Justice is the motive of heartless people, who protect their gold with the sword.

You may be gold, and we poor ordinary men may be of bronze, but ask any solier out there which metal they'd rather have for a sword blae or a spearpoint

...votes are to swords exactly what bank notes are to gold—the one is effective only because the other is believed to be behind it.

Virtue always meets reward,
But quicker when it wears a sword;

"Material force is the ultima ratio of political society everywhere. Arms alone can keep the peace." This was and still remains the axiom with men everywhere. The sword is not only the source of security; it is also the symbol of honor and glory; it is bliss and song.

When the prophets appeared, they proclaimed that might is not supreme, that the sword is an abomination, that violence is obscene. The sword, they said, shall be destroyed.

They shall beat their swords into plowshares,
And their spears into pruning hooks;
Nation shall not lift up sword against nation,
Neither shall they learn war any more.
Isaiah 2:4

The prophets, questioning man's infatuation with might, insisted not only on the immorality but also on the futility and absurdity of war.[...] What is the ultimate profit of all the arms, alliances, and victories? Destruction, agony, death.

Peoples labor only for fire,
Nations weary themselves for naught.
Habakkuk 2:13

Gold has its uses, but war is won with iron.

the sword also means clean-ness + death

Honours, like impressions upon coin, may give an ideal and local value to a bit of base metal; but Gold and Silver will pass all the world over without any other recommendation than their own weight.

The weapons with which we have gained our most important victories, which should be handed down as heirlooms from father to son, are not the sword and the lance, but the bush-whack, the turf-cutter, the spade, and the bog-hoe, rusted with the blood of many a meadow, and begrimed with the dust of many a hard-fought field.

he was undoing the wooden box, and he took out the silver sword. "This is the best of my treasures," he said. "It will bring me luck. And it will bring you luck, because you gave it to me. I don't tell anybody my name - it is not safe. But because you gave me the sword and I didn't borrow it, I will tell you." He whispered. "It is Jan."

In a gold rush, don't dig for gold; sell shovels!

Our swords shall play the orators for us.

The sword is our steel Bible!

[During this winter the citizens of Jo Davies County, Ill., subscribed for and had a diamond-hilled sword made for General Grant, which was always known as the Chattanooga sword. The scabbard was of gold, and was ornamented with a scroll running nearly its entire length, displaying in engraved letters the names of the battles in which General Grant had participated. Congress also gave him a vote of thanks for the victories at Chattanooga, and voted him a gold medal for Vicksburg and Chattanooga. All such things are now in the possession of the government at Washington.]