A Wisdom Archive on Courage

Fortitude, or Strength, sometimes also called Courage, is one of the Four Cardinal Virtues of the Catholic Church. Its accompanying animal is the lion. Often, Fortitude is depicted as having tamed the ferocious lion. Cf. e.g. the Tarot trump called Strength. It is sometimes seen as a depiction of the Catholic Church's alleged triumph over sin. Other related archivesCatholic Church, Courage, Four Cardinal Virtues, Strength, Tarot, lion

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Japanese samurai in armour, 1860s. Photograph by Felice Beato. Bushido (Japanese: 武士道; bushidō, "way of the warrior"), is a way of life, somewhat analogous to the European concept of chivalry. It includes elements of a philosophy, except that is it generally not textual in nature, and it involves, but is not equivalent to, a code of conduct. Bushido developed between the 11th to 14th centuries and was formalized during the opening years of the Tokugawa shogunate for the members of the Samurai class. According to t ... Including:

• Bushido - History
• Bushido - Bushido ethics
• Bushido - Seven virtues associated with bushido
• Bushido - Major figures associated with bushido

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Published in 54 volumes, The Great Books of the Western World covers topics including fiction, history, poetry, natural science, mathematics, philosophy, drama, politics, religion, economics, and ethics. The first volume, titled The Great Conversation, contains an introduction and discourse on liberal education by Hutchins. The next two volumes, "The Great Ideas: A Syntopicon", were conceived by Adler as a way of emphasizing the unity of the set and, by extension, of Western thought in general. A team of indexers spent months c ...

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Samurai - Origin of Samurai. Before the Heian period, the army in Japan was modeled after the Chinese army and under the direct command of the emperor. Except for slaves, every able-bodied man had the duty of enlisting for the army. These men had to supply themselves, and many gave up returning and settled down on their way home. This was treated as a part of taxation and it could be substituted with other forms of tax such as bolts of cloth. These men were called Sakimori (防人, lit. "defenders"), b ...

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Dragon Quest VIII - Hero. The Hero (the player gets to choose his name at the beginning) was originally a house servant, but he managed to become a royal guard with some attention from Princess Medea. When Dhoulmagus attacked the castle and placed a curse on it, he was the only one (besides King Trode and Princess Medea) to escape the vine-covered castle, and the only one not cursed at all. He is very kind-hearted and is willing to go out the way for people he just met. King Trode once called the Hero "Always Lucky." Curse attacks and cursed equipment also have no effect on the Hero, indicating tha ...

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In the year 1256 CE, the Shogunal Deputy in Kyoto, Hojo Shigetoki (1198-1261 CE) wrote a letter to his son and house elders of his clan. The letter, now known as "The Message Of Master Gokurakuji," emphasized the importance of loyalty to one's master: When one is serving officially or in the master's court, he should not think of a hundred or a thousand people, but should consider only the importance of the master. Nor should he draw the line at his own life or anything else he considers valuable. Even if the master is being phlegmatic and one goes unrecognized, he should know that he will surely have the divine protect ...

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Philosophies of Buddhism and Zen, to the lesser extent Confucianism influenced the samurai culture as well as Shinto. Zen meditation became an important teaching by offering a process to calm one's mind. Buddhism concept of reincarnation and rebirth led samurai to abandon torture and needless killing. Some samurai even gave up violence altogether and became Buddhist monks after realizing how fruitless their killings were. Some were killed as they came to terms wit ...

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As de facto aristocrats for centuries, samurai developed their own cultures that influenced Japanese culture as a whole. Samurai - Education. A samurai was expected to read and write, as well as to know some mathematics. Toyotomi Hideyoshi, a great samurai yet a peasant at the start, could only read and write in hiragana and this was his biggest drawback. Samurai were expected, though not required, to have interests in other arts such as dancing, Go, literature, poetry, and tea. Ota Dokan who first ruled Edo wrote how he was shamed to realize that even a commoner had more knowledge of poetry than ...

Read more here: » Samurai: Encyclopedia II - Samurai - Culture