The anarch wages his own wars, even when marching in rank and file
Interpretation
An individual may struggle and fight their own battles internally, even when appearing to conform to societal norms.
This quote by Ernst Junger expresses the idea that an individual, despite being part of a collective or larger group, may still engage in personal conflicts and struggles that are unique to them. It highlights the tension between individuality and conformity, suggesting that one's internal battles may persist regardless of external appearances or societal expectations.
In practice
In a discussion about personal growth during a leadership seminar, this quote could illustrate the inner battles leaders face.
I came to realize that one single human being, comprehended in his depth, who gives generously from the treasures of his heart, bestows on us more riches than Caesar or Alexander could ever conquer. Here is our kingdom, the best of monarchies, the best republic. Here is our garden, our happiness.
The more the panic grows, the more uplifting the image of a man who refuses to bow to the terror.
I am an anarch β not because I despise authority, but because I need it. Likewise, I am not a nonbeliever, but a man who demands something worth believing in.
We had set out in a rain of flowers to seek the death of heroes. The war was our dream of greatness, power and glory. It was a man's work, a duel on the fields whose flowers would be stained with blood. There is no lovelier death in the world... Anything rather than stay at home, anything to make one with the rest.
The anarch is oriented to facts, not ideas. He fights alone, as a free man, and would never dream of sacrificing himself to having one inadequacy supplant another and a new regime triumph over the old one. In this sense, he is closer to the philistine; the baker whose chief concern is to bake good bread; the peasant, who works his plow while armies march across his fields.
For the things that are seen are temporal, but things that are unseen are eternal.
Civility does not ...mean the mere outward gentleness of speech cultivated for the occasion, but an inborn gentleness and desire to do the opponent good.
All of us have to deal with death at one time or another, but to have in one's heart a solid conviction concerning the reality of eternal life is to bring a sense of peace in an hour of tragedy that can come from no other source under the heavens
There's certainly nothing original about the observation that conscious experience poses a hard problem.
The great events of life often leave one unmoved; they pass out of consciousness, and, when thinks of them, become unreal. Even the scarlet flowers of passion seem to grow in the same meadow as the poppies of oblivion. We reject the burden of their memory, and have anodynes against them. But the little things, the things of no moment, remain with us. In some tiny ivory cell the brain stores the most delicate, and the most fleeting impressions.
The doctrine that might makes right has covered the earth with misery. While it crushes the weak, it also destroys the strong. Every deceit, every cruelty, every wrong, reaches back sooner or later and crushes its author. Justice is moral health, bringing happiness, wrong is moral disease, bringing mortal death.
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