Top Warrior Ethos Quotes

The best fighter is never angry.

As a civilian, I know nothing about combat, the Marine Corps experience or modern man's struggle adjusting to peace after war. I only know what's been shared with me; confidences I would never betray,...

Sweetest of all is liberty. This we have chosen and this we pay for. We have embraced the laws of Lykurgus, and they are stern laws. They have schooled us to scorn the life of leisure, which this rich...

My wish for you, Kallistos, is that you survive as many battles in the flesh as you have already fought in your imagination. Perhaps then you will acquire the humility of a man and bear yourself no lo...

That was not the professional hatred of one warrior for another in the heat of battle, in which even beneath the hatred there still existed a certain begrudging respect.

The average man seeks certainty in the eyes of the onlooker and calls that self-confidence. The warrior seeks impeccability in his own eyes and calls that humbleness.

In their minds it is the mark of an ill-prepared and amateur army to rely in the moments before battle on what they call pseudoandreia, false courage, meaning the artificially inflated martial frenzy...

Never think taking a life is easy. Do that and in a way they win.

The hardship of the exercises is intended less to strengthen the back than to toughen the mind. The Spartans say that any army may win while it still has its legs under it; the real test comes when al...

This, I realized now watching Dienekes rally and tend to his men, was the role of the officer: to prevent those under this command, at all stages of battle--before, during and after--from becoming pos...

War, not peace, produces virtue. War, not peace, purges vice. War, and preparation for war, call forth all that is noble and honorable in a man. It unites him with his brothers and binds them in selfl...

You are the commanders, your men will look to you and act as you do. Let no officer keep to himself or his brother officers, but circulate daylong among his men. Let them see you and see you unafraid....

You have never tasted freedom, friend, Dienekes spoke, or you would know it is purchased not with gold, but steel.