“Somebody who thinks they’re nothing and don’t matter because they’re not doing something for even a few days is depriving themselves of stillness, yes—but they are also closing themselves off from a higher plane of performance that comes out of it.”
Ryan Holiday, Stillness is the Key (Page 189)
Quotes from Stillness Is The Key
“We will not simply think our way to peace. We can’t pray our soul into better condition. We’ve got to move and live our way there. It will take our body—our habits, our actions, our rituals, our self-care—to get our mind and our spirit in the right place, just as it takes our mind and spirit to get our body to the right place. It’s a trinity. A holy one. Each part dependent on the others.”
Ryan Holiday, Stillness is the Key (Page 184)
“Every prophet must be forced into the wilderness—where they undergo solitude, deprivation, reflection, and meditation. It’s from this physical ordeal that ‘psychic dynamite’ is made.”
Winston Churchill, via Stillness is the Key (Page 179)
“The secret to a happy marriage [is] that spouses should not see each other before noon.”
Winston Churchill, via Stillness is the Key (Page 173)
“Very few go astray who comport themselves with restraint.”
Confucius, via Stillness is the Key (Page 163)
“When you step back from the enormity of your own immediate experience—whatever it is—you are able to see the experience of others and either connect with them or lessen the intensity of your own pain. We are all strands in a long rope that stretches back countless generations and ties together every person in every country on every continent. We are all thinking and feeling the same things, we are all made of and motivated by the same things. We are all stardust.”
Ryan Holiday, Stillness is the Key (Page 160)
“Epicurus once said that the wise will accomplish three things in their life: leave written works behind them, be financially prudent and provide for the future, and cherish country living. That is to say, we will be reflective, we will be responsible and moderate, and we will find time to relax in nature.”
Ryan Holiday, Stillness is the Key (Page 183)
“There was no better decision I could have made than the discipline I put on myself of having responsibility, having another human being—my wife—that I have to answer to.”
J. Cole, via Stillness is the Key (Page 145)
“People who are driven by anger are not happy. They are not still. They get in their own way. They shorten legacies and short-circuit their goals. The Buddhists believed that anger was a kind of tiger within us, one whose claws tear at the body that houses it. To have a chance at stillness—and clear thinking and big-picture view that defines it—we need to tame that tiger before it kills us. We have to beware of desire, but conquer anger, because anger hurts not just ourselves but many other people as well.”
Ryan Holiday, Stillness is the Key (Page 155)
“Anger is counterproductive. The flash of rage here, an outburst at the incompetence around us there—this may generate a moment of raw motivation or even a feeling of relief, but we rarely tally up the frustration they cause down the road. Even if we apologize or the good we do outweighs the harm, damage remains—and consequences follow. The person we yelled at is now an enemy. The drawer we broke in a fit is now a constant annoyance. The high blood pressure, the overworked heart, inching us closer to the attack that will put us in the hospital or the grave.”
Ryan Holiday, Stillness is the Key (Page 154)
“To go through our days looking out for no one but ourselves? To think that we can or must do this all alone? To accrue mastery or genius, wealth or power, solely for our own benefit? What is the point? By ourselves, we are a fraction of what we can be. By ourselves, something is missing, and, worse, we feel that in our bones. Which is why stillness requires other people; indeed, it is for other people.”
Ryan Holiday, Stillness is the Key (Page 148)
“Yes, every individual should make the life choices that are right for them. Still, there is something deeply misguided—and terribly sad—about a solitary existence. It is true that relationships take time. They also expose and distract us, cause pain, and cost money. We are also nothing without them.”
Ryan Holiday, Stillness is the Key (Page 143)
“Epicurus was right—if God exists, why would they possibly want you to be afraid of them? And why would they care what clothes you wear or how many times you pay obeisance to them per day? What interest would they have in monuments or in fearful pleas for forgiveness? At the purest level, the only thing that matters to any father or mother—or any creator—is that their children find peace, find meaning, find purpose. They certainly did not put us on this planet so we could judge, control, or kill each other.”
Ryan Holiday, Stillness is the Key (Page 140)
“There is no stillness to the mind that thinks of nothing but itself, nor will there ever be peace for the body and spirit that follow their every urge and value nothing but themselves.”
Ryan Holiday, Stillness is the Key (Page 137)
“We were not put on this planet to be worker bees, compelled to perform some function over and over again for the cause of the hive until we die. Nor do we ‘owe it’ to anyone to keep doing, doing, doing—not our fans, not our followers, not our parents who have provided so much for us, not even our families. Killing ourselves does nothing for anybody. It’s perfectly possible to do and make good work from a good place. You can be healthy and still and successful.”
Ryan Holiday, Stillness is the Key (Page 125)
“More does nothing for the one who feels less than, who cannot see the wealth that was given to them at birth, that they have accumulated in their relationships and experiences. Solving your problem of poverty is an achievable goal and can be fixed by earning and saving money. No one could seriously claim otherwise. The issue is when we think these activities can address spiritual poverty.“
Ryan Holiday, Stillness is the Key (Page 124)
“I think I understand now that the restlessness we feel as we make our plans and chase our ambitions is not the effect of their importance to our happiness and our eagerness to attain them. We are restless because deep in our hearts we know now that our happiness is found elsewhere, and our work, no matter how valuable it is to us or to others, cannot take its place. But we hurry on anyway, and attend to our business because we need to matter, and we don’t always realize we already do.”
Marco Rubio, via Stillness is the Key (Page 123)
“To have an impulse and to resist it, to sit with it and examine it, to let it pass by like a bad smell—this is how we develop spiritual strength. This is how we become who we want to be in this world. Only those of us who take the time to explore, to question, to extrapolate the consequences of our desires have an opportunity to overcome them and to stop regrets before they start.”
Ryan Holiday, Stillness is the Key (Page 118)
“None of us are perfect. We have biologies and pathologies that will inevitably trip us up. What we need then is a philosophy and a strong moral code—that sense of virtue—to help us resist what we can, and to give us the strength to pick ourselves back up when we fail and try to do and be better.”
Ryan Holiday, Stillness is the Key (Page 117)
“Lust is a destroyer of peace in our lives: Lust for a beautiful person. Lust for an orgasm. Lust for someone other than the one we’ve committed to be with. Lust for power. Lust for dominance. Lust for other people’s stuff. Lust for the fanciest, best, most expensive things that money can buy. And is this not at odds with the self-mastery we say we want? A person enslaved to their urges is not free—whether they are a plumber or the president.”
Ryan Holiday, Stillness is the Key (Page 114)
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