The warrior energy of men now has to be used paradoxically to destroy the warrior psyche and the politics of warfare. It will require more courage and aggression than we’ve ever seen on the battlefield.

About Sam Keen

Samuel McMurray Keen (November 23, 1931 – March 19, 2025) was an American author, academic and philosopher who is best known for his exploration of questions regarding love, life, wonder, religion, and being a male in contemporary society.

More quotations from Sam Keen

Adolescence is a modern invention, a time before the onset of responsibility. During this moratorium the not-yet-adult is allowed to rebel, to play, and to experiment. In primitive cultures the son was cast in the same mold as the father. The sacred ways of the ancestors were repeated without alteration.

—Sam Keen

There is no easy formula for determining right and wrong livelihood, but it is essential to keep the question alive. . . . We have to stop pretending that we can make a living at something that is trivial or destructive and still have a sense of legitimate self-worth. A society in which vocation and job are separated for most people gradually creates an economy that is often devoid of spirit, one that frequently fills our pocketbooks at the cost of emptying our souls.

—Sam Keen

Enter each day with the expectation that the happenings of the day may contain a clandestine message addressed to you personally. Expect omens, epiphanies, casual blessings, and teachers who unknowingly speak to your condition.

—Sam Keen

In our society, we've become myopic and obsessive about one particular kind of love: dyadic love, which takes the form of romance, sex, marriage. As a result we end up asking all the wrong questions. Books about relationships talk about how to "get" the love you need, how to "keep" love, and so on. But the right question to ask is "How do I become a more loving human being?

—Sam Keen

love relationships society romance marriage sex

Freedom lies beyond conformity or rebellion.

—Sam Keen

freedom rebellion conformity

More quotations tagged with “energy”

Maybe if you thought about them, people never really disappeared. It sounded so corny, but there was a scientific explanation for it, too. If you believed that thoughts were energy and energy is matter and matter never disappears, then a person can never truly leave you unless you stop thinking about them. Everything you shared with a person is still there swirling around in the universe.

—Wendy Wunder in The Probability of Miracles

people thoughts loss energy

Anger is like that. Runs on its own fumes, devours itself voraciously, explosively, until one day there is no fire left. Only pure, cold, unbreakable hardness.

—Leah Raeder in Black Iris

exhaustion anger energy hardness

If I can't change something, I don't waste energy on it.

—Jennifer Castle in The Beginning of After

change energy waste

It takes too much energy to be against something unless it's really important.

—Madeleine L'Engle

energy

If you have positive energy you will always attract positive outcomes.

—Steve Backley in The Champion in all of Us

energy