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There never was a moment, and never will be, when we are without the power to alter our destiny.
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Steven Pressfield |
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The Bhagavad-Gita tells us we have a right only to our labor, not to the fruits of our labor. All the warrior can give is his life; all the athlete can do is leave everything on the field.
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Steven Pressfield |
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Resistance is directly proportional to love. If you're feeling massive Resistance, the good news is, it means there's tremendous love there too. If you didn't love the project that is terrifying you, you wouldn't feel anything. The opposite of love isn't hate; it's indifference.
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Steven Pressfield |
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The artist and the fundamentalist arise from societies at differing stages of development. The artist is the advanced model. His culture possesses affluence, stability, enough excess of resource to permit the luxury of self-examination. The artist is grounded in freedom. He is not afraid of it. He is lucky. He was born in the right place. He has a core of self- confidence, of hope for the future. He believes in progress and evolution. His f..
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Steven Pressfield |
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If the upper realm is, as Plato suggested, the sphere of perfect love, truth, justice, and beauty, then the artist seeks to call down the magic of this world and to create, by dint of labor and luck, the closest-to-sublime simulacra of those qualities that he or she can.
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Steven Pressfield |
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A warrior culture trains for adversity. Luxury and ease are the goals advertised to the civilian world.
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Steven Pressfield |
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PROFESSIONAL DEDICATES HIMSELF TO MASTERING TECHNIQUE The professional respects his craft. He does not consider himself superior to it. He recognizes the contributions of those who have gone before him. He apprentices himself to them. The professional dedicates himself to mastering technique not because he believes technique is a substitute for inspiration but because he wants to be in possession of the full arsenal of skills when inspirati..
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Steven Pressfield |
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Resistance is experienced as fear; the degree of fear equates to the strength of Resistance. Therefore the more fear we feel about a specific enterprise, the more certain we can be that that enterprise is important to us and to the growth of our soul. That's why we feel so much Resistance. If it meant nothing to us, there'd be no Resistance.
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Steven Pressfield |
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8080a0f
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You're supposed to learn that things that you think are nothing, as weightless as air, are actually powerful substantial forces, as real and as solid as earth. I understood. The eagle was telling me that dreams, visions, meditations such as this very one-things that I had till now disdained as fantasy and illusion-were as real and as solid as anything in my waking life.
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Steven Pressfield |
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What does Resistance feel like? First, unhappiness. We feel like hell. A low-grade misery pervades everything. We're bored, we're restless. We can't get no satisfaction. There's guilt but we can't put our finger on the source. We want to go back to bed; we want to get up and party. We feel unloved and unlovable. We're disgusted. We hate our lives. We hate ourselves. Unalleviated, Resistance mounts to a pitch that becomes unendurable. At thi..
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Steven Pressfield |
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710954e
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A child has no trouble believing the unbelievable, nor does the genius or the madman. It's only you and I, with our big brains and our tiny hearts, who doubt and overthink and hesitate. Don't think. Act.
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Steven Pressfield |
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performing the commonplace under uncommonplace conditions.
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Steven Pressfield |
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The Spartan king Agesilaus was still fighting in armor when he was eighty-two. Picasso was painting past ninety, and Henry Miller was chasing women (I'm sure Picasso was too) at eighty-nine. Once we turn pro, we're like sharks who have tasted blood, or renunciants who have glimpsed the face of God. For us, there is no finish line. No bell ends the bout. Life is the pursuit. Life is the hunt. When our hearts burst... then we'll go out, and n..
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Steven Pressfield |
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Be brave, my heart [wrote the poet and mercenary Archilochus]. Plant your feet and square your shoulders to the enemy. Meet him among the man-killing spears. Hold your ground. In victory, do not brag; in defeat, do not weep. The ancients resisted innovation in warfare because they feared it would rob the struggle of honor. King Agis was shown a new catapult, which could shoot a killing dart 200 yards. When he saw this, he wept. "Alas," he s..
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Steven Pressfield |
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9b9a6d5
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How many of us have become drunks and drug addicts, developed tumors and neuroses, succumbed to painkillers, gossip, and compulsive cell-phone use, simply because we don't do that thing that our hearts, our inner genius, is calling us to?
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Steven Pressfield |
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If tomorrow morning by some stroke of magic every dazed and benighted soul woke up with the power to take the first step toward pursuing his or her dreams, every shrink in the directory would be out of business.
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Steven Pressfield |
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The artist must be like that Marine. He has to know how to be miserable. He has to love being miserable.
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Steven Pressfield |
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I will gladly shell out $24.95 or $9.99 or 99 cents on iTunes to read or see or listen to the 24-karat treasure that you have refined from your pain and your vision and your imagination. I need it. We all do. We're struggling here in the trenches. That beauty, that wisdom, those thrills and chills, even that mindless escape on a rainy October afternoon -- I want it. Put me down for it.
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Steven Pressfield |
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There's no mystery to turning pro. It's a decision brought about by an act of will. We make up our minds to view ourselves as pros and we do it. Simple as that.
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Steven Pressfield |
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Discipline yourself to boil down your story/new business/philanthropic enterprise to a single page.
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Steven Pressfield |
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when we sit down day after day and keep grinding, something mysterious starts to happen. A process is set into motion by which, inevitably and infallibly, heaven comes to our aid. Unseen forces enlist in our cause; serendipity reinforces our purpose. This is the other secret that real artists know and wannabe writers don't. When we sit down each day and do our work, power concentrates around us. The Muse takes note of our dedication.
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Steven Pressfield |
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The Problem Is the Problem A professional does not take success or failure personally. That's Priority Number One for us now. That our project has crashed is not a reflection of our worth as human beings. It's just a mistake. It's a problem--and a problem can be solved.
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Steven Pressfield |
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When we're living as amateurs, we're running away from our calling -- meaning our work, our destiny, the obligation to become our truest and highest selves.
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Steven Pressfield |
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What husband is he who abandons his wife? What wife is she taken without love? The gods demand of us action and the use of our free will! That is piety, not to buckle beneath necessity's yoke like dumb beasts!
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Steven Pressfield |
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Someone once asked Somerset Maugham if he wrote on a schedule or only when struck by inspiration. "I write only when inspiration strikes," he replied. "Fortunately it strikes every morning at nine o'clock sharp."
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Steven Pressfield |
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It's only you and I, with our big brains and our tiny hearts, who doubt and overthink and hesitate.
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Steven Pressfield |
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When we raise our game aesthetically, we elevate it morally and spiritually as well.
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Steven Pressfield |
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Assistance is the universal, immutable force of creative manifestation, whose role since the Big Bang has been to translate potential into being, to convert dreams into reality.
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Steven Pressfield |
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Socrates demonstrated long ago, that the truly free individual is free only to the extent of his own self-mastery. While those who will not govern themselves are condemned to find masters to govern over them.
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Steven Pressfield |
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Jewish despair arises from want and can be cured by surfeit. Give a penniless Jew fifty quid and he perks right up. Irish despair is different. Nothing relieves Irish despair. The Irishman's complaint lies not with his circumstances, which might be rendered brilliant by labour or luck, but with the injustice of existence itself. Death! How could a benevolent Deity gift us with life, only to set such a cruel term upon it? Irish despair knows..
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Steven Pressfield |
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A king does not expend his substance to enslave men, but by his conduct and example makes them free.
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Steven Pressfield |
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It's one thing to lie to ourselves. It's another thing to believe it.
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Steven Pressfield |
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He's a sturdy fellow, bald as a hen's egg, and like all engineers, practical as a pensioner.
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practical
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Steven Pressfield |
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There's no mystery to turning pro. It's a decision brought about by an act of will.
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Steven Pressfield |
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If addictions and shadow careers are metaphors, sex is the richest one of all and the most difficult to decode. Why are we obsessed with sex? Does sex represent conquest or surrender? Are we seeking the oblivion of orgasm or the transcendence of escaping the ego? Is union with another our goal, or are we seeking to dominate or humiliate our partner? Is sex about love? Are we seeking a soul-mate, a mother/father? Are we trying to reach God? ..
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Steven Pressfield |
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The rancor I once bore recedes, supplanted by admiration and a sense even of loss at the mates we might have been and the times we might have shared.
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Steven Pressfield |
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Indeed, we own a bond, my friend. That most sublime of all: reminiscence for our vanished youth.
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Steven Pressfield |
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What could be more natural for this man than to draw to his bosom all with whom he shared that time, even his foes? Perhaps his foes more than any.
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Steven Pressfield |
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Each man recalls not the enemy he hated, but the champion who engaged him with such valor.
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Steven Pressfield |
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It was an era when history butted up against mythology,
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Steven Pressfield |
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The amateur has not mastered the technique of his art. Nor does he expose himself to judgment in the real world. If we show our poem to our friend and our friend says, "It's wonderful, I love it," that's not real-world feedback, that's our friend being nice to us. Nothing is as empowering as real-world validation, even if it's for failure."
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Steven Pressfield |
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The writer is an infantryman. He knows that progress is measured in yards of dirt extracted from the enemy one day, one hour, one minute at a time and paid for in blood. The artist wears combat boots. He looks in the mirror and sees GI Joe. Remember, the Muse favors working stiffs. She hates prima donnas. To the gods the supreme sin is not rape or murder, but pride.
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Steven Pressfield |
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Dienekes says the mind is like a house with many rooms," he said. "There are rooms one must not go into. To anticipate one's death is one of those rooms. We must not allow ourselves even to think it."
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Steven Pressfield |
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e912770
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The professional has learned better. He respects Resistance. He knows if he caves in today, no matter how plausible the pretext, he'll be twice as likely to cave in tomorrow.
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Steven Pressfield |