Quotes about Sacrifice

The writer is an infantryman. He knows that progress is measured in yards of dirt extracted from the enemy one day, one hour, one minute at a time and paid for in blood. The artist wears combat boots.

Then there's the third way proffered by the Lord of Discipline, which is beyond both hierarchy and territory. That is to do the work and give it to Him. Do it as an offering to God.   Give the act to me. Purged of hope and ego

In other words, any act that rejects immediate gratification in favor of long-term growth, health, or integrity.

Never forget, Alexandros, that this flesh, this body, does not belong to us. Thank God it doesn't. If I thought this stuff was mine, I could not advance a pace into the face of the enemy. But it is not ours, my friend. It belongs to the gods and to our children, our fathers and mothers and those of Lakedaemon a hundred, a thousand years yet unborn. It belongs to the city which gives us all we have and demands no less in requital.

will tell His Majesty what a king is. A king does not abide within his tent while his men bleed and die upon the field.

I will tell His Majesty what a king is. A king does not abide within his tent while his men bleed and die upon the field.

When you move your material ass to the geographic site of your dream, your peers and potential mentors think at once, This person is serious. She has committed. She has burned the boats. She is one of us.

Courage is inseparable from love and leads to what may arguably be the noblest of all warrior virtues: selflessness.

On realising that he is not a born warrior, as the rest of his troop are): A cherished self-conception must be given up, and one feels diminished by it. This is mistaken, however. A person discovers that he has been made stronger by the jettisoning of this sham and disadvantageous bag-gage. In fact, he has become more "himself," by aligning his self-concept more closely with fact.

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

BEYOND RESISTANCE The Higher Realm The first duty is to sacrifice to the gods and pray them to grant you the thoughts, words, and deeds likely to render your command most pleasing to the gods and to bring yourself, your friends, and your city the fullest measure of affection and glory and advantage. —Xenophon, The Cavalry Commander

A professional schools herself to stand apart from her performance, even as she gives herself to it heart and soul. The Bhagavad-Gita tells us we have a right only to our labor, not to the fruits of our labor. All the warrior can give is his life; all the athlete can do is leave everything on the field.