It’s a book about fighting for what you consider meaningful and valuable. It’s a short and easy read filled with great stories.
Flow: 5/5
Actionability: 4/5
Mindset: 5/5
Some of My Highlights:
“…the Warrior Ethos enlists three other equally innate and powerful human impulses: Shame. Honor. And Love.”
“The Warrior Ethos, on the contrary, mandates respect for the enemy.”
“Criminal and terrorist organizations practice tribe-like codes of honor, but they do not practice the Warrior Ethos. They are ‘shadow tribes.'”
“A shame-based culture imposes its values from outside the individual, by the good or bad opinion of the group.”
“The Marine Corps is shame-based. So were the Romans, Alexander’s Macedonians and the ancient Spartans.”
“The warrior advancing into battle (or simply resolving to keep up the fight) is more afraid of disgrace in the eyes of his brothers than he is of the spears and lances of the enemy.”
“It was not unheard of for a Spartan boy to die of a beating without uttering a sound.”
“The interesting thing about peoples and cultures from rugged environments is that they almost never choose to leave them.”
“But Cyrus knew, as the proverb declares, that ‘soft lands make soft people.'”
“Better to live in a rugged land and rule than to cultivate rich plans and be a salve.”
“He decreed that no name could be inscribed on a tombstone except that of a woman who died in childbirth or a man killed on the battlefield.”
“‘Even horsed and dogs who are fed together,’ observed Xenophon, ‘Form bonds and become attached to one another.'”
“Ordeals of initiation are undergone not as individuals but as teams, as units.”
“The samurai code of Bushido forbade the warrior from approaching an enemy by stealth.”
“This is another key element of the Warrior Ethos: the willing and eager embracing of adversity.”
“The payoff for a life of adversity is freedom.”
“Death Before Dishonor.”
“Honor is the psychological salary of any elite unit. Pride is the possession of honor.”
“Happiness in honor cultures is the possession of unsullied honor. Everything else is secondary.”