Honor's Minimum Effort
François de La Rochefoucauld
Maxims

The author observes that most men limit their bravery in battle to the minimum required to preserve their reputation and achieve specific goals.

Most men expose themselves in battle enough to save their honor, few wish to do so more than sufficiently, or than is necessary to make the design for which they expose themselves succeed.
Notes
5
Animals as Thought Carriers
Henry David Thoreau
On the Duty of Civil Disobedience

The author questions why specific animals exist in the world, suggesting they serve as carriers of human thoughts. This metaphorical insight portrays animals as beasts of burden for ideas.

...or a budding ecstasy. Mem. There never is but one opportunity of a kind. Poet. How now, Hermit, is it too soon? I have got just thirteen whole ones, beside several which are imperfect or undersized; but they will do for the smaller fry; they do not cover up the hook so much. Those village worms are quite too large; a shiner may make a meal off one without finding the skewer. Hermit. Well, then, let's be off. Shall we to the Concord? There's good sport there if the water be not too high.
Why do precisely these objects which we behold make a world? Why has man just these species of animals for his neighbors; as if nothing but a mouse could have filled this crevice? I suspect that Pilpay & Co. have put animals to their best use, for they are all beasts of burden, in a sense, made to carry some portion of our thoughts.
The mice which haunted my house were not the common ones, which are said to have been introduced into the country, but a wild native kind not found in the village. I sent one to a distinguished naturalist, and it interested him much. When I was building, one of these had its nest underneath the house, and before I had laid the second floor, and swept out the shavings, would come out regularly at lunch time and pick up the crumbs at my feet. It probably had never seen a man before; and it soon...
Notes
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Man's Proper Joy
Marcus Aurelius
Meditations

The author defines true human joy as performing one's proper function, which involves kindness toward others, mastery over the senses, and contemplation of the universe's divine and social causes.

...and Eudaemon, and others like unto those. They were all but for one day; all dead and gone long since. Some of them no sooner dead, than forgotten. Others soon turned into fables. Of others, even that which was fabulous, is now long since forgotten. This thereafter thou must remember, that whatsoever thou art compounded of, shall soon be dispersed, and that thy life and breath, or thy soul, shall either be no more or shall ranslated (sp.), and appointed to some certain place and station. XXV.
The true joy of a man, is to do that which properly belongs unto a man. That which is most proper unto a man, is, first, to be kindly affected towards them that are of the same kind and nature as he is himself to contemn all sensual motions and appetites, to discern rightly all plausible fancies and imaginations, to contemplate the nature of the universe; both it, and things that are done in it. In which kind of contemplation three several relations are to be observed The first, to the apparent secondary cause. The Second to the first original cause, God, from whom originally proceeds whatsoever doth happen in the world. The third and last,…
XXVI. If pain be an evil, either it is in regard of the body; (and that cannot be, because the body of itself is altogether insensible:) or in regard of the soul But it is in the power of the soul, to preserve her own peace and tranquillity, and not to suppose that pain is evil. For all judgment and deliberation; all prosecution, or aversation is from within, whither the sense of evil (except it be let in by opinion) cannot penetrate. XXVII. Wipe off all idle fancies, and say unto thyself inc...
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Notes
6
Foolishness as Progress
Epictetus
The Enchiridion

The author advises accepting being seen as foolish to focus on aligning one's will with nature rather than securing externals.

...be bad than you unhappy. Begin therefore with little things. Is a little oil spilled or a little wine stolen? Say to yourself, “This is the price paid for peace and tranquillity; and nothing is to be had for nothing.” And when you call your servant, consider that it is possible he may not come at your call; or, if he does, that he may not do what you wish. But it is not at all desirable for him, and very undesirable for you, that it should be in his power to cause you any disturbance. XIII
If you would improve, be content to be thought foolish and dull with regard to externals. Do not desire to be thought to know anything; and though you should appear to others to be somebody, distrust yourself. For be assured, it is not easy at once to keep your will in harmony with nature and to secure externals; but while you are absorbed in the one, you must of necessity neglect the other.
XIV If you wish your children and your wife and your friends to live forever, you are foolish, for you wish things to be in your power which are not so, and what belongs to others to be your own. So likewise, if you wish your servant to be without fault, you are foolish, for you wish vice not to be vice but something else. But if you wish not to be disappointed in your desires, that is in your own power. Exercise, therefore, what is in your power. A man's master is he who is able to confer...
Notes
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Action as Spirit
Julius Evola
Revolt Against the Modern World

The author argues that traditional warrior rituals and funeral contests were magical acts intended to awaken a mystical force to sustain the hero in the afterlife, reflecting a civilization where action and spirit are unified.

...i, Achilles, and others are designated as Orphic initiates: στρατός (militia in Latin) is the term designating the host of initiates, and µνασἱστρατoς the term designating the Mystery's hierophant. Light, victory, and initiation were eventually represented next to each other in several Hellenic monuments. Helios, as the rising sun (alias Aurora) is a Nike and is endowed with a triumphal chariot; other Nikai were Teletes, Mystis, and other deities or personifications of the transcendent rebirth.
When we go from the symbolic and esoteric to the magical aspect, it should be noted that the competitions and the warrior dances celebrated on the occasion of a hero's death (the Roman equivalent were the ludi celebrated at the funerals of major figures) had the purpose of awakening a mystical, saving force that was supposed to accompany and strengthen him during the crisis that occurred at the moment of death. People also paid homage to the heroes by periodically repeating the contests that followed their funerals. All this is typical of a traditional civilization qualified by the "pole" of action rather than by the "pole" of contemplation: action as spirit and spirit as action.
As far as Greece is concerned, I have already mentioned that in Olympia, action in the form of "games" exercised a unifying function beyond the particularism of the city-states similar to that function manifested through action as "holy war," as in the case of the supernational phenomenon of the Crusades or, in the context of Islam, during the period of the First Caliphate. There are plenty of elements that enable us to perceive the innermost aspect of such traditions. I have pointed out that...
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