“No one has less serenity than the person who does not know what is right or wrong. No one is more exhausted than the person who, because they lack a moral code, must belabor every decision and consider every temptation. No one feels worse about themselves than the cheater or the liar, even if—often especially if—they are showered with rewards for their cheating and lying. Life is meaningless to the person who decides their choices have no meaning.”
Ryan Holiday, Stillness is the Key (Page 99)
“Mental stillness will be short-lived if our hearts are on fire, or our souls ache with emptiness. We are incapable of seeing what is essential in the world if we are blind to what’s going on within us. We cannot be in harmony with anyone or anything if the need for more, more , more is gnawing at our insides like a maggot.”
Ryan Holiday, Stillness is the Key (Page 94)
“Most of us would be seized with fear if our bodies went numb, and would do everything possible to avoid it, yet we take no interest at all in the numbing of our souls.”
Epictetus, via Stillness is the Key (Page 83)
“Most students, whether it’s in archery or yoga or chemistry, go into a subject with a strong intention. They are outcome-focused. They want to get the best grade or the highest score. They bring their previous ‘expertise’ with them. They want to skip the unnecessary steps and get right to the sexy stuff. As a result, they are difficult to teach and easily discouraged when the journey proves harder than expected. They are not present. They are not open to experience and cannot learn.” ~ Ryan Holiday, Stillness is the Key (Page 78)
“There are going to be setbacks in life. Even a master or a genius will experience a period of inadequacy when they attempt to learn new skills or explore new domains. Confidence is what determines whether this will be a source of anguish or an enjoyable challenge. If you’re miserable every time things are not going your way, if you cannot enjoy it when things are going your way because you undermine it with doubts and insecurity, life will be hell.” ~ Ryan Holiday, Stillness is the Key (Page 73)
“Confident people know what matters. They know when to ignore other people’s opinions. They don’t boast or lie to get ahead (and then struggle to deliver). Confidence is the freedom to set your own standards and unshackle yourself from the need to prove yourself. A confident person doesn’t fear disagreement and doesn’t see change—swapping an incorrect opinion for a correct one—as an admission of inferiority.” ~ Ryan Holiday, Stillness is the Key (Page 72)
“Find people you admire and ask how they got where they are. Seek book recommendations. Add experience and experimentation on top of this. Put yourself in tough situations. Accept challenges. Familiarize yourself with the unfamiliar. That’s how you widen your perspective and your understanding. The wise are still because they have seen it all. They know what to expect because they’ve been through so much. They’ve made mistakes and learned from them. And so must you.”
Ryan Holiday, Stillness is the Key (Page 66)
“[On reading] I cannot understand how some people can live without communicating with the wisest people who ever lived on earth.”
Leo Tolstoy, via Stillness is the Key (Page 65)
“We can’t be afraid of silence, as it has much to teach us. Seek it. The ticking of the hands of your watch is telling you how time is passing away, never to return. Listen to it.” ~ Ryan Holiday, Stillness is the Key (Page 62)
“Instead of carrying that baggage around in our heads or hearts, we put it down on paper. Instead of letting racing thoughts run unchecked or leaving half-baked assumptions unquestioned, we force ourselves to write and examine them. Putting your own thinking down on paper lets you see it from a distance. It gives you objectivity that is so often missing when anxiety and fears and frustrations flood your mind. What’s the best way to start journaling? Is there an ideal time of day? How long should it take? Who cares? How you journal is much less important than why you are doing it: To get something off your chest. To have quiet time with your thoughts. To clarify those thoughts. To separate the harmful from the insightful. There’s no right way or wrong way. The point is just to do it.”
Ryan Holiday, Stillness is the Key (Page 56)
Anne Frank Quote on Reflection and Doing Better Each Day
“How noble and good everyone could be if at the end of the day they were to review their own behavior and weigh up the rights and wrongs. They would automatically try to do better at the start of each new day, and after a while, would certainly accomplish a great deal.”
Anne Frank, via Stillness is the Key (Page 53)
Beyond the Quote (104/365)
How often do you just sit down at the end of a long day and reflect? Reflect on what went well and what didn’t go so well; what could have been improved and what could have been discarded; what made you smile and what made you sad; what you might have done differently and what you think was right on point. See, reflection isn’t just about thinking. What really happens when you take time to reflect on your day is you are taking responsibility for what happened and you are taking control of where you’re heading. Reflection, in this sense, is your Life GPS.
Read More »Anne Frank Quote on Reflection and Doing Better Each Day“The world is like muddy water. To see through it, we have to let things settle. We can’t be disturbed by initial appearances, and if we are patient and still, the truth will be revealed to us.” ~ Ryan Holiday, Stillness is the Key (Page 47)
“During the recording of her album Interiors, the musician Rosanne Cash posted a simple sign over the doorway of the studio. ‘Abandon Thought, All ye Who Enter Here.’ Not because she wanted a bunch of unthinking idiots working with her, but because she wanted everyone involved—included herself—to go deeper than whatever was on the surface of their minds. She wanted them to be present, connected to the music, and not lost in their heads.” ~ Ryan Holiday, Stillness is the Key (Page 43)
“Yes, thinking is essential. Expert knowledge is undoubtedly key to the success of any leader or athlete or artist. The problem is that, unthinkingly, we think too much. The ‘wild and whirling words’ of our subconscious get going and suddenly there’s no room for our training (or anything else). We’re overloaded, overwhelmed, and distracted… by our own mind!” ~ Ryan Holiday, Stillness is the Key (Page 42)
Oh, how different the world would look…
“How different would the world look if people spent as much time listening to their conscience as they did to chattering broadcasts? If they could respond to the calls of their convictions as quickly as we answer the dings and rings of technology in our pockets? All this noise. All this information. All these inputs. We are afraid of the silence. We are afraid of looking stupid. We are afraid of missing out. We are afraid of being the bad guy who says, ‘Nope, not interested.’ We’d rather make ourselves miserable than make ourselves a priority, than be our best selves. Than be still… and in charge of our own information diet.”
Ryan Holiday, Stillness is the Key (Page 36)
“The way you feel when you awake early in the morning and your mind is fresh and as yet unsoiled by the noise of the outside world—that’s space worth protecting. So too is the zone you lock into when you’re really working well. Don’t let intrusions bounce you out of it. Put up barriers. Put up the proper chuting to direct what’s urgent and unimportant to the right people.” ~ Ryan Holiday, Stillness is the Key (Page 35)
“Before we can make deep changes in our lives, we have to look into our diet, our way of consuming. We have to live in such a way that we stop consuming the things that poison us and intoxicate us. Then we will have the strength to allow the best in us to arise, and we will no longer be victims of anger, of frustration.” ~ Thich Nhat Hanh, via Stillness is the Key (Page 34)
Epictetus Quote on Prioritizing What’s Important
“If you wish to improve, be content to appear clueless or stupid in extraneous matters.”
Epictetus, via Stillness is the Key (Page 31)
Beyond the Quote (100/365)
In a world of 24/7 news coverage across hundreds of thousands of news coverage sources, it’s impossible to consume everything that is being broadcasted—it’s never ending. And because it’s always a race between news coverage organizations to be the first to broadcast, so much of what’s shown is speculative, shallow, incomplete, and, well, excessive. If you always want to know everything that’s going on in the world at all times, then turn on the news and scroll through your never ending social media timelines for every waking minute of your day. The crazy part is that you will be able to do it.
Read More »Epictetus Quote on Prioritizing What’s Important“Don’t reject a difficult or boring moment because it is not exactly what you want. Don’t waste a beautiful moment because you are insecure or shy. Make what you can of what you have been given. Live what can be lived. That’s what excellence is. That’s what presence makes possible.” ~ Ryan Holiday, Stillness is the Key (Page 28)
“We want to learn to see the world like an artist: While other people are oblivious to what surrounds them, the artist really sees. Their mind, fully engaged, notices the way a bird flies or the way a stranger holds their fork or a mother looks at her child. They have no thoughts of the morrow. All they are thinking about is how to capture and communicate their experience. An artist is present. And from this stillness comes brilliance.” ~ Ryan Holiday, Stillness is the Key (Page 28)