Stillness Is the Key Quotes

“Those seeking stillness need not become full-fledged ascetics or puritans. But we can take the time to realize how much pull and power desire can have on us, and beyond the momentary pleasure this might provide us, it deprives us of the deeper peace that we seek.”
― Ryan Holiday, Stillness is the Key

“A person enslaved to their urges is not free—whether they are a plumber or the president.”
― Ryan Holiday, Stillness is the Key

“It’s dangerous business, though, creating a monster to protect your wounded inner child.”
― Ryan Holiday, Stillness is the Key

“No one feels worse about themselves than the cheater or the liar, even if—often especially if—they are showered with rewards for their cheating and lying. Life is meaningless to the person who decides their choices have no meaning.”
― Ryan Holiday, Stillness is the Key

“Each of us must cultivate a moral code, a higher standard that we love almost more than life itself. Each of us must sit down and ask: What’s important to me? What would I rather die for than betray? How am I going to live and why?”
― Ryan Holiday, Stillness is the Key

“No one does their best work driven by anxiety, and no one should be breeding insecurity in themselves so that they might keep making things. That is not industry, that is slavery.”
― Ryan Holiday, Stillness is the Key

“If you see fraud, and do not say fraud, the philosopher Nassim Taleb has said, you are a fraud.”
― Ryan Holiday, Stillness is the Key

“Around noon he’d stop in to say hello to his wife for the first time—believing all his life that the secret to a happy marriage was that spouses should not see each other before noon.”
― Ryan Holiday, Stillness is the Key

“That would have been a disaster for her art, she said. “One only has limited energy in the body, and I would have had to divide it.” Nonsense.”
― Ryan Holiday, Stillness is the Key

“the philosopher Nassim Taleb’s line is so spot on: It’s not that we need to believe that God is great, only that God is greater than us.”
― Ryan Holiday, Stillness is the Key

“I cannot and I will not retract, for it is unsafe for a Christian to speak against his conscience. Here I stand, I can do no other; so help me God. Amen.”
― Ryan Holiday, Stillness is the Key

“We’ll get the stillness we need if we focus on the individual steps, if we embrace the process, and give up chasing. We’ll think better if we aren’t thinking so hard.”
― Ryan Holiday, Stillness is the Key

“Before we can make deep changes in our lives, we have to look into our diet, our way of consuming. We have to live in such a way that we stop consuming the things that poison us and intoxicate us. Then we will have the strength to allow the best in us to arise, and we will no longer be victims of anger, of frustration.”
― Ryan Holiday, Stillness is the Key

“It occurred to me to put the question directly to myself, “Suppose that all your objects in life were realized; that all the changes in institutions and opinions which you are looking forward to, could be completely effected at this very instant: would this be a great joy and happiness to you?” And an irrepressible self-consciousness distinctly answered, “No!” At this my heart sank within me: the whole foundation on which my life was constructed fell down.”
― Ryan Holiday, Stillness is the Key

“It’s sobering to consider that the rival we’re so jealous of may in fact be jealous of us.”
― Ryan Holiday, Stillness is the Key

“Look at the response of Canadian politician Jagmeet Singh to an angry protester during a campaign stop. When the agitated woman came up and started shouting at him about Islam (despite the fact that he is Sikh), he replied with two of his own epithets for the self: “Love and courage.”
― Ryan Holiday, Stillness is the Key

“enough. And not only was it never uttered, but the two of them came to refer to it almost as an expletive: the “e-word.” The e-word was something quitters said, that only losers believed in.”
― Ryan Holiday, Stillness is the Key

“If the quiet moments are the best moments, and if so many wise, virtuous people have sung their praises, why are they so rare?”
― Ryan Holiday, Stillness is the Key

“Slow is smooth, smooth is fast.”
― Ryan Holiday, Stillness is the Key

“silence the barking dogs in your head.”
― Ryan Holiday, Stillness is the Key

“As a general, Napoleon made it his habit to delay responding to the mail. His secretary was instructed to wait three weeks before opening any correspondence. When he finally did hear what was in a letter, Napoleon loved to note how many supposedly “important” issues had simply resolved themselves and no longer required a reply.”
― Ryan Holiday, Stillness is the Key

“Knowing what not to think about. What to ignore and not to do. It’s your first and most important job. Thich Nhat Hanh:”
― Ryan Holiday, Stillness is the Key: An Ancient Strategy for Modern Life