Stillness Is the Key Quotes

“Don’t feed insecurity. Don’t feed delusions of grandeur. Both are obstacles to stillness. Be confident. You’ve earned it.”
― Ryan Holiday, Stillness is the Key

“As a well-spent day brings a happy sleep, so a well-employed life brings a happy death. —LEONARDO DA VINCI”
― Ryan Holiday, Stillness is the Key

“The purpose of ritual isn’t to win the gods over to our side (though that can’t hurt!). It’s to settle our bodies (and our minds) down when Fortune is our opponent on the other side of the net.”
― Ryan Holiday, Stillness is the Key

“Done enough times, done with sincerity and feeling, routine becomes ritual. The regularity of it—the daily cadence—creates deep and meaningful experience.”
― Ryan Holiday, Stillness is the Key

“I cannot understand how some people live without communicating with the wisest people who ever lived on earth.”
― Ryan Holiday, Stillness Is the Key

“So much of the distress we feel comes from reacting instinctually instead of acting with conscientious deliberation. So much of what we get wrong comes from the same place. We’re reacting to shadows. We’re taking as certainties impressions we have yet to test. We’re not stopping to put on our glasses and really look.”
― Ryan Holiday, Stillness is the Key

“the false urgency of trivial problems”
― Ryan Holiday, Stillness is the Key

“Stillness is the key to, well, just about everything.”
― Ryan Holiday, Stillness is the Key

“he let those wild horses run right on by,”
― Ryan Holiday, Stillness is the Key

“la quietud— como el mayor de los bienes y la clave para un desempeño excepcional y una vida feliz.”
― Ryan Holiday, La quietud es la clave

“mantener la calma mientras el mundo gira a tu alrededor. De actuar sin frenesí. De sólo escuchar lo que debes escuchar. De disponer de sosiego —por dentro y por fuera— a voluntad.”
― Ryan Holiday, La quietud es la clave

“Después de reconocer y aceptar a tu niño interior, la tercera función de la atención es aplacar y aliviar nuestras emociones difíciles. Abrazar afectuosamente a ese niño suaviza esas emociones y nos hace sentir aliviados. Cuando reconocemos nuestras emociones intensas con atención y concentración, somos capaces de ver las raíces de esas formaciones mentales. Sabemos de dónde proceden nuestros sufrimientos. Cuando vemos las raíces de las cosas, nuestro sufrimiento disminuye. Así, la atención reconoce, acepta y alivia.”
― Ryan Holiday, La quietud es la clave

“Only those of us who take the time to explore, to question, to extrapolate the consequences of our desires have an opportunity to overcome them and to stop regrets before they start. Only they know that real pleasure lies in having a soul that’s true and stable, happy and secure.”
― Ryan Holiday, Stillness is the Key

“was with Crates’s help that Zeno overcame his crippling focus on what other people thought of him, in one case by dumping soup on Zeno and pointing out how little anyone cared or even noticed.”
― Ryan Holiday, Stillness is the Key

“Put yourself in tough situations. Accept challenges. Familiarize yourself with the unfamiliar. That's how you widen your perspective and your understanding.”
― Ryan Holiday, Stillness Is the Key

“In a more emulatable form of Merton’s retreat, Microsoft founder and philanthropist Bill Gates has, twice a year for many years now, taken what he calls a “think week.” He spends seven days alone in a cabin in the forest. There, physically removing himself from the daily interruptions of his work, he can really sit down and think.”
― Ryan Holiday, Stillness is the Key

“If a man can reduce his needs to zero,” he said, “he is truly free: there is nothing that can be taken from him and nothing anyone can do to hurt him.” To that we would add, “And he or she can also be still.”
― Ryan Holiday, Stillness is the Key

“The writers Kurt Vonnegut, the author of Slaughterhouse Five, and Joseph Heller, the author of Catch-22, were once at a party in a fancy neighborhood outside New York City. Standing in the palatial second home of some boring billionaire, Vonnegut began to needle his friend. “Joe,” he said, “how does it feel that our host only yesterday may have made more money than your novel has earned in its entire history?” “I’ve got something he can never have,” Heller replied. “And what on earth could that be?” Vonnegut asked. “The knowledge that I’ve got enough.”
― Ryan Holiday, Stillness is the Key

“When we know what to say no to, we can say yes to the things that matter.”
― Ryan Holiday, Stillness Is the Key

“Which is why we must choose to drive out anger and replace it with love and gratitude - and purpose. Our stillness depends on our ability to slow down and choose not to be angry, to run on different fuel. Fuel that helps us win and build, and doesn't hurt other people, our cause, or our chance at peace.”
― Ryan Holiday, Stillness Is the Key

“You will never feel okay by way of external accomplishments. Enough comes from the inside. It comes from stepping off the train. From seeing what you already have, what you've always had.”
― Ryan Holiday, Stillness Is the Key

“No one achieves excellence or enlightenment without a desire to get better, without a tendency to explore potential areas of improvement.”
― Ryan Holiday, Stillness Is the Key

“Many of us carry wounds from our childhood. Maybe someone didn't treat us right. Or we experienced something terrible. Or our parents were just a little too busy or a little too critical or a little too stuck dealing with their own issues to be what we needed.”
― Ryan Holiday, Stillness Is the Key

“Life is meaningless to the person who decides their choices have no meaning.”
― Ryan Holiday, Stillness Is the Key

“Our soul is where we secure our happiness and unhappiness, contentment or emptiness - and ultimately, determine the extent of our greatness. We must maintain a good one.”
― Ryan Holiday, Stillness Is the Key

“Wisdom does not immediately produce stillness or clarity. Quite the contrary. It might even make things less clear — make them darker before the dawn.”
― Ryan Holiday, Stillness Is the Key

“We can't be afraid of silence, as it has much to teach us. Seek it. The tricking of the hands of your watch is telling you how time is passing away, never to return. Listen to it.”
― Ryan Holiday, Stillness Is the Key

“In shutting up — even if only for a short period — we can finally hear what the world has been trying to tell us. Or what we've been trying to tell ourselves.”
― Ryan Holiday, Stillness Is the Key

“If you invest the time and mental energy, you'll not only find what's interesting, you'll find the truth. You'll find what other people have missed.”
― Ryan Holiday, Stillness Is the Key

“We've all experienced that — don't mess up. Don't mess up. Don't forget, we say to ourselves — and what happens? We do exactly what we were trying not to do.”
― Ryan Holiday, Stillness Is the Key