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Twitter isn't designed to help you get in and get out with the best information as quickly as possible--it's supposed to suck you into either a contentious world of argument and debate or an echo chamber that reassures you everyone thinks like you do.
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Ryan Holiday |
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As Plutarch finely expressed, "The future bears down upon each one of us with all the hazards of the unknown."
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Ryan Holiday |
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Vivre sans temps mort. (Live without wasted time.) --PARISIAN POLITICAL SLOGAN
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Ryan Holiday |
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Act with fortitude and honor," he wrote to a distraught friend in serious financial and legal trouble of the man's own making. "If you cannot reasonably hope for a favorable extrication, do not plunge deeper. Have the courage to make a full stop."
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Ryan Holiday |
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How does what you do every day reflect, in some way, the values you claim to care about?
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Ryan Holiday |
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The foundation of a free country is that your freedom to swing your fist ends where someone else's nose begins.
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Ryan Holiday |
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As Ben Franklin's proverb put it: "An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure."
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Ryan Holiday |
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The only real failure is abandoning your principles. Killing what you love because you can't bear to part from it is selfish and stupid.
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Ryan Holiday |
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First practice not letting people know who you are--keep your philosophy to yourself for a bit. In just the manner that fruit is produced--the seed buried for a season, hidden, growing gradually so it may come to full maturity. But if the grain sprouts before the stalk is fully developed, it will never ripen.... That is the kind of plant you are, displaying fruit too soon, and the winter will kill you." --EPICTETUS, DISCOURSES, 4.8.35b-37"
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Ryan Holiday |
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To be objective To control emotions and keep an even keel To choose to see the good in a situation To steady our nerves To ignore what disturbs or limits others To place things in perspective To revert to the present moment To focus on what can be controlled
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Ryan Holiday |
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Was he angry about what happened? Of course. He was furious. But understanding that anger was not constructive, he refused to rage. He refused to break or grovel or despair.
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Ryan Holiday |
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Every man I meet is my master in some point, and in that I learn of him. --RALPH WALDO EMERSON
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Ryan Holiday |
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Grant, who had expressed almost no prior interest in politics, and, in fact, had succeeded as a general precisely because he didn't know how to play politics, chose instead to pursue the highest office in the land: the presidency. Elected by a landslide, he then presided over one of the most corrupt, contentious, and least effective administrations in American history. A genuinely good and loyal individual, he was not cut out for the dirty ..
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Ryan Holiday |
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All of us regularly say yes unthinkingly, or out of vague attraction, or out of greed or vanity. Because we can't say no--because we might miss out on something if we did. We think "yes" will let us accomplish more, when in reality it prevents exactly what we seek. All of us waste precious life doing things we don't like, to prove ourselves to people we don't respect, and to get things we don't want."
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Ryan Holiday |
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I'm looking," Rickey told him, "for a ball player with the guts not to fight back."
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Ryan Holiday |
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Is there anything sadder than the immense lengths we'll go to impress someone? The things we'll do to earn someone's approval can seem, when examined in retrospect, like the result of some temporary form of insanity.
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Ryan Holiday |
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A critic of Napoleon nailed it when remarking: "He despises the nation whose applause he seeks."
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Ryan Holiday |
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It is impossible to learn that which one thinks one already knows," Epictetus says. You can't learn if you think you already know."
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Ryan Holiday |
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Here's a lesson to test your mind's mettle: take part of a week in which you have only the most meager and cheap food, dress scantly in shabby clothes, and ask yourself if this is really the worst that you feared. It is when times are good that you should gird yourself for tougher times ahead, for when Fortune is kind the soul can build defenses against her ravages. So it is that soldiers practice maneuvers in peacetime, erecting bunkers wi..
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Ryan Holiday |
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Passion typically masks a weakness. Its breathlessness and impetuousness and franticness are poor substitutes for discipline, for mastery, for strength and purpose and perseverance. You need to be able to spot this in others and in yourself, because while the origins of passion may be earnest and good, its effects are comical and then monstrous.
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Ryan Holiday |
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Wherever there is a human being, we have an opportunity for kindness." --SENECA, ON THE HAPPY LIFE, 24.2-3"
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Ryan Holiday |
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The Obstacles That Lie Before Us There is an old Zen story about a king whose people had grown soft and entitled. Dissatisfied with this state of affairs, he hoped to teach them a lesson. His plan was simple: He would place a large boulder in the middle of the main road, completely blocking entry into the city. He would then hide nearby and observe their reactions. How would they respond? Would they band together to remove it? Or would they..
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Ryan Holiday |
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Even if we are not angels in our lives, we ask: How dare you hold yourself up in front of us as a human being? If you don't feel shame, then we will make you feel shame--or perhaps, you will feel shame so we don't have to.
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Ryan Holiday |
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It's supposed to be hard. Your first attempts aren't going to work. It's going to take a lot out of you--but energy is an asset we can always find more of.
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Ryan Holiday |
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All you need are these: certainty of judgment in the present moment; action for the common good in the present moment; and an attitude of gratitude in the present moment for anything that comes your way." --MARCUS AURELIUS, MEDITATIONS,"
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Ryan Holiday |
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be fearful when others are greedy and greedy when others are fearful.
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Ryan Holiday |
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Objective judgment, now at this very moment. Unselfish action, now at this very moment. Willing acceptance--now at this very moment--of all external events. That's all you need. --MARCUS AURELIUS Overcoming obstacles is a discipline of three critical steps. It begins with how we look at our specific problems, our attitude or approach; then the energy and creativity with which we actively break them down and turn them into opportunities; fin..
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Ryan Holiday |
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Because obstacles are not only to be expected but embraced. Embraced? Yes, because these obstacles are actually opportunities to test ourselves, to try new things, and, ultimately, to triumph. The Obstacle Is the Way.
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Ryan Holiday |
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Remember: We choose how we'll look at things. We retain the ability to inject perspective into a situation. We can't change the obstacles themselves--that part of the equation is set--but the power of perspective can change how the obstacles appear. How we approach, view, and contextualize an obstacle, and what we tell ourselves it means, determines how daunting and trying it will be to overcome.
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Ryan Holiday |
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What is rare is not raw talent, skill, or even confidence, but humility, diligence, and self-awareness.
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Ryan Holiday |
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The orator Demosthenes once said that virtue begins with understanding and is fulfilled by courage.
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Ryan Holiday |
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The philosophy asserts that virtue (meaning, chiefly, the four cardinal virtues of self-control, courage , justice , and wisdom) is happiness, and it is our perceptions of things-- rather than the things themselves-- that cause most of our trouble. Stoicism teaches that we can't control or rely on anything outside what Epictetus called our "reasoned choice"-- our ability to use our reason to choose how we categorize, respond, and reorient o..
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Ryan Holiday |
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If you're not humble, life will visit humbleness upon you.
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Ryan Holiday |
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When you worry, ask yourself, 'What am I choosing to not see right now?' What important things are you missing because you chose worry over introspection, alertness or wisdom?" Another way of putting it: Does getting upset provide you with more options?"
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Ryan Holiday |
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The job of a journalist would be unbearable if one was always to put oneself in the shoes of a subject.
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Ryan Holiday |
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God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change The courage to change the things I can, And the wisdom to know the difference
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Ryan Holiday |
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The world is, after all, indifferent to what we humans "want." If we persist in wanting, in needing, we are simply setting ourselves up for resentment or worse."
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Ryan Holiday |
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Overcoming obstacles is a discipline of three critical steps. It begins with how we look at our specific problems, our attitude or approach; then the energy and creativity with which we actively break them down and turn them into opportunities; finally, the cultivation and maintenance of an inner will that allows us to handle defeat and difficulty.
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Ryan Holiday |
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If what's up to us is the playing field, then what is not up to us are the rules and conditions of the game. Factors that winning athletes make the best of and don't spend time arguing against (because there is no point).
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Ryan Holiday |
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If you wish to improve, be content to appear clueless or stupid in extraneous matters--don't wish to seem knowledgeable. And if some regard you as important, distrust yourself.
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Ryan Holiday |
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that line in the movie Fight Club: "You are not your job, you're not how much money you have in the bank. You are not the car you drive. You're not the contents of your wallet."
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Ryan Holiday |
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You need to know what you don't want and what your choices preclude.
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Ryan Holiday |
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Ask yourself about the people you meet and spend time with: Are they making me better? Do they encourage me to push forward and hold me accountable? Or do they drag me down to their level? Now, with this in mind, ask the most important question: Should I spend more or less time with these folks?
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Ryan Holiday |
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Uncertainty and fear are relieved by authority. Training is authority. It's a release valve. With enough exposure, you can adapt out those perfectly ordinary, even innate, fears that are bred mostly from unfamiliarity.
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Ryan Holiday |