior’s right, and thereby will the dance become a false dance and the dancers false dancers."

— Cormac McCarthy, from Blood Meridian (p. 331)

"Warriorship . . . does not refer to making war on others. Aggression is the source of our problems, not the solution. . . . Warriorship . . . is the tradition of human bravery, or the tradition of fearlessness."

— Chogyam Trungpa

"Assurance, superior judgement, the ability to impose discipline, the capacity to inspire fear: these are the qualities of an authority."

— Richard Sennett, from Authority (pp. 17-18)

"The gentleman desires to be halting in speech but quick in action."

— Confucius

"The frightening nature of knowledge leaves one no alternative but to become a warrior."

— "don Juan," from Casteneda’s A Separate Reality (p. 150)

". . .the development of a warrior rests upon stopping the internal dialogue. Unnecessary talking is related to other unnecessary physical movements and bodily tensions, twitches, fidgeting, finger drumming, foot tapping, grimacing, and so on, which serve to drain the daily ration of energy. . ."

— Kathleen Riordan Speeth, from The Gurdjieff Work (p. 44)

"He who has great power should use it lightly."

— Seneca

"Adventure is just a romantic name for trouble. It sounds swell when you write about it, but it’s hell when you meet it face-to-face in a dark and lonely place."

— Louis L’Amour

"If I had a formula for bypassing trouble, I would not pass it round. Trouble creates a capacity to handle it. I don’t embrace trouble; that’s as bad as treating it as an enemy. But I do say meet it as a friend, for you’ll see a lot of it and had better be on speaking terms with it."

— Oliver Wendell Holmes

"Nothing to laugh at in the ugliness of crime, the grimness of poverty, the tragedy of death; not a smile’s worth of fun in the weeping wives and the sad and sometimes savage face of humanity? No, it isn’t funny; and that is why laughter has to break through, probably more than in other jobs."

— Keith Simpson, from Forty Years of Murder (p. 10)

"The true spirit of the warrior is found in the desire to defend the weaker against the aggression of the stronger. In this way an essential balance is kept in the world. The warrior trains so that he will be prepared and will thus not fail in his role."

— Peyton Quinn, from A Bouncer’s Guide to Barroom Brawling (p. 147)

"Evil has no physical reality, but it is still a force. . . . We cannot destroy it, but we can learn to keep ourselves safe from it."

— Anderson Reed, from Shouting at the Wolf (pp. 56-57)

"The warrior is not the master, he is not the sifu nor the sensei. These are just physical words that we put upon ourselves to make us seem important or better than those whom we guide. The warrior is a friend to his students, and so cannot be their master. He does not wish to gather students, as they will search him out. And those who need to have a master or a sensei will not stay; they will keep searching until they realize that what they seek is within them, and who they seek can only be their guide."

— Erle Montaigue

"With the conviction came a store of assurance. He felt a quiet manhood, non-assertive but of sturdy and strong blood. He knew that he would no more quail before his guides wherever they should point. He had been to touch the great death, and found that, after all, it was but the great death. He was a man."

— Stephen Crane, from The Red Badge of Courage (p. 156)

"Act the way you’d like to be, and soon you’ll be the way you act."

— Kerr Cuhulain, from Full Contact Magick (p. 107)

"Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit."

— Aristotle

"The White Knight uses his sword in innocence, unaware of the harm he causes. The Red Knight lifts his sword in outraged self-righteousness, uncaring about the damage he leaves in the trail behind him. The Black Knight wields his sword reluctantly and only when he has reached the sober realization that it is necessary."

— Robert Moore & Douglas Gillette, from The Warrior Within (p. 165)

"When all peaceful means to resolve a crucial problem fail, it is justifiable to wield the sword."

— Guru Gobind Singh

"At a glance, every individual’s own measure of dignity is manifested just as it is. There is dignity in personal appearance. There is dignity in a calm aspect. There is dignity in a paucity of words. There is dignity in flawlessness of manners. There is dignity in solemn behavior. And there is dignity in deep insight and a clear perspective. These are all reflected on the surface. But in the end, their foundation is simplicity of thought and tautness of spirit."

— from Hagakure, by Yamamoto Tsunetomo (Wilson translation)

"They all had dignity, a certain serenity and pride that was theirs completely. . . . They knew where they had been and what they had seen and done, and were content. Something was theirs, something within themselves that neither time passing nor man nor hard times could take from them."

— Louis L’Amour, from Education of a Wandering Man (p. 38)

"If there is one thing that always sticks in my mind about how Delta Force goes about a mission, it is the utterly businesslike attitude of the men. There is none of that Hollywood crap. No posturing, no sloganeering, no high fives, no posing, no bluster, and no bombast. Just a quiet determination to get on with the job."

— Eric L. Haney, from Inside Delta Force (p. 191)

"In a critical situation, where even the slightest hesitation may prove fatal, the warrior counts on his readiness to improvise, survive, and win. The warrior shapes his own destiny. He defines the limits of his own possibilities. He creates his own luck."

— from The Warrior’s Edge, by Col. John B. Alexander, Major Richard Groller, and Janet Morris (p. 106)

"It’s not our weaknesses that frighten us. It’s our strengths."

— Nelson Mandela

 HONOR

"Only honor separates the warriors from the thugs."

— Forrest E. Morgan

"You must work out your own honor system for yourself. For the warrior it becomes a code, a way of life, unbending and unaltered, often without ant verbal guidelines. When all of your possessions are far from you, you will still have your honor, your core. A handshake or simply saying, ‘I will do this,’ is your bond, more concrete than any signature on paper should be. Your actions demonstrate your code. To abuse your knowledge, betray a comrade, lie, things such as that, you will have broken your pact with yourself and have lost your honor. If you act in accordance with your beliefs as well as you can, you will retain your honor always."

— Lenox Cramer, from War with Empty Hands

"Once examined, fights for "honor" almost always turn out to be fights to save face . . . Face refers to one’s reputation . . . it is, in essence, prestige . . . Face can be taken from you, so it’s something you can fight to keep. On the other hand, honor depends solely on your commitment to meet your just obligations. Since only you can do that, no-one can take honor from you . . . You can have all the face in the world and still lose your honor. Conversely, you can remain honorable no matter what the world thinks of you. Forced to choose between these two conditions, the superior warrior will pick the latter."

— Forrest E. Morgan, from Living the Martial Way (pp. 151-152)

"Do right, fear no man."

— unknown

"Most of all, warriors are honorable because to be otherwise is cowardly!"

— Forrest E. Morgan

"Honour is manly decency. The shame of being found wanting in it means everything to us. Is this, then, the indefinable, the sacred thing?"

— Alfred de Vigny

"Warriors are dangerous people. Therefore, they have a solemn obligation to restrain themselves from tyrannizing and assaulting weaker members of society."

— Forrest E. Morgan

"If you don’t want somebody to know something, just don’t speak to them about it. Never lie."

— Sylvester L. Liddy

"Men whose acts are at variance with their words command no respect, and what they say has but little weight."

— Samuel Smiles

"The Samurai were an aristocracy of warriors, mighty touchy about their honor, with a fanatical reverence for exactitude in the spoken word — that is the tradition, anyway. They had one answer to questions — yes or no. A Samurai was supposed to tell the truth, and be quick to lay his two-handed sword across anybody who said he didn’t."

— Ralph Townsend

"All you got in life is your honor, man, your own self-image, your own self-respect. If you lose that, or if you give it away or if you sell it, then you ain’t got it no more."

— Lemmy Kilmister

"One’s dignity may be assaulted, vandalized and cruelly mocked, but cannot be taken away until it is surrendered."

— Michael J. Fox

"Killing instincts can be tempered with good sense! The more competent a fighter becomes, the less he has to prove and the less likely he is to misuse his abilities. . . . Once they become competent and gain self-respect, they no longer have a reason to be a bully."

— Robert K. Spear, from Survival on the Battlefield (p. 153)

"Men who take up arms against one another in public war, do not cease on this account to be moral beings . . . Military necessity does not admit cruelty — that is the infliction of suffering for revenge. . ."

— Francis Lieber (1863)

"Never compromise your integrity; always respect yourself."

— Robert J. Ringer

"A man is only as good as his word."

— Grandfather

"It is scarcely a matter for wonder that dueling was a commonplace of those days. There are certain sorts of attack which, even today, may make the mildest man feel for a moment or two that the only suitable reply is a pistol-shot or a sword-thrust."

— John McConaughy

"You show us respect, we show you respect. If you don’t show the Angels respect, the Angels don’t show you respect. And we’re very good at disrespecting people."

— Butch Garcia, HAMC

"It’s nice to be nice."

— the personal motto of the most dangerous man my father ever knew

"If a man remembers what is right at the sight of profit, is ready to lay down his life in the face of danger, and does not forget sentiments he has repeated all his life even when he has been in straitened circumstances for a long time, he may be said to be a complete man."

— Confucius

"(seppuku) was used as a privileged alternative to execution, to atone for a misdeed or an unworthy act, and to avoid capture in battle — seen as a contemptible end for any warrior and a safeguard against likely torture."

— Richard Cohen, from By the Sword (p. 155)

"A Sikh is enjoined to raise the sword only when all other means of correcting an injustice have failed. Hence, when a weapon is lifted, it should be accompanied by a sense of righteousness. . . . if the true path is followed, then the whole combat will flow correctly, like a dance."

— Guru Gobind Singh Ji (paraphrased & revised)

"I advise you secondly, that you should never swear an oath,

Unless you will keep it,

Grim wyrd goes with oathbreaking,

Wretched is such a varg"

— from Sigrdrifumal, verse 23, Plowright translation

"Our deeds determine us, as much as we determine our deeds."

— George Eliot, from Adam Bede

"Lying is done with words and also with silence."

— Adrienne Rich, from On Lies, Secrets, and Silence

"Never esteem anything as of advantage to you that will make you break your word or lose your self-respect."

— Marcus Aurelius Antonius (c. 121-180 A.D.)

"They are never alone that are accompanied with noble thoughts."

— Sir Phillip Sidney, from Arcadia

"If you stand straight, do not fear a crooked shadow."

— Chinese proverb

"Do what manhood bids the do,

From none but self expect applause;

He noblest lives and noblest dies

Who makes and keeps his self-made laws."

— Sir Richard Francis Burton

 LOYALTY

"A man does not extricate himself from difficulty at the expense of his associates."

— Sylvester L. Liddy

"It’s kind of hard to put into words, but it’s like having somebody that you love. If you served and you were willing to die, you wanted to have a person there you would not mind dying for or dying with. A lot of people don’t understand that."

— Medal of Honor recipient Bob Howard

"It is important that group members openly and directly declare their willingness to protect one another. Psychologically, the act of swearing loyalty is of far greater value than the mere assumption of the same."

— Etta Place

"But there’s another piece of me. The part that’s with my family. The family I chose; the family that chose me. I feel everything that hurts them, or makes them sad. I wouldn’t just kill for them; I’d die for them. They’re all I have. They’re everything I have. And what they give me is . . . that piece of myself that’s clean."

— Burke, from Pain Management by Andrew Vachss

"Look at your brother standing next to you and ask yourself if you would give him half of what you have in your pocket. Or half of what you have to eat. If a citizen hits your Brother, will you be on him without asking why? There is no why. Your Brother isn’t always right, but he is always your Brother!"

— from the creed of the Outlaws Motorcycle Club

"You haveta be a bro ta have a bro . . ."

— old biker aphorism

"Evildoers are generally a lot more fun to hang out with, but they have no concept of loyalty. Being self-centered egomaniacs, they are loyal to no-one but themselves. They are unreliable and are notorious for betraying their allies in the face of danger. At their core, they are nothing but selfish, immature cowards. Seeing them as they truly are made it easy for me to swear allegiance with the forces of Good. People who are unafraid to die for their principles at any moment can never be considered cowardly."

— Scribe 27 (RWT)

"Not much more than twenty-five members were in the Club at any given time. The Kid liked it that way, a tight, loyal group — only the guys he could absolutely count on; men who wouldn’t run off when it came time to stand together."

— Richard "Gypsy" Anderson

 VALOR

"Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear — not absence of fear."

— Mark Twain

"Courage, like fear, is contagious, and allows individuals to do the impossible."

— from The Warrior’s Edge, by Col. John B. Alexander, Major Richard Groller, and Janet Morris (p. 68)

"He was insanely calm. He never showed fear. He was a professional soldier, an ideal leader of men in the field . . . He did not yearn for battle. But neither was he concerned about the prospect."

— Tim O’ Brien (speaking of his platoon commander)

"I could never run away."

— unknown

"One of my biggest problems (although I used to think of it as one of my greatest strengths) is the fact that I am completely fearless. In short, I truly do not ‘give a rat’s ass’ if I live or die, and will refuse to back down from any perceived threat, regardless of the odds against me."

— Scribe 27, from Arcane Lore (p. 266)

"Moral courage is the fortitude it takes to do what is right, no matter what the personal cost."

— Forrest E. Morgan

"In situations where you lack confidence, you must fill the void with courage."

— Forrest E. Morgan

"I’m not afraid of knives. I’ve been cut on the job. Unless there’s meat hanging out, I just tape the cuts up with duct tape. . ."

— Duncan

"My knowledge of pain, learned with the saber, taught me not to be afraid of fear. And just as in dueling you must fix your mind on striking at the enemy’s head, so, too, in war. You cannot waste time feinting and sidestepping. You must decide on your target and go in."

— Col. Otto Skorzeny

"Having heart meant a willingness to fight, regardless of the odds, and to withstand death or a beating instead of backing down. Even enemies could respect each other for having heart; no one respected a punk."

— Eric C. Schneider

"Such a stupid act. Sometimes, heroics revolted him; they seemed like an insult to the soldier who weighed the risks of the situation and made calm, cunning decisions based on experience and imagination; the sort of unshowy soldiering that didn’t win medals but wars."

— from Use of Weapons, by Iain M. Banks (p. 148)

"For a lot of the Latin gang kids I knew coming up, it wasn’t whether you died that counted, it was how you died."

— Burke, from Pain Management by Andrew Vachss

"All True Warriors know that medals are bullshit. Heroism usually goes unrecognized. When a soldier distinguishes himself in battle and is recommended for a high decoration, invariably the medal awarded will be of much less significance (i.e., the Distinguished Service Cross is often reduced to a mere Bronze Star by government bureaucrats); yet if an officer with a West Point ring on his finger 'thinks he was shot at,' he can reasonably expect to be awarded the Silver Star with no questions asked! Unless an officer has a Ranger tab or a 'Budweiser' crest, his rows upon rows of colorful ribbons probably represent nothing except 'brownie points.'"

— C. R. Jahn

"Anne Boleyn, consort of the King, was ready to pay with her life for her involvement with royalty. She was calm to the last. Turning to a companion who was trembling violently, Anne said: ‘Take courage. The executioner is an expert of many years’ training — and my neck is very slender.’"

— Frank Edwards

"I am the best bodyguard, because I’ll take a bullet, I’ll take a stab wound, I’ll take a hit upside the head; I’m like a kamikaze pilot."

— Mr. T

"You must do the thing you think you cannot do."

— Eleanor Roosevelt, from You Learn by Living

"Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage."

— Anais Nin

"Courage consists not in blindly overlooking danger, but in meeting it with the eyes open."

— Jean Paul Richter

"To be a hero, one must give an order to oneself."

— Simone Weil

"The Way of the Samurai is found in death. When it comes to either/or, there is only the quick choice of death. It is not particularly difficult. Be determined and advance. . . . (if) one is able to live as though his body were already dead, he gains freedom in the Way."

— from Hagakure, by Yamamoto Tsunetomo (Wilson translation)

 WILLPOWER

"Focus on your one purpose."

— Japanese motto

"Nothing in the world is as fearsome as a bloody, battered opponent who will never surrender."

— Gerry Spence

"To face each of my fears and overcome them would require years of psychic and physical pain. But it had to be done. I had seen the fruits of fearlessness and the power of the will. I could no longer live without them."

— G. Gordon Liddy, from Will (p. 24)

"You must have complete determination. The worst opponent you can come across is one whose aim has become an obsession. For instance, if a man has decided that he is going to bite your nose off no matter what happens to him in the process, the chances are that he will succeed in doing it. He may be severely beaten up but that will not stop him carrying out his original objective. That is the real fighter."

— Bruce Lee

"If you go into the fight resolved to destroy your opponent no matter what the cost — if you go into battle truly committed to die for the opportunity to kill your enemy — his spirit will read it in your eyes and he will be crushed."

— Forrest E. Morgan

"Ruthless determination will overshadow technique or choice of weapon every time. The will to win is more important than the skill to win . . . Determination is the only thing that will get you off the ground after being stabbed, shot, or punched."

— Don Pentecost

"Make sure you continue your attack so you can stop that man who shot you. If you are fortunate, your wound will not be serious. But if you stop, scream, moan, or cry, he might just finish you off because he won’t want any witnesses."

— John M. La Tourrette

"Try? Try not. Do, or do not. There is no "try.""

— Yoda

"Where there’s a will, there’s a way."

— unknown

"Those who are patient in the trivial things in life and control themselves will one day have the same mastery in great and important things."

— Hapkido Master Bong Soo Han

"Control your emotion or it will control you."

— Chinese adage

"And the will lieth therein, which dieth not. Who knoweth the mysteries of the will with its vigour? For God is but a great will pervading all things by nature of its intentness. Man doth not yield himself to the Angels nor to death utterly, save only through the weakness of his feeble will."

— Joseph Glanvill (17 c.)

"‘Old time’ hypnotists knew that if you helped an individual to use their ‘imaginins,’ they could control, or eliminate pain."

— from Monsters and Magical Sticks, by Heller & Steele (p. 37)

"By the use of his Will, (the master) attains a degree of poise and mental firmness (nearly inconceivable to) those who allow themselves to be swung backward and forward by the mental pendulum of moods and feelings."

— The Kybalion

"Pure ‘guts’ have won many a gunfight. The man who has determination is hard to down. You can keep on fighting even if you are hit. If you make up your mind that you are going to get your bullet into the other man, you will probably do it. And maybe that hit you took will turn out not so bad as you thought, particularly if you stop him and keep him from hitting you again."

— William H. Jordan, from No Second Place Winner (pp. 111-112)

"Pursue one great decisive aim with force and determination."

— Karl von Clausewitz, from Principles of War

"It has been conclusively proven that focused visualization can significantly increase body temperature. By visualizing one’s hands being engulfed with flames, it is possible for an amateur to raise the surface temperature of his hands by approximately 3 degrees Fahrenheit (an adept can more than double this). Buddhists monks use a similar visualization technique to dry their wet robes during outdoor Winter meditations. With sufficient willpower, it is possible to completely transcend fear, hunger and pain."

— Scribe 27 (RWT)

"Initiates learn a complex set of breathing and meditational exercises and retire to a remote area to train. Each day they bathe in icy streams and sit naked in the snow thinking of internal fires. When the training is complete, a test is made on a windy winter night by wrapping the student in a sheet that has been dipped into the river through a hole in the ice and has to be completely dried just by body heat at least three times during the night."

— Lyall Watson, on the Tibetan practice of tumo, in Supernature (p. 226)

"Men with chest wounds — open, sucking wounds — have stuffed them with handkerchiefs or torn shirts and kept going. Men have broken their backs when they bailed out or hit the ground. After regaining consciousness, they have rolled around for a stick or board, strapped it to them in a fashion and moved on. Men with severe wounds have amputated a limb, whittled a crutch, and kept going. Many things are possible to those with will and determination."

— Dr. Gene N. Lam

"I tried to lift it, and it wouldn’t move; I tried to lift it again, and it wouldn’t move; then I tried to lift it really hard — and my left bicep snapped and rolled up in a bunch. It had to be surgically reattached."

— Bob Franks

"Singlemindedness is all-powerful."

— from Hagakure, by Yamamoto Tsunetomo (Wilson translation)

"Don’t eye the top of the ladder, eye the next rung."

— Gen. Colin Powell

"Success seems to be largely a matter of hanging on after others have let go."

— William Feather

"I saw a guy get hit in the thigh. . . . Five fucking minutes and the guy checks out. . . . and it wasn’t even a serious wound. Wasn’t even bleeding that bad. And then there was another guy that got hit in the guts, and for 72 hours, because we were in constant fire, he was literally at one point . . . stuffing his intestines back in his friggin body. All of us thought it was goodbye time. He kept saying, ‘Don’t fucking look at me like that, I’m not dying.’ And the sonofabitch didn’t die."

— Harley Swiftdeer

"An idea upon which attention is peculiarly concentrated is an idea which tends to realize itself."

— Charles Baudouin

"Proper visualization by the exercise of concentration and willpower enables us to materialize thoughts, not only as dreams or visions in the mental realm, but also as experiences in the material realm."

— Paramahansa Yogananda, from Man’s Eternal Quest (p. 238)

"Energy is not just what we do, but also what we think and feel. Intention is energy given direction. Desire is energy focused and magnified."

— Anderson Reed, from Shouting at the Wolf (p. 61)

"Discard and forget, I beg you, the demons, dolls, and mumbo-jumbo. What you are actually doing is tearing out your own emotional guts at the same time you’re trying to tear someone else’s emotional guts to pieces. I have paid a heavy price for learning these things, and I shall never practice that sort of magic again, whether for good or evil."

— William Seabrook, from Witchcraft (pp. 99-100)

"Mind is the wielder of muscles. The force of a hammer blow depends on the energy applied; the power expressed by a man’s bodily instrument depends on his aggressive will and courage. The body is literally manufactured and sustained by mind. . . . Outward frailty has a mental origin; in a vicious circle, the habit-bound body thwarts the mind. . . . My earliest ambition was to fight tigers. My will was mighty, but my body was feeble. It was by indomitable persistency in thoughts of health and strength that I overcame my handicap. I have every reason to extol the compelling mental vigor which I found to be the real subduer of royal Bengals."

— Sohong, the "Tiger Swami," from Autobiography of a Yogi by Paramahansa Yogananda (p. 62)

"There is no weapon more deadly than the will."

— Bruce Lee

 CHARACTER

"Iron is full of impurities that weaken it; through forging, it becomes steel and is transformed into a razor sharp sword. Human beings develop in the same fashion."

— Morihei Ueshiba, from The Art of Peace (p. 56)

"Personal power leads the warrior to absolute dignity. A man who (lives his life as if he may) die tomorrow doesn’t act like a clown; he doesn’t make a fool of himself in public. He chooses his words carefully; he doesn’t want some trivial nonsense to be remembered as his last utterance. When men and women of power speak, others listen. They can feel the power in their words and they know these people will stand behind what they say."

— Forrest E. Morgan, from Living the Martial Way (p. 279)

"He gives but not to receive

He works but not for reward

He completes but not for results"

— Lao Tzu, from Tao Te Ching, The Definitive Edition (Star translation), Verse 2

"Weakness of attitude becomes weakness of character."

— Albert Einstein

"Knowledge will give you power, but character will give you respect."

— unknown

"Sow an action and reap a habit; sow a habit and reap a character; sow a character and reap a destiny."

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Have character, but don’t be a character."

— Richard Marcinko

"Don’t say things. What you are stands over you the while, and thunders so I cannot hear what you say to the contrary."

— Emerson

"Personality is to man what perfume is to a flower."

— Charles M. Schwab, Ten Commandments of Success

"Men of character are the conscience of the society to which they belong."

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

"That which does not kill me makes me stronger."

— Friedrich Nietzsche

"You might’ve been right, but you weren’t righteous . . ."

— old biker aphorism

"A man is what he does. . ."

— the weird little mutant from Total Recall

"To educate a person in mind and not in morals is to educate a menace to society."

— Theodore Roosevelt

"There is nothing noble in being superior to some other man. The true nobility is in being superior to your previous self."

— Hindustani proverb

"It’s easier to fight for one’s principles than to live up to them."

— Adlai Stevenson

"Use your wit as a shield, not as a dagger."

— American proverb

"Define yourself by what you do, by how you treat others, and how they see you."

— George F. Burns

"The best index to a person’s character is (a) how he treats people who can’t do him any good, and (b) how he treats people who can’t fight back."

— Abigail Van Buren

"Parents can only give good advice or put them on the right paths, but the final forming of a person’s character lies in their own hands."

— Anne Frank, from Diary of a Young Girl

"The respect that is only bought with gold is not worth much."

— Frances Ellen Watkins Harper (1859)

"By men’s words we know them."

— Marie de France (12^th c.)

"A man’s presence is dependent upon the promise of power which he embodies. If the promise is large and credible his presence is striking. If it is small or incredible, he is found to have little presence. The promised power may be moral, physical, temperamental, economic, social, sexual — but its object is always exterior to the man. A man’s presence suggests what he is capable of doing to you or for you. His presence may be fabricated, in the sense that he pretends to be capable of what he is not. But the pretence is always towards a power which he exercises on others."

— Peter Smith, from Ways of Seeing (pp. 45-46)

"Most people have certain weaknesses of character which must be considered in your dealings with them. You must ask yourself what this individual can be trusted with. Common weaknesses include: drink, gambling, compulsive spending, sex, a favorite illicit drug, a weak ego, and simple stupidity. Once you know an individual’s weakness, you can take precautions against inadvertently tempting him to neglect his responsibilities; or, adversely, you could choose to exploit this weakness for reasons of your own (perhaps to teach him an important lesson). If you have weaknesses of your own, you must be honest with yourself and take steps to overcome them."

— Scribe 27 (RWT)

"It is difficult to deny one’s vices altogether, but it’s easy to cut back — this is achieved through the use of willpower, and by raising one’s standards. If there are certain lines that you refuse to cross under any circumstances, then you’ll be able to easily deny many forms of temptation. For example, you could make it a rule that you will never drink cheap booze, smoke inferior bud, or fuck ugly women. Become a connoisseur and you’ll allow yourself far fewer opportunities to slip up."

— anonymous (RWT)

"Having something to fight significantly helps a person when coping with strong Neg problems. Once the cause is realized . . . Neg controls are significantly weakened. It’s for this reason that Negs make great efforts to hide their existence. . . . If you cannot beat Neg influences, you can learn to work around them. Some people may never rid themselves entirely of Neg influences, but they can learn to control them, and in controlling them you will grow steadily stronger while Negs grow weaker. . . . Knowing that Negs can alter moods and cause spontaneous impulses, and recognizing the possibility of this when they occur, greatly improves the chances of weathering and surviving them intact."

— Robert Bruce, from Practical Psychic Self-Defense (p. 144, 162)

"From another’s evil qualities a wise man corrects his own."

— Publicus Syrus

"You can’t cheat an honest man."

— con man’s saying

"Moderation in all things."

— Terence (Publius Terentius Afer, c. 190-159 B.C.)

"It is not our abilities that show what we truly are; it is our choices."

— "Aldus Dumbledore," from Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, by J. K. Rowling

"We are what we think. All that we are arises with our thoughts. With our thoughts we make the world."

— Buddha

"He who conquers himself is the mightiest warrior."

— Confucius