WARRIORSHIP

 

"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