This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
In Confucianism, all of us - men and women - are born soldiers. The soldier is the universal individual. No matter what you do for a living - doctor, lawyer, fisherman, thief - you are a fighter. Life is war. The war is to maintain personal integrity in a world that demands betrayal and corruption. All behavior is strategy and tactics. All relationships are martial. Marriages are military alliances.
Behavior | Betrayal | Character | Corruption | Individual | Integrity | Life | Life | Men | War | World |
These are the times that try men's souls. The Summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country, but he that stands it now deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like Hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheaply we esteem too lightly; it is dearness only that gives everything its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its things; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial article as freedom should not be highly rated.
Consolation | Esteem | Freedom | Heaven | Hell | Love | Man | Men | Price | Service | Tyranny | Will | Wisdom | Woman |
Be not too slow in the breaking of a sinful custom; a quick, courageous resolution is better than a gradual deliberation; in such a combat he is the bravest soldier that lays about him without fear or wit. Wit pleads, fear disheartens; he that would kill Hydra had better strike off one neck than five heads: fell the tree, and the branches are soon cut off.
Better | Custom | Deliberation | Fear | Kill | Resolution | Wisdom | Wit |
A soldier is a man whose business it is to kill those who never offended him, and who are the innocent martyrs of other men’s iniquities. Whatever may become of the abstract question of the justifiableness of war, it seems impossible that the soldier should not be a depraved and unnatural thing.
Abstract | Business | Kill | Man | Martyrs | Men | Question | War | Business |
Oscar Romero, formally Óscar Arnulfo Romero y Galdámez
No soldier is obliged to obey an order counter to the law of God. No one has to comply with an immoral law. It is time now that you recover your conscience and obey its dictates rather than the command of sin.
André Gide, fully André Paul Guillaume Gide
It is essential to persuade the soldier that those he is being urged to massacre are bandits who do not deserve to live; before killing other good, decent fellows like himself, his gun would fall from his hands.
Good |
Whatever you do, you need courage. Whatever course you decide upon, there is always someone to tell you that you are wrong. There are always difficulties arising that tempt you to believe your critics are right. To map you to believe your critics are right. To map out a course of action and follow it to an end requires some of the same courage that a soldier needs. Peace has its victories, but it takes brave men and women to win them.
China has no income tax, no unemployed and not a single soldier outside its own territory.
Edwin Arnold, fully Sir Edwin Arnold
One can be a soldier without dying, and a lover without sighing.
Henry David Thoreau, born David Henry Thoreau
The soldier is applauded who refuses to serve in an unjust war by those who do not refuse to sustain the unjust government which makes the war; is applauded by those whose own act and authority he disregards and sets at naught; as if the state were penitent to that degree that it hired one to scourge it while it sinned, but not to that degree that it left off sinning for a moment.
Authority | Government | War | Government |
Lao Tzu, ne Li Urh, also Laotse, Lao Tse, Lao Tse, Lao Zi, Laozi, Lao Zi, La-tsze
The best soldier does not attack. The superior fighter succeeds without violence. The greatest conqueror wins without a struggle. The most successful manager leads without dictating. This is called intelligent non-aggressiveness. This is called mastery of men.
Marcel Proust, fully Valentin Louis Georges Eugène Marcel Proust
The soldier is convinced that a certain indefinitely extendable time period is accorded him before he is killed, the burglar before he is caught, men in general, before they must die. That is the amulet which preserves individuals — and sometimes populations — not from danger, but from the fear of danger, in reality from the belief in danger, which in some cases allows them to brave it without being brave. Such a confidence, just as unfounded, supports the lover who counts on a reconciliation, a letter.
Mahatma Gandhi, fully Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, aka Bapu
A true soldier does not argue as he marches, how success is going to be ultimately achieved. But he is confident that if he only plays his humble part well, somehow or other the battle will be won. In is that spirit that every one of us should act. It is not given to us to know the future. But it is given to everyone of us to know how to do our own part well.
Napoleon Bonaparte, Napoleon I
A soldier will fight long and hard for a bit of colored ribbon.
Will |