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

by Ryan Holiday

The obligation of a champion is to act like a champion . . . while working as hard as somebody with something to prove.

You have to do your best while you still have a chance. Life is short. You never know when the game, when your body, will be taken away from you. Don’t waste it!

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.

I would die without my [insert luxury item], we’ll say in jest. How can anybody live like this? we’ll ask not so rhetorically. The answer? They’re stronger than you.

You don’t have to always be amazing. You do always have to show up.

If you’re not a person who hustles, who are you? Where does that leave the people counting on you?

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

No matter what you do, practice will make you better.

“Make yourself do unpleasant things so as to gain the upper hand of your soul.”

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

Temperance, C. S. Lewis reminds us, is about “going to the right length and no further.”

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?

We don’t have to let it rattle us. Why should you have to, though? Because you have work to do. They want you to get upset. Because 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.

Are you stupid? someone asked. “Well, certainly a stupid person wouldn’t be able to keep quiet,”

Do you want to be rotting or ripening?

Are you getting better? Because if you’re not . . . then you’re probably getting worse.

asked to sacrifice . . . and then sacrifice

“When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail”?