Pressfield War Quotes & Sayings

Here is what you do, friends. Forget country. Forget king. Forget wife and children and freedom. Forget every concept, however noble, that you imagine you fight for here today. Act for this alone: for the man who stands at your shoulder. He is everything, and everything is contained within him. That is all I know. That is all I can tell you.
Dienekes at Thermopylae — Steven Pressfield

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 selfless love, eradicating in the crucible of necessity all which is base and ignoble. There in the holy mill of murder the meanest of men may seek and find that part of himself, concealed beneath the corrupt, which shines forth brilliant and virtuous, worthy of honor before the gods. Do not despise war, my young friend, nor delude yourself that mercy and compassion are virtues superior to andreia, to manly valor. — Steven Pressfield

Those who joined us for selfish personal reasons, for a career or other motives will be the ones to leave. — Janos Kadar

No one writes better historical fiction than Steven Pressfield. The Afghan War that was waged by Alexander the Great 2000 years ago is eerily similar to the one that's being fought today. This book should be required reading for anyone who wants to better understand what American and Coalition forces are up against in one of history's most tribal and troubled regions. — Vince Flynn

When a novelist or screenwriter is looking for a subject, the element he's seeking is conflict. Conflict makes drama. Conflict produces great characters and memorable scenes. So war is a natural topic. — Steven Pressfield

I guess they just wanted to scoop a bunch of people up, hoping they got me, and unfortunately they did. — Sherman Austin

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 longer as the demigod you presume yourself to be. — Steven Pressfield

If you really stop resisting someone or stop judging them or stop being afraid of them or stop imagining they're going to do something negative they haven't done yet, it changes the energetic field, it changes the relationship, and that person - not always, but often - will shift their behavior because of what you've done. — Jack Canfield

It is one thing to study war and another to live the warrior's life. — Steven Pressfield

The present age ... prefers the sign to the thing signified, the copy to the original, fancy to reality, the appearance to the essence ... for in these days illusion only is sacred, truth profane. — Ludwig Feuerbach

Fundamentalism is the philosophy of the powerless, the conquered, the displaced and the dispossessed. Its spawning ground is the wreckage of political and military defeat, as Hebrew fundamentalism arose during the Babylonian captivity, as white Christian fundamentalism appeared in the American South during Reconstruction, as the notion of the Master Race evolved in Germany following World War I. In such desperate times, the vanquished race would perish without a doctrine that restored hope and pride. Islamic fundamentalism ascends from the same landscape of despair and possesses the same tremendous and potent appeal. What exactly is this despair? It is the despair of freedom. The dislocation and emasculation experienced by the individual cut free from the familiar and comforting structures of the tribe and the clan, the village and the family. It is the state of modern life. The — Steven Pressfield

You know, Hitler wanted to be an artist. At eighteen he took his inheritance, seven hundred kronen, and moved to Vienna to live and study ... Ever see one of his paintings? Neither have I. Resistance beat him. Call it overstatement but I'll say it anyway: it was easier for Hitler to start World War II than it was for him to face a blank square of canvas. — Steven Pressfield

The first thing I look for is the humor, because you can tell what the character's fears and insecurities are through the humor. — Lusia Strus

When deliberating, think in campaigns and not battles; in wars and not
campaigns; in ultimate conquest and not wars. — Steven Pressfield

Always attack. Even in defense, attack. The attacking arm possesses the
initiative and thus commands the action. To attack makes men brave; to defend
makes them timorous. — Steven Pressfield

The last element in drama is high stakes. War, of course, is life and death - survival, not only for the story's characters, but often for the society itself. That's why I'm drawn to stories that are built around wars, even if they're not technically "war stories." — Steven Pressfield

Art is a war - between ourselves and the forces of self-sabotage that would stop us from doing our work. The artist is a warrior. — Steven Pressfield

Tolstoy had 13 kids and still wrote War & Peace. — Steven Pressfield

The War of Art: Break Through the Blocks and Win Your Inner Creative Battles BY STEVEN PRESSFIELD Pressfield's — Daniel H. Pink

Blank eyes stared from sunken sockets as if the divine force, the daimon, had been extinguished like a lamp, replaced by a weariness beyond description, a stare without effect, the hollow gaze of hell itself. — Pressfield, Steven

It's one thing to study war
and another to live the warrior's life.
- Telamon of Arcadia, mercenary of the fifth century B.C. — Steven Pressfield

The marine corps teaches you how to be miserable. This is invaluable for an artist. Marines love to be miserable. Marines derive a perverse satisfaction in having colder chow, crappier equipment, and higher casualty rates than any outfit of dogfaces, swabjockies, or flyboys, all of whom they despise. Why? Because those candyasses don't know how to be miserable.
The artist committing himself to his calling has to be miserable. The artist committing himself to his calling has volunteered for hell, whether he knows it or not, he will be dining for the duration on a diet of isolation, rejection, self-doubt, despair, ridicule, contempt, and humiliation. The artist must be like that marine: he has to know how to be miserable. He has to love being miserable. He has to take pride in being more miserable than any soldier, or swabbie, or desk jockey, because this is war, baby, and war is hell. — Steven Pressfield

I was keenly conscious of the comrades-in-arms who had fallen with me. A bond surpassing by a hundredfold that which I had known in life bound me to them. I felt a sense of inexpressible relief and realized that I had feared, more than death, separation from them. I apprehended that excruciating war survivor's torment, the sense of isolation and self-betrayal experienced by those who had elected to cling yet to breath when their comrades had let loose their grip. — Steven Pressfield

I wrote in the 'War of Art' that I could divide my life neatly into two parts: before turning pro and after. After is better. — Steven Pressfield

Anything worthwhile is opposed. Steven Pressfield (War of Art) calls this the Resistance. — Michael Hyatt

No two people ever view the world from exactly the same perspective, understand things the same way, human or not. The best we can ever do is try. — Debra Driza