Gates of Fire

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It's either The War of Art or Gates of Fire.

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If you, great book I love called Gates of Fire. It's historical fiction about the Spartans, talks about their level of preparation and training.

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This is the early manuscript draft of Gates of Fire, Pressfield's amazing book about the Spartans, which has all sorts of Stoke themes in it.

He sent this to me. This is the signed last page of the manuscript, which if you read the book is this heartbreaking, super beautiful ending.

And this is that last page and he signed it. So I have that. But then I have this thing, which is one of my favorite quotes from Hemingway that we sort of messed around with. I think we even have a shirt for it in the painted porch.

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The final page of the first manuscript of Gates of Fire, Stephen Pressfield's amazing book about the Battle of Thermopylae and the 300 Spartans.

He was like, Hey, uh, I'm trying to promote my next book and I don't know what I should do. You got any ideas?

And he was, he had been telling me earlier how he had just found the manuscript of Gates of Fire, which he'd written on a typewriter.

I said, you know what would be cool? What if you came up with a thing where if people pre-ordered a certain number of copies, they could get one of those manuscript pages.

And he was like, I love the idea. I'm absolutely going to do it.

A couple of months later, he told me he was doing it and he said, I'd like to give, you can pick any page for giving me the idea.

And I was like, I want the last page of Gates of Fire because that's the one that has the famous poem at the end about how, Hey, stranger passing by, tell the Spartans here obedient to their laws we lie.

It's the epitaph to the sacrifice that these 300 Spartans made, not just to their fellow Spartans, their fellow Greeks, but all of Western civilization, which was saved from being conquered by Xerxes and what was then sort of Eastern despotism.

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Gates of Fire, the epic historical novel of this battle by Stephen Pressfield is today passed from soldier to soldier person to person as a kind of tribute to that example.

The central question of that book is what is the opposite of fear? It's not enough to simply conquer or quench fear. In writing the book, Pressfield wanted to know as the Spartans did what lay beyond it.

It's not just courage because you can be courageous for selfish reasons. You have to override fear to jump out of an airplane sure but if you're doing it for fun is it really that meaningful?

As Pressfield concludes the opposite of fear, the true virtue contrasted with that vice was not fearlessness. The opposite of fear is love, he says.

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if you haven't read The War of Art, Do The Work, Turning Pro, Gates of Fire, government cheese, Tides of War, A Man at Arms, what are you even doing with your life?

I have the last page from the type written manuscript of Gates of Fire signed by the author.

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Steven Pressfield whose books like Gates of Fire and the War of Art have sold millions of copies explains in his new book put your ass where your heart wants to be the rather penal and low key process of creation.

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I've got a copy from Stephen Pressfield's Gates of Fire that I've framed in my office. It means so much to me.

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And from the moment I first read one of his works actually the first book I read of his was Gates of Fire. I just I felt the connection to him in his writing that I have not felt to many thinkers or writers at any other point in my life.

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Go tell the Spartans, stranger passing by, that here obedient to their laws we lie.

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obviously has all these amazing books that are afghan campaign gates of fire or legend of backer vans

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gates of fire the epic historical novel of this battle by Stephen pressfield is today passed from soldier to soldier person to person as a kind of tribute to that example the central question of that book is what is the opposite of fear it's not enough to simply conquer or quench fear in writing the book press field wanted to know as the Spartans did what lay beyond it if fear was the vice what was the virtue it's not just courage because you can be courageous for selfish reasons you have to override fear to jump out of an airplane sure but if you're doing it for fun is it really that meaningful it wasn't just the men and their arms that made feats at thermopoly possible was also the wives who not only allowed their husbands to go but whose courage and iron self discipline was the backbone of the country the toughness and selflessness of Spartan women is legendary when one Spartan king was killed in a vicious coup his mother rushed to his body and when the killers offered to spare her if she kept quiet she stood up and defied them her last words as she offered her neck was may this only be in service of sparta we are mistaken to see the Spartans as mere warriors just courageous fighters as press field concludes the opposite of fear the true virtue contrasted with that vice was not fearlessness the opposite of fear is love he says love for one another love for ideas love for your country love for the vulnerable in the weak love for the next generation love for all is that not what hits us in the solar plexus when we hear leonitis is final cheerful words to his wife as he leaves marry a good man who will treat you well bear him children and live a good life and it is this profound meridip love that allows one to rise above the logic of self-preservation and achieve true greatness whether that's shielding someone from a bullet risking your job to speak out in defense of the common good or fighting against all hope for cause you know is right Florence Nightingale cared tenderly for the suffering of the sick in her country De Gaulle fought exasperatingly hard to preserve France the Spartans at the hot gates were something beyond this truly selfless giving the most a person can possibly give sure not all selflessness requires the ultimate sacrifice but there is no selflessness without sacrifice the sacrifice they made was incredible all the more so because it had not been for themselves or their own people that they had made it leonitis could have survived if he chose he and the Spartans could have ruled all of Greece nevertheless he went and died so that all those other Greeks could be free so that we could be free if courage is rare than this kind of heroism is a critically endangered species if courage is by itself unreasonable then love in this higher form the truly selfless kind is insane it's baffling in its majesty it is real human greatness it is us transcending logic self-interest in millions of years of our own biology to find quarter however briefly in a higher realm the Spartans are the heroes we recognize as the embodiment of that idea but we should remember that they are stand-ins they represent the anonymous courage of countless resistors for all time for people who testified in trials and faced reprisals people who registered to vote and were beaten for it union organizers who went up against robber barons pioneers who sent out rescue parties athletes who played through career-ending injuries to keep their team in the game or their families fed these were moments of true greatness a soul what we're willing to give that full measure of our devotion to the effort to the stranger to what must be done that's what takes us higher that's what transforms us from brave to heroic maybe for a moment maybe just to one person maybe to be enshrined in the history books for all time

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It's fitting that a scene in Stephen Pressfield's novel Gates of Fire would use a young storyteller making the same point in Seneca.

Pressfield has the young squire turned warrior explain when Priem of Troy kneels before Achilles to kiss in supplication the hand of the man who has slain his sons including the mightiest endures to him Hector, Hero and Protector of Iliam.

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a book that i often recommend to people who want to understand uh what it's like for people in combat is gates of fire yes even press field and you may recall it's about the the 300 spartans who stand and delay the massive persian army as it seeks to invade and conquer Greece and there's much to admire about that book and much to learn from it but there's a conversation in it about by the greeks about why they stand in battle and to boil it down quickly the comment is simply that in in combat the opposite of fear is not courage the opposite love is love it is love filo in greek for the men and women who stand on either side of you and that is as true today as it is for the ancient greeks or any other civilization two three four thousand years ago

i reread uh gates of fire at the beginning of the pandemic and i'm very glad i did i think one of the things that's been so hard for me to wrap my head around the last 12 months you know totally agree with your points about the sort of millennial generation it steven wrote a great piece about you know the spartan the spartan line that that the spartan soldier carries their shield not for their own protection but to create the impenetrable line for the person next to you it you couldn't invent a better metaphor for that than masks during the middle of a pandemic or social distancing in the middle of a pandemic he was saying and just how hard that's been for people to do and and and how little it actually asks of us i think i think uh i think that's been the hardest thing for me to watch and to struggle with it's like it's been hard to watch people who you care about not care about other people

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I reread Stephen's book, Gates of Fire at the beginning of the pandemic. I loved it as much the second time as I did the first time when I read it almost 15 years ago.

I think his best book since Gates of Fire

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If you read Steven Pressfield's gorgeous novel Gates of Fire about the Spartans at the Battle of Thermopylae...