The Obstacle Is the Way Quotes

“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”
― Ryan Holiday, The Obstacle Is the Way: The Timeless Art of Turning Trials into Triumph

“Perseverance. Force of purpose. Indomitable will. Those traits were once uniquely part of the American DNA. But they’ve been weakening for some time.”
― Ryan Holiday, The Obstacle Is the Way: The Timeless Art of Turning Trials into Triumph

“Our actions may be impeded . . . but there can be no impeding our intentions or dispositions. Because we can accommodate and adapt. The mind adapts and converts to its own purposes the obstacle to our acting. And then he concluded with powerful words destined for maxim. The impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way.”
― Ryan Holiday, The Obstacle Is the Way: The Timeless Art of Turning Trials into Triumph

“It's a huge step forward to realize that the worst thing to happen is never the event, but the event and losing your head. Because then you'll have two problems (one of them unnecessary and post hoc).”
― Ryan Holiday, The Obstacle Is the Way: The Timeless Art of Turning Trials into Triumph

“Just because your mind tells you that something is awful or evil or unplanned or otherwise negative doesn't mean you have to agree. Just because other people say that something is hopeless or crazy or broken to pieces doesn't mean it is. We decide what story to tell ourselves. Or whether we will tell one at all.”
― Ryan Holiday, The Obstacle Is the Way: The Timeless Art of Turning Trials into Triumph

“the brilliant strategist and historian B. H. Liddell Hart came to a stunning conclusion: In only 6 of the 280 campaigns was the decisive victory a result of a direct attack on the enemy’s main army. Only six. That’s 2 percent.”
― Ryan Holiday, The Obstacle Is the Way: The Timeless Art of Turning Trials into Triumph

“Not: This is not so bad. But: I can make this good.”
― Ryan Holiday, The Obstacle Is the Way: The Timeless Art of Turning Trials into Triumph

“transforms fear into prudence, pain into transformation, mistakes into initiation and desire into undertaking.”
― Ryan Holiday, The Obstacle Is the Way: The Timeless Art of Turning Trials into Triumph

“We’re crushed when what we were “promised” is revoked—as if that’s not allowed to happen. Instead of doing much about it, we sit at home and play video games or travel or worse, pay for more school with more loan debt that will never be forgiven. And then we wonder why it isn’t getting any better.”
― Ryan Holiday, The Obstacle Is the Way: The Timeless Art of Turning Trials into Triumph

“philosophers”—the ancient Stoics—even if they’d never read them.* They had the”
― Ryan Holiday, The Obstacle Is the Way: The Timeless Art of Turning Trials into Triumph

“join their company. This book will show you the way.”
― Ryan Holiday, The Obstacle Is the Way: The Timeless Art of Turning Trials into Triumph

“going in opposite direction. When United”
― Ryan Holiday, The Obstacle Is the Way: The Timeless Art of Turning Trials into Triumph

“dollar. No one wants to be stuck behind an obstacle, blocked from where they need to go. Such circumstances are not impressed by perception, but they are not indifferent—or rather immune—from”
― Ryan Holiday, The Obstacle Is the Way: The Timeless Art of Turning Trials into Triumph

“To see an obstacle as a challenge, to make the best of it anyway, that is also a choice—a choice that is up to us.”
― Ryan Holiday, The Obstacle Is the Way: The Timeless Art of Turning Trials into Triumph

“Our actions may be impeded…but there can be no impeding our intentions or dispositions. Because we can accommodate and adapt. The mind adapts and converts to its own purposes the obstacle to our acting.”
― Ryan Holiday, The Obstacle is the Way: The Timeless Art of Turning Trials into Triumph

“As Epictetus once summarized his entire philosophy: persist and resist. Persist in your efforts. Resist giving in to distraction, discouragement, or disorder.”
― Ryan Holiday, The Obstacle is the Way: The Timeless Art of Turning Trials into Triumph

“The greatest empire,” Seneca—an adviser to emperors and a wealthy man himself—would say, “is command of yourself.”
― Ryan Holiday, The Obstacle is the Way: The Timeless Art of Turning Trials into Triumph

“The diagnosis is terminal for all of us. A death sentence has been decreed. Each second, probability is eating away at the chances that we’ll be alive tomorrow; something is coming and you’ll never be able to stop it. Be ready for when that day comes.”
― Ryan Holiday, The Obstacle Is the Way: The Timeless Art of Turning Trials into Triumph

“In the meantime, cling tooth and nail to the following rule: not to give in to adversity, not to trust prosperity, and always take full note of fortune’s habit of behaving just as she pleases.”
― Ryan Holiday, The Obstacle Is the Way: The Timeless Art of Turning Trials into Triumph

“It might help to say it over and over again whenever you feel the anxiety begin to come on: I am not going to die from this. I am not going to die from this. I am not going to die from this.”
― Ryan Holiday, The Obstacle is the Way: The Timeless Art of Turning Trials into Triumph

“objective To control emotions and keep”
― Ryan Holiday, The Obstacle is the Way: The Timeless Art of Turning Trials into Triumph

“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.”
― Ryan Holiday, The Obstacle is the Way: The Timeless Art of Turning Trials into Triumph

“El gran psicólogo Viktor Frankl, sobreviviente de tres campos de concentración, veía presunción en esta inveterada pregunta: “¿Cuál es el significado de la vida?”. Como si decírtelo fuera responsabilidad de otro. En cambio, decía, es el mundo el que te hace esa pregunta. Y es tu deber responderla con tus actos.”
― Ryan Holiday, El obstáculo es el camino: El arte inmemorial de convertir las pruebas en triunfo (Para estar bien)

“you mean it when you say you’re at the end of your rope and would rather quit, you actually have a unique chance to grow and improve yourself.”
― Ryan Holiday, The Obstacle is the Way: The Timeless Art of Turning Trials into Triumph

“Genius is the ability to put into effect what is in your mind. There’s no other definition of it. — F. SCOTT FITZGERALD”
― Ryan Holiday, The Obstacle is the Way: The Timeless Art of Turning Adversity to Advantage

“Or take that longtime rival at work (or that rival company), the one who causes endless headaches? Note the fact that they also: keep you alert raise the stakes motivate you to prove them wrong harden you help you to appreciate true friends”
― Ryan Holiday, The Obstacle Is the Way: The Timeless Art of Turning Trials into Triumph

“in Marcus we find a man who held the highest and most powerful station in the world—and the universal verdict of the people around him was that he proved himself worthy of it.”
― Ryan Holiday, The Obstacle Is the Way: The Timeless Art of Turning Trials into Triumph

“setbacks or problems are always expected and never permanent. Making certain that what impedes us can empower us.”
― Ryan Holiday, The Obstacle Is the Way: The Timeless Art of Turning Trials into Triumph

“what matters most is not what these obstacles are but how we see them,”
― Ryan Holiday, The Obstacle Is the Way: The Timeless Art of Turning Trials into Triumph

“It takes skill and discipline to bat away the pests of bad perceptions, to separate reliable signals from deceptive ones, to filter out prejudice, expectation, and fear. But it’s worth it, for what’s left is truth.”
― Ryan Holiday, The Obstacle Is the Way: The Timeless Art of Turning Trials into Triumph