“Nor love they least
Who strike with right good will
To vanquish ill
And fight God’s battle upward from the beast.”

— Richard Hovey

"The Call of the Bugles", p. 15.
Along the Trail (1898)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Nor love they least Who strike with right good will To vanquish ill And fight God’s battle upward from the beast." by Richard Hovey?

Richard Hovey 16

American writer 1864–1900

Related quotes

“Though they be
Ill rulers of this household, be not thou
Too swift to strike ere time be ripe to strike,
Nor then by darkling stroke, against them: I
Have erred, who thought by wrong to vanquish wrong,
To smite by violence violence, and by night
Put out the power of darkness: time shall bring
A better way than mine, if God's will be —
As how should God's will be not?”

Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837–1909) English poet, playwright, novelist, and critic

to redeem
Venice. I was not worthy — nor may man,
Till one as Christ shall come again, be found
Worthy to think, speak, strike, foresee, foretell,
The thought, the word, the stroke, the dawn, the day,
That verily and indeed shall bid the dead
Live, and this old dear land of all men's love
Arise and shine for ever: but if Christ
Came, haply such an one may come, and do
With hands and heart as pure as his a work
That priests themselves may mar not.
Faliero, Act V. Sc. 3.
Marino Faliero (1885)

“The world is full of warfare 'twixt the evil and the good;
I watched the battle from afar as one who understood
The shouting and confusion, the bloody, blundering fight—
How few there are that see it clear, how few that wage it right!”

Henry Van Dyke (1852–1933) American diplomat

Another Chance.

“No man who fights with gods will live long or hear his children prattling about his knees when he returns from battle.”

Homér Iliad

V. 407–409 (tr. Samuel Butler).
Iliad (c. 750 BC)

“Whatever rushes upward and helps God to ascend is good. Whatever drags downward and impedes God from ascending is evil.”

Nikos Kazantzakis book The Saviors of God

The Saviors of God (1923)
Context: What is the essence of our God? The struggle for freedom. In the indestructible darkness a flaming line ascends and emblazons the march of the Invisible. What is our duty? To ascend with this blood-drenched line.
Whatever rushes upward and helps God to ascend is good. Whatever drags downward and impedes God from ascending is evil.
All virtues and all evils take on a new value. They are freed from the moment and from earth, they exist completely within man, before and after man, eternally.
For the essence of our ethic is not the salvation of man, who varies within time and space, but the salvation of God, who within a wide variety of flowing human forms and adventures is always the same, the indestructible rhythm which battles for freedom.
We, as human beings, are all miserable persons, heartless, small, insignificant. But within us a superior essence drives us ruthlessly upward.
From within this human mire divine songs have welled up, great ideas, violent loves, an unsleeping assault full of mystery, without beginning or end, without purpose, beyond every purpose.

“For all the ill that is in us comes from fear, and all the good from love.”

Eleanor Farjeon book Martin Pippin in the Apple Orchard

Martin Pippin in the Apple Orchard (1922)
Context: Women are so strangely constructed that they have in them darkness as well as light, though it be but a little curtain hung across the sun. And love is the hand that takes the curtain down, a stronger hand than fear, which hung it up. For all the ill that is in us comes from fear, and all the good from love.

“An army unsupplied with grain and other necessary provisions will be vanquished without striking a blow.”
Qui frumentum necessariaque non praeparat, uincitur sine ferro.

Publius Flavius Vegetius Renatus book De re militari

General Maxims
De Re Militari (also Epitoma Rei Militaris), Book III, "Dispositions for Action"

“He who has a good woman's love is ashamed of every ill deed.”

Walther von der Vogelweide (1170–1230) Middle High German lyric poet

Swer guotes wîbes minne hât,
der schamt sich aller missetât.
"Waz sol ein man, der niht engert", line 11; translation from Henry John Chaytor The Troubadours (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1912) p. 128.