Stillness is the Key: An Ancient Strategy for Modern Life

by Ryan Holiday

Just as we would not give ourselves to lust within sight of each other, so if we were to write down our thoughts as if telling them to each other, we shall so much the more guard ourselves against foul thoughts for shame of being known.

The need for of progress can be the enemy of enjoying the process.

“When you realize there is nothing lacking,” Lao Tzu says, “the whole world belongs to you.”

we need to matter, and we don’t always realize we already do.”

More presence. More clarity. More insight. More truth. More stillness.

She would later write in her diary that nature was a kind of cure-all, a comfort available to any and all who suffer.

“Beauty remains, even in misfortune,” she wrote. “If you just look for it, you discover more and more happiness and regain your balance.”

Which is why the philosopher must cultivate the poet’s eye—the ability to see beauty everywhere, even in the banal or the terrible.

the study of “wonder.”

It is better to find beauty in all places and things.

Don’t let the beauty of life escape you.

we can stop and bathe in the beauty that surrounds us,

To the Stoics, their higher power was the logos—the path of the universe.

In Chinese philosophy, dao—the Way—is the natural order of the universe, the way of a higher spirit.

nor will there ever be peace for the body and spirit that follow their every urge

Again, when nearly all the wise people of history agree, we should pause and reflect.

“Always remember, others may hate you, but those who hate you don’t win unless you hate them. And then you destroy yourself.”

From Pericles to Martin Luther King Jr., we find that great leaders are fueled by love.

When we feel our temper rising up, we need to look for insertion points (the space between stimulus and response). Points where we can get up and walk away.

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 the clear thinking and big-picture view that defines it—we need to tame that tiger before it kills us.

Robert Greene, known for his amoral study of power and seduction, actually writes in his book The Laws of Human Nature about the need to practice mitfreude, the active wishing of goodwill to other people, instead of schadenfreude, the active wishing of ill will.

Very few go astray who comport themselves with restraint. —CONFUCIUS

What’s essential is invisible to the eye.

Examining our souls is not as easy as clearing our minds, you’ll find. It requires that we peel back what the writer Mark Manson has called the “self-awareness onion” and take responsibility for our own emotions and impulses. Anyone who’s done it can tell you that tears and onions often go together.

We can’t afford to be fragile.

We cannot afford to be fragile; we must be vulnerable, able to flex in the wind that blows across our soul.

“Every night,” he said, “I try myself by court martial to see if I have done anything effective during the day. I don’t mean just pawing the ground—anyone can go through the motions—but something really effective.”