The only real failure is abandoning your principles. Killing what you love because you can't bear to part from it is selfish and stupid. If your reputation can't absorb a few blows, it wasn't worth an...
That we are scared of obstacles because our perspective is wrong—that a simple shift in perspective can change our reaction entirely
People claim to want to do something that matters, yet they measure themselves against things that don’t, and track their progress not in years but in microseconds.
Find canvases for other people to paint on. Clear the path for the people above you and you will eventually create a path for yourself. Greatness comes from humble beginnings; it comes from grunt work...
Don’t return to philosophy as a task-master, but as patients seek out relief in a treatment of sore eyes, or a dressing for a burn, or from an ointment. Regarding it this way, you’ll obey reason witho...
Do I need this? Or is it really about ego?
Even people who despise ego and aspire to humility, who plan to be humble once they are successful, are worried that actually enacting those beliefs would sentence them to a life of obscurity or weakn...
… freedom isn’t secured by filling up on your heart’s desire but by removing your desire. —EPICTETUS, DISCOURSES, 4.1.175
Sangfroid:
Destruction—of every one of our obstacles.
We don’t abandon our pursuits because we despair of ever perfecting them. —EPICTETUS, DISCOURSES, 1.2.37b
We can stop seeing the problems in front of us as problems.
The path of least resistance is a terrible teacher. We can’t afford to shy away from the things that intimidate us. We don’t need to take our weaknesses for granted. Are
That uncomfortable feeling, that defensiveness that you feel when your most deeply held assumptions are challenged—what about subjecting yourself to it deliberately? Change your mind. Change your surr...
So if you need an extra boost to get out of bed this morning, if you need something more than caffeine can offer, use this. People are depending on you. Your purpose is to help us render this great wo...
Say little, do much
Just because other people say that something is hopeless or crazy or broken to pieces doesn’t mean it is.
It’s the logic of two campers and the bear—you don’t need to be faster than the bear, just faster than the other camper.
Every man I meet is my master in some point, and in that I learn of him. —RALPH WALDO EMERSON
Creating is often a solitary experience. Yet work made entirely in isolation is usually doomed to remain lonely.