The Warrior Poet Way: A Guide to Living Free and Dying Well

by John Lovell

haunted by the better man I am capable of becoming—and still am not.

I simply recognize that no man is what he could be.

Men were meant for more. And yet, everywhere we look, we are being asked to be less.

From a young age, I had within me both a romantic poet and a savage warrior.

What is a Warrior Poet? Put simply, it is an antidote to a society that has forgotten what true masculinity is.

We praise weakness and a lack of discipline while villainizing aggression and strength.

A man who doesn’t find a challenge worthy of his strength will find another outlet.

It’s time to become the kind of heroes the world needs but doesn’t always want,

That is our calling and burden: to live free and die well.

you will need to fight at some point, if only for what is true and good.

G. K. Chesterton wrote, “A true warrior fights not because he hates what is in front of him, but because he loves what is behind him.”

To be a Warrior Poet is to be a shape-shifter: a lion in one moment, a lamb the next. Such flexibility allows us to function well in everyday life and excel at defending what we love. We may visit extremes, but we live in the balance.

The author G. Michael Hopf wrote, “Hard times create strong men. Strong men create good times. Good times create weak men. And, weak men create hard times.”

“A harmless man is not a good man. A good man is a very, very dangerous man who has that under voluntary control.”

When the latest woke celebrity tells you to do something, just do the opposite.

The great British philosopher and Christian apologist G. K. Chesterton was once asked, “What’s wrong with the world?” and his response was, “I am.” He understood that at the core of everything is a pull toward the self. I believe the root of all evil is pride. C. S. Lewis calls pride the very center of Christian immorality.

The physical part of training was never as hard as the mental. It is the mind that quits first, under the suggestion of the body. But the body can endure horrible things if only the mind will lead it.

The society that separates its scholars from its warriors will have its thinking done by cowards and its fighting done by fools. —THUCYDIDES

Good philosophy may sometimes start in the clouds but it should end in the dirt—in the everyday, practical way we go through life.

There is a difference between saying our parents got some things wrong and saying they got everything wrong.

We need mothers to keep our boys alive, and we need fathers to make them hard to kill.

I prefer dangerous freedom over peaceful slavery. —THOMAS