Stillness Is the Key Quotes

“Me miserable! which way shall I fly Infinite wrath, and infinite despair? Which way I fly is Hell; myself am Hell. —JOHN MILTON”
― Ryan Holiday, Stillness is the Key

“This is the main question, with what activity one’s leisure is filled. —ARISTOTLE”
― Ryan Holiday, Stillness is the Key

“There is a time for many words and there is a time for sleep. —HOMER, THE ODYSSEY”
― Ryan Holiday, Stillness is the Key

“A crowded world thinks that aloneness is always loneliness and that to seek it is perversion. —JOHN GRAVES”
― Ryan Holiday, Stillness is the Key

“is only ideas gained from walking that have any worth. —FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE”
― Ryan Holiday, Stillness is the Key

“The advantages of nonaction. Few in the world attain these. —THE DAODEJING”
― Ryan Holiday, Stillness is the Key

“Very few go astray who comport themselves with restraint. —CONFUCIUS”
― Ryan Holiday, Stillness is the Key

“All that you behold, that which comprises both god and man, is one—we are the parts of one great body. —SENECA”
― Ryan Holiday, Stillness is the Key

“He that is slow to anger is better than the mighty; and he that ruleth his spirit than he that taketh a city. —PROVERBS 16:32”
― Ryan Holiday, Stillness is the Key

“There is no enjoying the possession of anything valuable unless one has someone to share it with. —SENECA”
― Ryan Holiday, Stillness is the Key

“Mediocrity knows nothing higher than itself. —ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE”
― Ryan Holiday, Stillness is the Key

“History relates no instance in which a conqueror has been surfeited with conquests. —STEFAN ZWEIG”
― Ryan Holiday, Stillness is the Key

“It will take patience and empathy and real self-love to heal the wounds in your life. As Thich Nhat Hanh has written: After recognizing and embracing our inner child, the third function of mindfulness is to soothe and relieve our difficult emotions. Just by holding this child gently, we are soothing our difficult emotions and we can begin to feel at ease. When we embrace our strong emotions with mindfulness and concentration, we’ll be able to see the roots of these mental formations. We’ll know where our suffering has come from. When we see the roots of things, our suffering will lessen. So mindfulness recognizes, embraces, and relieves.”
― Ryan Holiday, Stillness is the Key

“The child is in me still . . . and sometimes not so still. —FRED ROGERS”
― Ryan Holiday, Stillness is the Key

“Confucius said that virtue is a kind of polestar. It not only provides guidance to the navigator, but it attracts fellow travelers too. Epicurus, who has been unfairly branded by history as a hedonist, knew that virtue was the way to tranquility and happiness. In fact, he believed that virtue and pleasure were two sides of the same coin. As he said: It is impossible to live the pleasant life without also living sensibly, nobly, and justly, and conversely it is impossible to live sensibly, nobly, and justly without living pleasantly. A person who does not have a pleasant life is not living sensibly, nobly, and justly, and conversely the person who does not have these virtues cannot live pleasantly. Where virtue is, so too are happiness and beauty.”
― 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

“Everybody's got a hungry heart - that's true. But how we choose to feed that heart matters. It's what determines the kind of person we end up being, what kind of trouble we'll get into, and whether we'll ever be full, whether we'll ever really be still.”
― Ryan Holiday, Stillness Is the Key

“What is better than these two extremes - ego and imposter syndrome - but simple confidence? Earned. Rational. Objective. Still.”
― Ryan Holiday, Stillness Is the Key

“No pressure. Just presence. Just happy to be there.”
― Ryan Holiday, Stillness Is the Key

“That is why those who seek stillness must come to . . . Develop a strong moral compass. Steer clear of envy and jealousy and harmful desires. Come to terms with the painful wounds of their childhood. Practice gratitude and appreciation for the world around them. Cultivate relationships and love in their lives. Place belief and control in the hands of something larger than themselves. Understand that there will never be “enough” and that the unchecked pursuit of more ends only in bankruptcy.”
― Ryan Holiday, Stillness is the Key

“Being well-trained, he becomes naturally gentle. Then, unfettered, he obeys his master.”
― Ryan Holiday, Stillness is the Key

“Thich Nhat Hanh: 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

“You may be sure that you are at peace with yourself,” Seneca wrote, “when no noise reaches you, when no word shakes you out of yourself, whether it be flattery or a threat, or merely an empty sound buzzing about you with unmeaning sin.”
― Ryan Holiday, Stillness is the Key

“The struggle is great, the task divine—to gain mastery, freedom, happiness, and tranquility. —EPICTETUS”
― Ryan Holiday, Stillness is the Key

“You can’t make something great flitting around. You have to stick fast, like an axis of the earth. Those who think they will find solutions to all their problems by traveling far from home, perhaps as they stare at the Colosseum or some enormous moss-covered statue of Buddha, Emerson said, are bringing ruins to ruins. Wherever they go, whatever they do, their sad self comes along.”
― Ryan Holiday, Stillness is the Key

“What’s essential is invisible to the eye. That is: Appearances are misleading.”
― Ryan Holiday, Stillness is the Key

“We don’t need to get rid of all our possessions, but we should constantly question what we own, why we own it, and whether we could do without.”
― Ryan Holiday, Stillness is the Key

“It was Eisenhower who defined freedom as the opportunity for self-discipline. In fact, freedom and power and success require self-discipline. Because without it, chaos and complacency move in. Discipline, then, is how we maintain that freedom.”
― Ryan Holiday, Stillness is the Key

“Both egotistical and insecure people make their flaws central to their identity—either by covering them up or by brooding over them or externalizing them.”
― Ryan Holiday, Stillness is the Key

“Breathless, twenty-four-hour media coverage makes it considerably harder for politicians and CEOs to be anything but reactive. There’s too much information, every trivial detail is magnified under the microscope, speculation is rampant—and the mind is overwhelmed.”
― Ryan Holiday, Stillness is the Key