"The true soldier fights not because he hates what is in front of him, but because he loves what is behind him."

~G.K. Chesterton

"I do not love the bright sword for its sharpness, nor the arrow for its swiftness, nor the warrior for his glory. I love only that which they defend."

~J.R.R. Tolkien, The Two Towers

...When he had so spoken I beheld the Angel, who stretched out his arms embracing the flame of fire, and he was consumed and arose as Elijah.

Note. This Angel, who is now become a Devil, is my particular friend; we often read the Bible together in its infernal or diabolical sense, which the world shall have if they behave well.

I have also: The Bible of Hell, which the world shall have whether they will or no.

One Law for the Lion and Ox is Oppression.

– William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell

"In his arms methought I saw one sleeping, naked, save that she seemed to me wrapped lightly in a crimson drapery; whom gazing at very intently, I knew to be the lady of the salutation, who the day before had deigned to salute me. And in one of his hands methought he held a thing that was all aflame; and methought he said to me these words: Vide Cor tuum [Behold thy heart!]."

At the opening of The New Life Dante mentions the experience of "contact." He talks about the apparition of the "glorious lady of my mind," who "was called Beatrice by many who did not know what to call her" (II, 4; in other words, they did not know what this experience consisted of). This marks the beginning of a radical transformation of the human being: At that point I verily declare that the vital spirit which dwelleth in the most secret chamber of the heart began to tremble so mightily that it was horribly apparent in the least of my pulses, and trembling, it said these words: "Behold a god stronger than I, who coming shall rule over me."

What is announced is the awakening of the inner ruler, who is "the lord on the throne." The "animal spirit," which is here equated with the vital principle, is astonished at the incipient transformation: "Now has appeared your bliss." Finally, the "natural spirit," which could be equated with the samsaric nature, begins to weep and finally says: "Alas, wretched, because often from now on I shall be hindered." In other words, it realizes that it will no longer control the Worshiper of Love's being. Dante goes on to say: "From thenceforth I say that Love held lordship over my soul, which was early bounden unto him."

In the previously mentioned passage the "woman" is related to the "knowledge of the heart," and to something that is "all aflame," as if it were the center of a magic, life-giving fire. All of this helps us to appreciate the deepest meaning of the noscript Dante gave to his book, namely, The New Life. Even the sleeping woman, wrapped up in a crimson drapery, may be a highly symbolic figure. She could be equated with the "woman" found in the bloodstream, who induces the Tantric divya to claim that he has no need for external women.

— Julius Evola, The Yoga of Power

"The Ethiops say that their gods are flat-nosed and black,
While the Thracians say that theirs have blue eyes and red hair.
Yet if cattle or horses or lions had hands and could draw,
And could sculpt like men, then the horses would draw their gods
Like horses, and cattle like cattle; and each they would shape
Bodies of gods in the likeness, each kind, of their own."

– Xenophanes

EDIT: This is not a direct quote but a paraphrasing of Plato's sentiments, yet it remains valuable and in the vein of the previous two posts.

"Undoubtedly, the new Fascist generation already possesses a broadly military, warlike orientation, but it has not yet grasped the necessity of integrating the details of simple discipline and psychophysical training into a superior order, a general vision of life. ... [For a warrior] society is neither a creature of necessity, nor something to be justified or sublimated on the basis of the ideal of honeyed universal love and obligatory altruism. Every society will instead be essentially conceived in the terms of the solidarity existing between quite distinct beings, each one determined to protect the dignity of its personality, but nevertheless united in a common action which binds them side by side, without sentimentalism, in male comradeship. Fidelity and sincerity, with the ethics of honour to which they give rise, will thus be seen as the true basis of every community. ... If the two most recent phases of the involutionary process which has led to the modern decline are first, the rise of the bourgeoise, and second, the collectivisation not only of the idea of the State, but also of all values and of the conception of ethics itself, then to go beyond all this and to reassert a ‘warlike’ vision of life in the aforementioned full sense must constitute the precondition for any reconstruction: when the world of the masses and of the materialistic and sentimental middle classes gives way to a world of ‘warriors’, the main thing will have been achieved, which makes possible the coming of an even higher order, that of true traditional spirituality."

- Julius Evola in 'Army' as Vision of the World

"This will never be completely understood if the biological conception of race is not integrated with that ‘racism of the second and of the third degree’ of which we have repeatedly spoken here. It is only if race is considered as existing not only in the body, but also in the soul and in the spirit, as a deep, meta-biological force which conditions both the physical and the psychical structures in the organic totality of the human entity – it is only if this eminently traditional point of view is assumed – that the mystery of the decline of races can be fathomed in all its aspects. One can then realise that, in a way analogous to the individual abdication and inner breakdown of the individual, where the loss of all moral tension and the attitude of passive abandonment can gradually find expression in a true physical collapse, or can paralyse natural organic resources far more efficiently than any threat to the body – so developments of the same nature can occur on the plane of those greater entities which are human races, on the greater scale in space and in time of their aggregate life spans. And what we have just pointed out about organic resources neutralised, when the inner – moral and spiritual – tension of an individual is lacking, can even allow us to consider less simplistically and less materialistically the matter of racial alterations due to mixing and contamination, as well. ... On the basis of these considerations two practical tasks of racism can be distinguished. The first task could be said to be one of passive defence. This means sheltering the race from all external actions (crossings, unsuitable forms of life and culture, etc.) which could present the danger to it of a crisis, a mutation or a denaturation. The second task, in contrast, is active resistance, and consists in reducing to a minimum the predisposition of the race to degeneration, that is to say, the ground on which it can be exposed passively to external action. This means, essentially, ‘to exalt’ its inner race; to see to it that its intimate tension is never lacking; that, as a counterpart of its physical integrity, within it there is something like an uncontrollable and irreducible fire, always yearning for new material to feed its blaze, in the form of new obstacles, which defy it and force it to reassert itself. ... But the highest instrument of the inner awakening of race is combat, and war is its highest expression. That pacifism and humanitarianism are phenomena closely linked to internationalism, democracy, cosmopolitanism and liberalism is perfectly logical – the same anti-racial instinct present in some is reflected and confirmed in the others. ... In view of the considerations which have been pointed out here, it is necessary to change these attitudes. From the ‘ordeal by fire’ of the primordial forces of race and heroic experience, above all other experience, has been a means to an essentially spiritual and interior end. But there is more: heroic experience differentiates itself in its results not only according to the various races, but also according to the extent to which, within each race, a super-race has formed itself and come to power. The various degrees of this creative differentiation correspond to so many ways of being a hero and to so many forms of awakening through heroic experience. On the lowest plane, hybrid, essentially vital, instinctive and collective forces emerge – this is somewhat similar to the awakening on a large scale of the ‘primordial horde’ by the solidarity, unity of destiny and holocaust which is peculiar to it. Gradually, this mostly naturalistic experience is purified, dignified, and becomes luminous until it reaches its highest form, which corresponds to the Aryan conception of war as ‘holy war’, and of victory and triumph as an apex, since its value is identical to the values of holiness and initiation, and, finally, of death on the battlefield as mors triumphalis, as not a rhetorical but an effective overcoming of death."

- Julius Evola in Race and War

"The Sun is an image of the Creator who is higher than the heavens. Just as that supreme creator gave life to the whole universe, Ra gives life to the Animals and Plants. His material body is the source of visible light, and, if there be such a thing as a substance not perceptible to the senses, the light of the sun must contain that substance. Yet what it is or how it flows- only Atum knows.
The Sun continously pours forth Light and Life. Ra nurtures all vegetation, gathering the first fruits produced by the power of his rays, as if in his mighty hands, bringing out sweet perfumes from the plants. In the same way, our souls, like heavenly flowers, are nurtured by the Light of Atum's wisdom, and in return, we should use in his service all that grows within us." - Hermes Trismegistus, The Hermetica.