Self-conquest

“ Conquest is the overcoming of an evil habit, the rising superior to opposition and attack, the spiritual exaltation that comes from resisting the invasion of the grovelling material side of life. Sometimes when you are worn and weak with the struggle; when it seems that justice is a dream, that honesty and loyalty and truth count for nothing, that the devil is the only good paymaster ”

“ This might have arisen partly from a want of susceptibility in his constitution, not altogether from that stern power of self-conquest which enables some men to subdue the rebellious instincts which give rise to envious passions. ”

“ The first conquest builds confidence, and with confidence and determination it is possible to gain self-mastery in time.
The greatest evil about bad habits is that they conquer us. They become masters, we slaves. Let us be free. "He who conquers himself is greater than he who taketh a city." ”

“ Your case no tame expedients will afford:
Resolve on death, or conquest by the sword,
Which for no less a stake than life you draw;
And self-defence is nature's eldest law. ”

“ Closely connected with war, or, more properly, as the natural development of it in its more advanced stages, we must mention Conquest; that is, the violent imposition of the results of a foreign civilisation on the native social foundations of any country. Here, no doubt, there may often be on the conquering side something very different from a manly self-assertion—viz. self-aggrandisement at the expense of an innocent neighbour, greed of territory, lust of power, and the vanity of mere military glory, which our brilliant neighbours the French were so fond to have in their mouth. ”

“ Know, also, that to gain a quicker and easier conquest over your enemies, it is expedient, nay, necessary, that the conflict should be carried on daily, and especially the conflict with self-love; learn to receive, therefore, as dear friends, all the slights and insults which the world can heap upon you. ”

“ War has ceased to have its former usefulness as a spur to personal and social morality.
(3) Wars of self-defense have often been necessary, to preserve goods that would have been lost by conquest; as when the Greeks at Marathon repelled the barbaric hordes of Asia, or when Charles Martel and the Franks checked the advance of the Saracens at Tours. Offensive wars, even, may have been necessary to wipe out evils, such as slavery or the oppression of neighboring peoples. But in modern times the moral justification of war on such grounds has usually been a flimsy pretext ”

“ In both the steadiest courage and the fervour of the noblest self-sacrifice were allied to an appalling ferocity and a cynical contempt and pitiless disregard for the rights of others. Among each people64 the warlike pride generated by successful wars of independence led ere long to wars of conquest and plunder. ”

“ Why should there be only in us, and nowhere else in the world, these two irreconcilable tendencies, that in every man are incessantly at strife, and alternately victorious? Would one have been dangerous without the other? Would it have overstepped its goal, perhaps; would the desire for conquest, unchecked by the sense of justice, have led to annihilation, as the sense of justice without the desire for conquest might have lured us to inertia? Which of these two tendencies is the more natural and necessary, which is the narrower and which the vaster, which is provisional and which eternal? ”

“ Nothing short of Providence can reveal to us the issue of this great struggle. Bloody—calamitous —I fear it will be. May we so conduct it if a collision must come, that we will stand justified in the eyes of Him who knows our hearts and who will judge our every act. We must not yield to resentments, nor to the spirit of vengeance, much less to the desire for conquest or ambition. ”

“ And, in truth, what can such a troubler of the earth expect, but the bitter aversion of his own people, whom he oppresses and exhausts; and the curses of mankind, whom he persecutes and lays waste? Conquest gives him no new security; but, far from it, multiplies those who have a mind to destroy him, and arms more hands against him. They who possess most, have more to fear; especially when coming to their possessions by injustice, they must maintain them by violence. Hence the endless fears and insecurity of conquerors and oppressors, and the many conspiracies against them ”

“ At the bottom the spirit of conquest, the proud ambition to dominate the world, subsists; and when all has crumbled, and a new society has sprung up from the ruins of its predecessor, men have erred in imagining it to be cured of the sin of pride, steeped in humility once more, for it has had the old blood in its veins, and has yielded to the same insolent madness as its ancestors, a prey to all the violence of its heredity directly it has become great and strong. ”

“ We fight neither for revenge nor conquest, neither from pride nor passion; we are not insulting the world with our fleets and armies, nor ravaging the globe for plunder. Beneath the shade of our own vines are we attacked; in our own houses, and on our own lands, is the violence committed against us. ”

“ A stranger to myself and to the world, armed solely with a thought that negates itself as soon as it asserts, what is this condition in which I can have peace only by refusing to know and to live, in which the appetite for conquest bumps into walls that defy its assaults? ”

“ Which of all foolish utterances was the most foolish she could have uttered, fanning the man's jealousy to a pitch where it burned right through the barrier of self-restraint, making him desire to stop her foolish words with kisses, and long to strangle her as she lay in his arms, and cast her on to the sands for the vultures to pick at. ”

“ It counts the cost of the conflict with real life, and calmly concludes that it is able to meet the foes which stand in frowning array on the world's great battle-field. Self-conceit, on the other hand, is a vainglorious assertion of power. ”

“ I do not say this to discourage man, nor to humble or under-value his free will. He is called upon to conquer in the battle of life, and the honour of the conquest belongs to his free will. But victory is impossible, and defeat certain, if he has not a just conception and a profound feeling of his dangers, his weaknesses, and his need of assistance. ”

“ But is the present course of the historian’s pen altogether erroneous? Perhaps not. The inordinate rapacity and selfishness of human nature must be taken into account. The overpowering propensity for conquest, might against right, must be considered. ”

“ Even in self-defence, are marked as wrongs
Heaped on your blameless heads.
But to the point! Just as our brother's Seventeen
Council Fires
Unite for self-protection so do we.
How can you blame us, since your own example
Is but our model and fair precedent?
The Long-Knife's craft has kept our tribes apart,
Nourished dissensions, raised distinctions up,
Forced us to injuries which, soon as done,
Are made your vile pretexts for bloody war. ”

“ There is thus no one social tendency that, as it comes to us in the course of our ordinary social experience, gives us sufficient guidance to tell us how to escape self-defeat. For my love and pity war with my social greed and with my rivalries. I am so far left to my chaos. ”

“ But I tell you there is something terrible in the demand for allegiance to a country whose sole aim is conquest in every phase of life; not the peaceful conquest which springs from the higher intelligence and purity of soul, but the brutal conquest of bloodshed, rapine, and terror. ”

“ That is why the majority of mankind has set itself to overcome the unholy urgings of ambition, the pleasure of selfish and revengeful purposes, and the deeply-implanted delight in cruelty and unkindness. Such conquest is the essential part of the Fourfold Path by which the bliss of extinction may be attained. Let him cease to be ambitious, let him purge himself of selfish aims and revengeful or unkind thoughts, and a man may at last enter into Nirvana, even a politician may slowly be extinguished. ”

“ Show hesitation, and it will show fight; command authoritatively, and it will obey slavishly.
"The subwaking self is devoid of all morality. It will steal without the least scruple; it will poison; it will stab; it will assassinate its best friends without the least scruple. ”

“ Hence its lure for combative men. Its goal is conquest. Let alone it would perhaps wreck itself or enslave the world. No matter. When it is ruthless, knowing no law but its own necessity, then it is magnificent. ”

“ The real evils of the system were those which arose from its un-conscious barbarism—the natural and inevitable results of holding human beings as chattels, without right, the power of self-defence or protestation—dumb driven brutes, deprived of all volition or hope, subservient to another's will, and bereft of every motive for self-improvement as well as every opportunity to rise. ”

“ The conflict within threatens to engulf the society in self-war, group against group. The vital traditions may be lost—not merely altered or reformed, but completely destroyed in this period of chaos and anarchy. ”

“ Accordingly, men must satisfy their instinct of self-preservation by destroying one another. That fact was demonstrated long ago by the philosophers—to question it would be heresy. So you see, my good young friend, why it is necessary to fight? ”

“ And if the conquering countries are such miserable losers by conquest, what must be the doleful condition of the conquered, which are considered only as the sources of plunder, and the professed objects of oppression? ”

“ Remember that such insatiable desires merely end by enslaving a man, consuming him with cares and depriving him of all peace. Had you remained contented with the inheritance of your own kingdom you would have reigned in peace and tranquillity, but now, not even yet satisfied with the conquest of enormous foreign possessions and wealth, you are weighed down with cares and danger. ”

“ What is wanted, in these various conflicts, is some principle, genuinely believed, which will have justice for its outcome. The tug of war of mutual self-assertion can only result in justice through an accidental equality of force. ”

“ The course of events, and the momentous interests of life and death—the dread realities of the rack and torture, imprisonment, and death—drove him to use in self-defence all the available means within reach, and to employ the resources of self-preservation. ”

“ It is a noble conquest you have gain'd over your feelings, and what must it not have cost you! Give me your hand, and be not thus constrained with me: I know the weakness of human nature, and dearly do I sympathize with you. ”

“ Nay more, they hailed their own enslavement with acclamations. We have relearned the old truth. "No conquest is ever achieved once for all. Conquest is a continued action which must be sustained day by day under penalty of forfeiture." ”

“ But for centuries they have only fought when obliged to do so, and solely in self-defence. There is a great difference, both psychological and moral, between aggressive violence and the will to defend one’s rights. ”

“ For the true object of this War is to prove the evil of, and to destroy, autocracy and the enslavement of one Nation by another, and to place on sure foundations the God-given Right to Self-Rule and Self-Development of every Nation, and the similar right of the Individual, of the smaller Self, so far as is consistent with the welfare of the larger Self of the Nation. ”

“ know ye not Who would be free themselves must strike the blow? By their right arms the conquest must be wrought? ”

“ But, it is to be feared, that the greater part of the terrible conflicts that have desolated the earth, have sprung from the evil passions of men—especially from the lust of conquest and dominion, one of the direst evils of the human heart, and one which has been among the chief sources of human suffering. ”

“ I felt that it was impossible for me to meet such a death, and so unmerited, with resolution or with resignation, and without a struggle—a desperate struggle—if not for liberty at least for revenge. It was better, a thousand times better, to die sword in hand, and be hewed to pieces, than to be hung like a pitiful marauder. ”

“ I deliberately defy the abovementioned agitator (who himself makes this self-confession, "the creed of revenge has run through all my works and endeavours like the red thread of Justice") , and say, that judged historically law in the world represents the very war against the reactive feelings, the very war waged on those feelings by the powers of activity and aggression, which devote some of their strength to damming and keeping within bounds this effervescence of hysterical reactivity, and to forcing it to some compromise. ”

“ A mind so severely trained as his had been brings to a great crisis, involving severe self-denial, an amount of reserved moral force quite inexplicable to those less habituated to self-control. He was like a warrior whose sleep even was in armour, always ready to be roused to the conflict. ”

“ When the fight comes not one of them would get out of this town alive. We don't intend they shall ever get out of the country. But I want it distinctly understood that I am opposed to any war, and will only fight in self-defence. ”

“ We must protect our frontiers against the incursions of the barbarians. Unless they be rolled back, they will overwhelm us. Self-preservation is an instinct lodged in every breast, justifying man in defending his life and his acquisitions. ”