Discipline Is Destiny: The Power of Self-Control (The Stoic Virtues Series)

by Ryan Holiday

As a young man, Eisenhower’s mother had quoted him a verse from the Book of Proverbs, “He that is slow to anger is better than the mighty,” she had told him, “and he that ruleth his spirit than he that taketh a city.”

On the spot, Feynman gave up drinking right then and there. Nothing, he felt, should have that kind of power over him.

Knowing how much time you spend on it now, would you still download that app if it launched today?

By being a little hard on ourselves, it makes it harder for others to be hard on us. By being strict with ourselves, we take away others’ power over us.

The insecure constantly pressure us to be like them.

They like to say in the military that slow is smooth and smooth is fast. Do it right and it goes quickly. Try to go too quickly and it won’t go right.

We don’t rise to the occasion, we fall to the level of our training.

When you find what you’re meant to do, you do it.

Always and forever, the reward is the work.

Decide who you want to be, the Stoics command us, and then do that work. Will we be recognized for it? Maybe, but that will be extra.

the modern world is conspiring against us, working to degrade our ability to endure even the slightest difficulty.

The best way to master the morning is to have mastered it the night before.

Does endurance always conquer? Of course not, but nobody wins by throwing in the towel. Nobody wins with weakness.

A weak mind must be constantly entertained and stimulated. A strong mind can occupy itself and, more important, be still and vigilant in moments that demand it.

Temperance is also the ability to adjust, to make good of any situation, to find the opportunity to grow and improve in any situation. And to be able to do this with equanimity and poise, even initiative and joy.

Greatness is not just what one does, but also what one refuses to do.

The pause is everything. The one before . . . . . . jumping to conclusions . . . prejudging . . . assuming the worst . . . rushing to solve your children’s problems for them (or put them back to sleep) . . . forcing a problem into some kind of box . . . assigning blame . . . taking offense . . . turning away in fear.

Everything we say yes to means saying no to something else.

Every no can also be a yes, a yes to what really matters. To rebuff one opportunity means to cultivate another.

Once the plate is cleared, you must be able to put your whole mind into that main thing. It has to get all of you.

none of us know how many good years we have or how long our faculties will last. We must use them while we can.

It is impossible for an impatient person to work with others. It is impossible for them not to make errors of judgment and of timing. It is impossible for them to do important things, because almost everything that matters takes longer than it should, certainly longer than we would like.

Their success is built on their incredibly high standards—often higher than anyone, including the audience or the market, could demand—but this virtue is also a terrible vice, not just preventing them from enjoying what they have achieved, but making it increasingly impossible to ship the next thing.

Transitions are as important as achievements.”

Perfect is not just the enemy of the good, as they say, but it’s the enemy of everything that might come after.

Don’t be frustrated that you’re not constitutionally calm or perfect. Because no one is, and no one is expecting you to be!

If your standards are so high that you give up when you fall short of them, then actually you don’t have high standards. What you have are excuses.

This is another reason why that perfectionism—moral or professional—is so dangerous. When we fall short, when we are revealed as the fundamentally flawed, vulnerable, beatable, screwed-up people we are? It can be hard to get going again.

No one should think that getting help for depression or for chronic pain is somehow contrary to the principles of temperance.

“Doing the work” must actually mean thinking about things holistically. It must mean getting to the root causes. It should mean solving for the injury, not the symptoms. It means therapy—in Kennedy’s case, not just the physical therapy, but the desperate need for psychological help too. This will take real courage as well as self-discipline. Because it takes longer. Because it means facing scary things, because it means inching our way to progress, not instant transformation.

The body is stupid, you have to understand, and our temperament has to save it from itself.

“Remember to conduct yourself in life as if at a banquet,” Epictetus said. “As something being passed around comes to you, reach out your hand and take a moderate helping. Does it pass you by? Don’t stop it. It hasn’t yet come? Don’t burn in desire for it, but wait until it arrives in front of you. Act this way with children, a spouse, toward position, with wealth—one day it will make you worthy of a banquet with the gods.”[*]

James Peck, one of the only white Freedom Riders, would note several times how his refusal to retaliate would stun his attackers into a momentary lull and, one might imagine, a terrifying moment of self-reflection. Why isn’t this person consumed with hatred like I am? Why aren’t they out of control like me? Are they actually better than me?

Remember always: As wrong as they are, as annoying as it is, it takes two for a real conflict to happen. As the Stoics said, when we are offended, when we fight, we are complicit. We have chosen to engage. We have traded self-control for self-indulgence. We’ve allowed our cooler head to turn hot—even though we know hot heads rarely make good decisions.

if you’re going to stop and reply to every attack, as Lincoln said, you might as well admit defeat right now. You’ll never get anything done. You’ll certainly never be happy. And they’ll have won.

We can have passion, but no one can afford to be a slave to it.

Whether it’s anxiety or aggression, lust for a person or a thing, a celebration or an overwhelming uncertainty, we must step in and pull the emergency brake before the urge to act on those emotions picks up so much steam that it crashes us into a wall.

“Powerful people impress and intimidate by saying less.”

Not only does the ego want to talk, want to say what it thinks, but now we have technology that exploits ego and explicitly tempts you to share, to speak, to get in pointless arguments, to burst out with hot takes.

Online or in person, we can’t just sit there. We jump in because we think we’re supposed to.

utmost economy). You don’t have to verbalize every thought. You don’t have to always give your opinion—especially when it’s not solicited. Just because there is a pause doesn’t mean you have to fill it. Just because everyone else is talking doesn’t mean you have to jump in. You can sit with the awkwardness. You can use the silence to your advantage. You can wait and see.

Free speech is a right, not an obligation. Two ears, one mouth, Zeno would remind his students. Respect that ratio properly.

Let them wish you talked more. Let them wonder what you’re thinking. Let the words you speak carry extra weight precisely because they are rare.

You can answer the question with, “I don’t know.” You can ignore the insult. You can decline the invitation. You can decide not to explain your reasons. You can allow for a pause. You can put it down in your journal instead. You can listen. You ...

You can speak only when you’re certain it’s not be...

wonderfully expressed by the English poet John Dryden: Beware the fury of the patient man.

The poet Juvenal remarked that the whole world had not been big enough to contain Alexander . . . but in the end, a coffin was sufficient.

Like Napoleon, it hadn’t been about his people or about a cause. He had waged wars of offense and aggression entirely for himself. This was a pathological need to achieve, for which the consequences were ultimately borne by basically everyone else.

Marius and Napoleon and Alexander were powerful . . . but ultimately powerless. Because they couldn’t stop. Because there was never enough. They lusted for control over millions, because they lacked control over themselves.

we have to ask ourselves: Who is in charge? Our mind? Or our slavish need to be the biggest, the winningest, the richest, the most powerful, the most famous? The need to do more, to get more, to achieve again and again? We have to ask: What is this really bringing me? What am I actually getting out of it?