Death Of A Warrior Quotes

I go to the shelf and pick out a few poetry books to take with me. A few old favorites and a few I haven't gotten to yet. As I slip the books into my carry-on, it occurs to me that there really are a lot of poems about death, that I've always read many poems about dying, but had almost never noticed them before. They were always the ones I lightly skimmed, and I thought that maybe I could start reading these poems more carefully. It was almost nothing, but it was also a decision about my life. ~ Jacob Wren

Forward now. Forward to battle slaughter. Beware the man who loves battle. Ravn had told me that only one man in three or perhaps one man in four is a real warrior and the rest are reluctant fighters, but I was to learn that only one man in twenty is a lover of battle. Such men were the most dangerous, the most skillful, the ones who reaped the souls, and the ones to fear. I was such a one, and that day, beside the river where the blood flowed into the rising tide, and beside the burning boats, I let Serpent-Breath sing her song of death. I remember little except a rage, an exultation, a massacre. This was the moment the skalds celebrate, the heart of the battle that leads to victory, and the courage had gone from those Danes in a heartbeat. ~ Bernard Cornwell

Many will argue that there is nothing remotely spiritual in combat. Consider this. Mystical or religious experiences have four common components: constant awareness of one's own inevitable death, total focus on the present moment, the valuing of other people's lives above one's own, and being part of a larger religious community such as the Sangha, ummah, or church. All four of these exist in combat. The big difference is that the mystic sees heaven and the warrior sees hell. Whether combat is the dark side of the same version, or only something equivalent in intensity, I simply don't know. I do know that at the age of fifteen I had a mystical experience that scared the hell out of me and both it and combat put me into a different relationship with ordinary life and eternity.

Most of us, including me, would prefer to think of a sacred space as some light-filled wonderous place where we can feel good and find a way to shore up our psyches against death. We don't want to think that something as ugly and brutal as combat could be involved in any way with the spiritual. However, would any practicing Christian say that Calvary Hill was not a sacred space? ~ Karl Marlantes

Anecdotal tales of combat are meaningless to Americans, we absorb tales of violence like a sponge. Mythological violence is second nature to us. The real thing is not. War begins long before battle. It begins when we are boys longing for the initiation rite of the warrior and everything it promises: sexual prowess and sexual license. War lasts long after the last bullet is fired; into old age and death we go carrying a secret knowledge that no one wants to know about. War is the opposite of sexual prowess. War is desire stripped of humanity. ~ Alfredo Vea

A warrior craves honor and excellence, not a measure of mild years. Those who cringe at death are half dead themselves; they forever keep to the shallows of life! ~ Henry H. Neff

Let us now assume that under truly extraordinary circumstances, the daimon nevertheless breaks through in the individual, so to speak, and is this able to let its destructive transcendence be felt: then one would have a kind of active experience of death. Thereupon the second connection becomes clear: why the figure of the daimon or doppelgänger in the ancient myths could be melded with the deity of death. In the Nordic tradition the warrior sees his Valkyrie precisely at the moment of death or mortal danger.

In religious asceticism, mortification, self-renunciation, and the impulse of devotion to God are the preferred methods of provoking and successfully overcoming the crisis I have just mentioned. Everyone knows the expressions which refer to these states, such as the 'mystical death' or 'dark night of the soul', etc. In contrast to this, within the framework of a heroic tradition, the path to the same goal is the active rapture, the Dionysian unleashing of the active element. At its lower levels, we find phenomenons such as the use of dance as a sacred technique for achieving an ecstasy of the soul that summons and uses profound energies. While the individual's life is surrendered to Dionysian rhythm, another life sinks into it, as if it where his abyssal roots surfacing. The 'wild host' Furies, Erinyes, and suchlike spiritual natures are symbolic picturings of this energy, thus corresponding to a manifestation of the daimon in its terrifying and active transce ~ Julius Evola

It is always better
to avenge dear ones than to indulge in mourning.
For every one of us, living in this world
means waiting for our end. Let whoever can
win glory before death. When a warrior is gone,
that will be his best and only bulwark. ~ Seamus Heaney

Ah, yes, Yggdrasil, the great tree of the world. It is the mark of the mystic. Usually this role is reserved for a woman for they are the keepers of magic and the dark arts, but once in a great while a man takes up the role. Woman mystics are known as volva, but Oddr prefers to be called an Angel of Death. He says it sounds less feminine. Oddr's mother, an Angel of Death herself, taught her son her craft. But he also has a great thirst for blood and kills savagely, which makes him a great warrior," Harald explained. Abriel ~ C.J. Adrien

It was then that I felt the full gravity of his profession. This was a real warrior, with real principles. Not a bang-bang Hollywood type, not a bendable dress-up doll in a hot uniform. A soldier, a soul. Life and death decisions were not an academic exercise for him, and he was not playing at this. ~ Lily Burana

A warrior must focus his attention on the link between himself and his death ... He must let each of his acts be his last battle on earth. Only under those conditions will his acts have their rightful power. ~ Carlos Castaneda

It was then I first saw Ubba fight and marveled at him, for he was a bringer of death, a grim warrior, sword lover. He did not fight in a shield wall, but ran into his enemies, shield slamming one way as his war ax gave death in the other, and it seemed he was indestructible for at one moment he was surrounded by East Anglian fighters, but there was a scream of hate, a clash of blade on blade, and Ubba came out of the tangle of men, his blade red, blood in his beard, trampling his enemies into the blood-rich tide, and looking for more men to kill. ~ Bernard Cornwell

The final desire of any warrior is a good death. ~ Lance Conrad

Fireheart dashed to the warrior's side. Cloudtail was standing stiff-legged, every hair in his pelt on end as if he were facing an enemy. His eyes were fixed on the limp heap of tabby fur huddled at his paws.
"Why, Fireheart?" Cloudtail wailed. "Why her?"
Fireheart knew, but rage and grief made it hard to speak. "Because Tigerstar wants the pack to get a taste of cat blood," he rasped.
The dead cat lying in front of them was Brindleface. ~ Erin Hunter

1. Who is a Death Warrior?
Anyone can be a Death Warrior, not just someone who is terminally ill. We are all terminally ill. A Death Warrior accepts death and makes a commitment to live a certain way, whether it be for one year or thirty years.
2. When does one become a Death Warrior?
There is a specific moment during which you can decide to become a Death Warrior. That moment is when death shows you that you will die.
3. How do you become a Death Warrior?
Once you accept that life will end, you can become a Death Warrior by choosing to love life at all times and in all circumstances. You choose to love life by loving.
4. What are the qualities of a Death Warrior?
A Death Warrior is grateful for every second of time given and is aware of how precious each second is. Every second not spent loving is wasted. The Death Warrior's enemy is time that is wasted by not loving.
5. Why should you become a Death Warrior?
So you can live and die with truth and courage, and because life is too painful when you're wasteful with the time given to you.
--The Death Warrior Manifesto, by DQ ~ Francisco X. Stork

A warrior knows death is always a hair's breadth away, but he doesn't dwell on the possibility of his death when he goes into battle. A warrior just fights. He fights to protect his family, his home, his people, himself, and often, the good of man. The wolf never gives a passing thought to the possibility of his death. For the wolf, he will fight to the end if need be, solely to defend his territory. Neither of these things are necessarily a reason to enter into battle when you are already weakened. They just are what they are. They live in a warrior's heart, in a wolf's heart. And both, for me, are in my heart. ~ D.C. Grace

To be a warrior a man has to be, first of all, and rightfully so, keenly aware of his own death. But to be concerned with death would force any one of us to focus on the self and that would be debilitating. So the next thing one needs to be a warrior is detachment. The idea of imminent death, instead of becoming an obsession, becomes an indifference.
Now you must detach yourself; detach yourself from everything. Only the idea of death makes a man sufficiently detached so he is incapable of abandoning himself to anything. Only the idea of death makes a man sufficiently detached so he can't deny himself anything. A man of that sort, however, does not crave, for he has acquired a silent lust for life and for all things of life. He knows his death is stalking him and won't give him time to cling to anything, so he tries, without craving, all of everything. ~ Carlos Castaneda

Loving a warrior is hard. Dying in the line of duty is an honor to them. They would rather take that road than to dishonor their sacred oath ~ Ronie Kendig

He was a strong and noble lord with piercing eyes of grey.
He sat upon his noble throne shining like the dawn.
His sword flashed like the brightest star.
He led our people well.
Yet here and now he lays in blood pierced with arrows.
He was the friend of many knights.
He loved the warrior games.
His heart was won by a lady fair for marriage they did wait.
A kindly prince, his duty carried him to another's bed.
And on her death true love returned, finally they wed.
He felt the grief of children lost to murder and to pain.
I was the youngest of his blood.
I'll never be the same.
Here lays my father and my lord.
I know not what to say.
Except my father and my lord was slain here on this day.
Here lays my father and my lord.
I know not what to say.
Except my father and my lord was slain here on this day ... . ~ Laurel A. Rockefeller

Beware, Underlanders, time hangs by a thread.
The hunters are hunted, white water runs red.
The Gnawers will strike to extinguish the rest.
The hope of the hopeless resides in a quest.
An Overland warrior, a son of the sun,
May bring us back light, he may bring us back none.
But gather your neighbors and follow his call
Or rats will most surely devour us all.
Two over, two under, of royal descent,
Two flyers, two crawlers, two spinners assent.
One gnawer beside and one lost up ahead.
And eight will be left when we count up the dead.
The last who will die must decide where he stands.
The fate of the eight is contained in his hands.
So bid him take care, bid him look where he leaps,
As life may be death and death life again reaps. ~ Suzanne Collins

We have to let the Warrior Code rule our hearts. The death of a warrior does not mean victory. ~ Erin Hunter

One finds life through conquering the fear of death within one's mind. Empty the mind of all forms of attachment, make a go-for-broke charge and conquer the opponent with one decisive slash. ~ Takenaka Shigekata

Bebeorh þé ðone bealo-níð, Béowulf léofa,
secg betsta, ond þé þaet sélre gecéos,
éce rǽdas; ofer-hýda ne gým,
mǽre cempa! Nú is þines maegnes blǽd
áne hwíle; eft sóna bið
þaet þec ádl oððe ecg eafoþes getwǽfeð,
oððe fýres feng oððe flódes wylm
oððe gripe méces oððe gáres fliht
oððe atol yldo, oððe éagena bearhtm
forsiteð ond forsworceð; semninga bið,
þaet ðec, dryht-guma, déað oferswýðeð.

O flower of warriors, beware of that trap.
Choose, dear Béowulf, the better part,
eternal rewards. Do not give way to pride.
For a brief while your strength is in bloom
but it fades quickly; and soon there will follow
illness or the sword to lay you low,
or a sudden fire or a surge of water
or jabbing blade or javelin from the air
or repellent age. Your piercing eye
will dim and darken; and death will arrive,
dear warrior, to sweep you away. ~ Seamus Heaney

Life was a bloody battlefield until I conquered the enemy and won the war. Now, life is a journey, and I am a warrior. Prepared for anything and weakened by nothing. There are hills and dales, mountains and plateaus, blind spots and brilliant vistas, but none of that matters. All that matters is my second chance, and the only thing capable of disrupting my path, is myself. ~ B.G. Bowers

Hey Americans," he screamed furiously at the drones.
"Brothers of the wolf, sisters of the wind, children of the Sun! Send the Choctaw warrior a quick and merciful death, instead of abandoning us into slavery or shameful capture. ~ George Sorbane

Verily, there is no dishonor in death at the hands of a far superior enemy. ~ Wayne Gerard Trotman

To those you care for, a nurse is a person of many faces: You are a warrior against death and suffering, a technician of the highest degree; you are a mother, a sister, a best friend, a psychiatrist; you are a teacher, a magician, a sounding board, a secretary, a fortuneteller, a politician, but most of all, you are a loving human being who has chosen to give that love in one of the best ways you can. ~ Echo Heron

Ancient Jews had no expectation - zero expectation - that the future messiah would die and rise from the dead. That was not what the messiah was supposed to do. Whatever specific idea any Jew had about the messiah (as cosmic judge, mighty priest, powerful warrior), what they all thought was that he would be a figure of grandeur and power who would be a mighty ruler of Israel. And Jesus was certainly not that. Rather than destroying the enemy, Jesus was destroyed by the enemy - arrested, tortured, and crucified, the most painful and publicly humiliating form of death known to the Romans. Jesus, in short, was just the opposite of what Jews expected a messiah to be. ~ Bart D. Ehrman

If a warrior is not unattached to life and death, he will be of no use whatsoever. The saying that "All abilities come from one mind" sounds as though it has to do with sentient matters, but it is in fact a matter of being unattached to life and death. With such non-attachment one can accomplish any feat. ~ Tsunetomo Yamamoto

Death - the aftermath of it - is a strange thing to watch from the pedestal of immortality. I've seen death in every way: as a thief in the night, as the heat of fever, as the lust of a warrior. Yet I've never really understood grief, or what it does to those left behind.

But seeing Richard alone in the dark. It breaks away pieces of me. I'm a glacier, plunging, falling apart against the sea. ~ Ryan Graudin

The Renaissance did not break completely with mediaeval history and values. Sir Philip Sidney is often considered the model of the perfect Renaissance gentleman. He embodied the mediaeval virtues of the knight (the noble warrior), the lover (the man of passion), and the scholar (the man of learning). His death in 1586, after the Battle of Zutphen, sacrificing the last of his water supply to a wounded soldier, made him a hero. His great sonnet sequence Astrophel and Stella is one of the key texts of the time, distilling the author's virtues and beliefs into the first of the Renaissance love masterpieces. His other great work, Arcadia, is a prose romance interspersed with many poems and songs. ~ Ronald Carter

No man can survive the path of knowledge if he is not prepared to embrace death. Death is a warrior's best advisor. ~ Théun Mares

Valdivia's actions symbolize man's indefatigable thirst to take control of a place where he can exercise total authority. That phrase, attributed to Caesar, proclaiming he would rather be first-in-command in some humble Alpine village than second-in-command in Rome, is repeated less pompously, but no less effectively, in the epic campaign that is the conquest of Chile. If, in the moment the conquistador was facing death at the hands of tht invincible Araucanian Caupolican, he had not been overwhelmed with fury, like a hunted animal, I do not doubt that judging his life, Valdivia would have felt death was fully justified. He belonged to that special class of men the species produces every so often, in whom a craving for limitless power is so extreme that any suffering to achieve it seems natural, and he had become the omnipotent ruler of a warrior nation. ~ Ernesto Che Guevara

Kane was stunned by the raw emotion of Ryland's words, of the depth of reverence in his voice. Ryland was a cold killing machine, who cared only about following his own path, about revenge, about his own brand of justice. He was a warrior who felt nothing, who saw no beauty, who had no depth to his soul other than death, pain and anger, and yet his sincerity about his mother was so evident that Kane could feel the other warrior's emotion. "Son of a bitch, Ryland," he said softly, staring at the warrior he thought he knew. "Who the hell are you?"

Ryland's head snapped up. "Don't swear in her prescence, you bastard. She'a fucking angel, and deserves far more than a piece of scum like you or I could ever offer her. Don't ever forget it. ~ Stephanie Rowe

You pathetic humans! It escapes me how you endure any trial long enough even to breed, yet here you are. And why do your kind persist at all? Because every now and then - once a century, perhaps - ONE of you understands this: Death is what you accept only when you have spent all that you are - to the very last drop of your sweat and blood - in order to save what you love. That, son of Koronolan, is what a hero, a true warrior, would do. ~ Helen C. Johannes

Fear is an aid to the warrior. It is a small fire burning. It heats the muscles, making us stronger. Panic comes when the fire is out of control, consuming all courage and pride. ~ David Gemmell

When Nietzsche made his famous definition of tragic pleasure he fixed his eyes, like all the other philosophers in like case, not on the Muse herself but on a single tragedian. His "reaffirmation of the will to live in the face of death, and the joy of its inexhaustibility when so reaffirmed" is not the tragedy of Sophocles nor the tragedy of Euripides, but it is the very essence of the tragedy of Aeschylus. The strange power tragedy has to present suffering and death in such a way as to exalt and not depress is to be felt in Aeschylus' plays as in those of no other tragic poet. He was the first tragedian; tragedy was his creation, and he set upon it the stamp of his own spirit. It was a soldier-spirit. Aeschylus was a Marathon-warrior, the title given to each of the little band who had beaten back the earlier tremendous Persian onslaught. ~ Edith Hamilton

Anyway, lots of warrior tribes think that when they die, they go to a heavenly land somewhere," said the toad. "You know, where they can drink and fight and feast forever? So maybe this is theirs."
"But this is a real place!"
"So? That's what they believe. Besides, they're only small. Maybe the universe is a bit crowded and they have to put heavens anywhere there's room? I'm a toad, so you'll appreciate that I'm having to guess a lot here. ~ Terry Pratchett

I have been speaking to you all of your life. In the gurgle of a tide pool, I breathed myself into you. I drew you down from the trees and I lifted you onto your feet. I freed your hands to become your tools so that you would cradle me in my old age, but you have turned on me. My strongest warrior for life, you have been transformed into an insatiable messenger of death. Only a few of my children are still listening when I howl to them, crying in the night, sending the oceans in great surges to cleanse my land -- to cleanse, and to warn you who no longer listen. I WILL BE HEARD. ~ Sarah Warden

Wisdom is a fluid process, not something concrete that can be added up or measured. The warrior-bodhisattva trains with the attitude that everything is a dream. Life is a dream; death is a dream; waking is a dream; sleeping is a dream. This dream is the direct immediacy of our experience. Trying to hold on to any of it by buying our story line only blocks our wisdom. ~ Pema Chodron

The Tylwyth Teg were immortal beings, but the burden of living for endless millennia was often tedium. It was one reason that the Fair Ones tended to play terrible pranks upon mortals. Like bored children, they sprang upon the unwary, seeking diversion. So it had been when a weary Celtic warrior turned reluctant gladiator had fought his way to freedom at last. Wounded and near death, pursued by his former captors, he'd blundered straight into the territory of the Tylwyth Teg in the steep hills northwest of Isca Silurum ... . ~ Dani Harper

He was lost. He knew it. He had neither the size nor the strength to defeat her, and she had him cornered. But he would fight. He was a warrior, the prince-son of the unicorns, and he meant to go down fighting. There would be no songs to mark his death; and none of his people would even know. But he had saved Korr and the others of the band. It was noon - they were safe out of the hills by now, and none of the rest of it mattered. ~ Meredith Ann Pierce

On days such as this, Death's long shadow hung like a broken halo over everyone - a sign of things to come. ~ R.W. Patterson

So you are tired of your life, young man! All the more reason have you to live. Anyone can die. A murderer has moral force enough to jeer at his hangman. It is very easy to draw the last breath. It can be accomplished successfully by a child or a warrior. One pang of far less anguish than the toothache, and all is over. There is nothing heroic about it, I assure you! It is as common as going to bed; it is almost prosy. Life is heroism, if you like; but death is a mere cessation of business. And to make a rapid and rude exit off the stage before the prompter gives the sign is always, to say the least of it, ungraceful. Act the part out, no matter how bad the play. What say you? ~ Marie Corelli

The bluejacket girlie rode like a clan warrior, but there was no way she'd escape. It was a private life-and-death contest that had nothing to do with him.
He told himself he should ride on, grateful that the chase would keep them occupied while he took a different path.
But what had he told Rebecca when she'd asked what he meant to do when he returned to the Fells?
'I'm tired of people in power picking on the weak. I'm going to help them. ~ Cinda Williams Chima

KRÁKUMÁL

[...]

25. We struck with our swords!
My soul is glad, for I know
that Balder's father's benches
for a banquet are made ready.
We'll toss back toasts of ale
from bent trees of the skulls;
no warrior bewails his death
in the wondrous house of Fjolnir.
Not one word of weakness
will I speak in Vidrir's hall.

26. We struck with our swords!
The sons of Aslaug all would
rouse the wrath of Hild here
with their ruthless sword-blades,
if they fathomed fully
how far I have traveled,
how so many serpents
stab me with their poison.
My son's hearts will help them:
they have their mother's lineage.

27. We struck with our swords!
Soon my life is ended;
Goinn scathes me sorely,
settles in my heart's hall;
I wish the wand of Vidrir
would wound Aeelle, one day.
My sons must feel great fury
that their father is put to death;
my daring swains won't suffer
in silence when they hear this.

28. We struck with our swords!
I have stood in the ranks
at fifty-one folk-battles,
foremost in the lance-meet.
Never did I dream that
a different king should ever
be found braver than me -
I bloodied spears when young.
Aesir will ask us to feast;
no anguish for my death.

29. I desire my death now.
The disir call me home,
whom Herjan hastens onward
Ben Waggoner

We will not die cornered and cowering in the ruins of a dead city. ~ Rachel L. Schade

Fine, fuck it," Clay said, tossing the plate into the yard. The chicken parts bounced nicely, breading themselves with a light coating of sand, ants, and dried grass. "When did chicken become like plutonium anyway, for Christ's sake? You can't let it touch you or it's certain fucking death. And eggs and hamburgers kill you unless you cook them to the consistency of limestone! And if you turn on your fucking cell phone, the plane is going to plunge out of the sky in a ball of flames? And kids can't take a dump anymore but they have to have a helmet and pads on make them look like the Road Warrior. Right? Right? What the fuck happened to the world? When did everything get so goddamn deadly? Huh? I've been going to sea for thirty damned years, and nothing's killed me. I've swum with everything that can bite, sting, or eat you, and I've done every stupid thing at depth that any human can -- and I'm still alive. Fuck, Clair, I was unconscious for an hour underwater less than a week ago, and it didn't kill me. Now you're going to tell me that I'm going to get whacked by a fucking chicken leg? Well, just fuck it then! ~ Christopher Moore

If we focus on the meat, this contrast is, financial death and warrior death, a split which Oswald Spengler calls 'hunger death' and 'hero death'.

The hungry human, in a 9 to 5 existence is threatened, dishonored, and debased by financial worry and the fear of mental starving, which stunts possibilities, chokes consciousness, produces darkness and pressure not less than starvation in the literal sense. You can lose your whole life-will through the gaping wretchedness of living in the modern world of debt and work. The tragedy is that in the modern world, you die of something (starvation, disease, boredom) and not for something (death by action).

In waring and fighting, you sacrifice for higher policies, you can die for something higher, you full for a metaphysics, a mode of consciousness higher than your meat body. On the other hand, economic life merely waste you away. Spengler writes, 'War is the creature, hunger the destroyer, of all things'.

In war life is elevated by death, often to the point of irresistible force whose mere existence guarantees victory. But in the economic life hunger awakens the ugly, the vulgar, and wholly un-metaphysical form of fearfulness for one's life under which the higher form of being a human miserably collapses and the naked struggle for survival of the human beast begins.

By the warrior, Evola isn't writing about what Henry Kissinger called 'dumb, stupid animals to be used as pawns in foreign polic ~ Moesy Pittounikos