Ryan Holiday Quotes

The pretense of knowledge is our most dangerous vice, because it prevents us from getting any better.

"If an emotion can't change the condition or the situation you're dealing with, it is likely an unhelpful emotion. Or, quite possibly, a destructive one. But it's what I feel. Right, no one said anything about not feeling it. No one said you can't ever cry. Forget "manliness." If you need to take a moment, by all means, go ahead. Real strength lies in the control or, as Nassim Taleb put it, the domestication of one's emotions, not in pretending they don't exist."

the path to greatness almost always looks like: small, ordinary actions, repeated for a very long time.

Routine, done for long enough and done sincerely enough, becomes more than routine. It becomes ritual — it becomes sanctified and holy.

Not a lot of people understand this... but you actually don’t have to have an opinion about everything. You don’t have to decide if something is good or bad. Marcus Aurelius says limiting the amount of opinions we have is one of the most powerful things we can do in life.

Control your perceptions. Direct your actions properly. Willingly accept what’s outside your control.

Some ways to find stillness right now:

- Go for a solo nature walk
- Write in a journal
- Lock into a creative activity
- Vigorous exercise: run laps, swim
- Help someone else

People think you have to travel for peace, but Marcus Aurelius says we can turn inward at any moment.

To procrastinate is to be entitled. It is arrogant. It assumes there will be a later. It assumes you’ll have the discipline to get to it later (despite not having the discipline now).

What we desire makes us vulnerable.

You don’t control the situation, but you control what you think about it.

We can stop and bathe in the beauty that surrounds us, always.

Let it calm you. Let it cleanse you.

In its own way, the most harmful dragon we chase is the one that makes us think we can change things that are simply not ours to change. That someone decided not to fund your company, this isn’t up to you. But the decision to refine and improve your pitch? That is. That someone stole your idea or got to it first? No. To pivot, improve it, or fight for what’s yours? Yes.

The less energy we waste regretting the past or worrying about the future, the more energy we will have for what’s in front of us.