The Fateful Verses of War
Hard Times Call For Hard Words and Hard Measures
But Never Hard Hearts


Copyright © 2008 By Robin Artisson
All Rights Reserved.



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Life is a struggle, whether we would have it that way or not. Struggle can be deadly, or it can be an opportunity for self-knowledge and growth, for struggle has a curious side effect: it reveals to us what we truly think about ourselves and others, what we believe, and what we hope for.

This assemblage of thoughts and verses is intended to give you strength, inspiration, and guidance for life's many storms and clashes. If it comes that you should find yourself in a moment of respite (often mistakened for "peace") be happy and prepare for what is to come. If you find yourself in the mire of conflict, rely on these words of wisdom, and you will come away better off. Or perhaps you will die, in which case a greater truth will await you than what you see before you on this page.





I. The Short Verses


Pride without basis is the folly of self-deceit.


Strength to the strong; contempt to the greedy;
Victory to the worthy; shame to the weak-minded.


Without faith in the providential unfolding of things, we are hopeless and lost.


Loyalty from people of worth is the world's only certainty.


Nine out of ten words spoken are for the benefit of the speaker.


Birth is our great blessing, life our testament to wisdom, death our legacy for the ages.


Birth is a summons to the table of endurance; death a summons to the table of truth.


Woe to the self-centered and the world they create.


Don't hand weapons to people who can't dance.


Hope is the great seductress; endurance the great consoler.


Serenity asks that we give up all hope for a better past.


Books of Holy Writ may be lost or burned in fires, but the words written on the heart of each man and woman are inscribed by Eternity's hand.


To the living, one has a debt of respect; to the dead, one has a debt of truth.


A fool is someone who does not recognize other fools.





II. Verses of Life


Life carries with it a great burden of responsibility to ourselves and others.
We must preserve our lives in peace; we must enshrine wisdom as the highest of virtues;
We must help those who cannot help themselves.
Let the man or woman who disagrees be called unwise;
They are anathema to the highest causes of humankind.


A life germinates in the womb and unfolds into the light of the world;
It is the blossom of Fate and the word of creation.
From its birth to its natural death is laid bare a field wherein
The greater seed of beauty and truth can find new purchase.


The smallest and most wretched life is still more valuable than any amount of gold.


Submission to Fate is the recognition of our smallness amid the great powers of the world;
Recognition of our smallness is the doorway of our wisdom;
wisdom is the hallmark of our greatness.


A hopeless fight for the Truth is the greatest of blessings.


If a man's life is compared to a brief flash of light in the darkness, it has been greatly exaggerated.


The convalescence of the world begins when a single man or woman guards against their own corruption.


When others tell a man how to act, his existence is a torment;
When others tell a man how to think, his existence is meaningless.


Beware the Atheist, the Materialist, and the Monotheist; all are absolutist;
All have discarded the great wisdom of the past; all would see others forced into their worldview.


Birth is a beginning, but not a new beginning; death is an ending, but not a release.
The involvement of each being in the weave of life goes on forever.


If you must choose between peace or war, choose peace;
If you must choose between cowardice or war, choose war.





III. Virtue and Truth


A person who cannot put aside their own good for their family deserves neither good nor a family.


Fear is the lingering curse of half-wisdom.


Death and love are two keys that unlock the door of the moment, in all of its starkness and wholeness.


No person has peace if there is no one they would die for.


Compared to a man's devotion to truth and virtue, it matters little how they lived and less how they died.


The darkness of the world is created anew every moment by those whose minds dwell in the past.


And what is virtue? Virtue is choosing wholeness over the splintered,
The good over the pleasurable, rightness over comfort,
Honesty over denial, and the good of others over selfishness.


And what is truth? Truth is a name given to an idea that reliably reflects how the universe unfolds
And how humankind is intended to act if we are to thrive and have peace.


What are truthful ideas? That life is sacred and the spirit is eternal; that all actions are reciprocal and impact the whole world;
And that love for others is the greatest strength possible to a man or woman.


It is not enough to examine your life or that thing that we often miscall "ourselves"-
We must examine the world in which we seem to dwell, until the boundaries we set between ourselves and that world are no more.
Then we can claim true "self-knowledge".


You may die soon, in just a few hours- set your heart at peace right now, and vow to act with virtue today.


Skeptics are never skeptical of skepticism, for if they were,
They would see their own corrupt ideology all too plainly.





IV. Verses of Purpose


To give up on self-fictions is very difficult; the lower mind invents a dozen reasons to refrain,
Reasons that would seem like wisdom to the common person. But no wise person ever acted just for themselves,
And no great person ever entertained a self-belief that contradicted the wise.


The purpose of humankind is found in what is unique to humankind:
No other beast is capable of the depths of compassion that humans are, and thus, in compassion we see the real treasure of our destiny.
But we must not use compassion to justify cowardice or lack of vigilance against the wicked of this world.


Intolerance of intolerance is a virtue; it is the guardian of the world.


The vast sweep of the ages is in reality a few moments in which eternal things realize virtue.


A person who cannot appreciate beauty cannot recognize virtue;
A person who cannot appreciate the humor in irony cannot hope to recognize the Truth.


Pay careful attention to what most people neglect.