Steven Pressfield quotes: wise famous quotes, sayings and quotations by Steven Pressfield

Steven Pressfield Famous Quotes & Sayings

Discover top inspirational quotes from Steven Pressfield on Wise Famous Quotes.

The opposite of fear," Dienekes said, "is love.

When we see others beginning to live their authentic selves, it drives us crazy if we have not lived out our own.

The power to take charge was in my hands; all I had to do was believe it.

He who whets his steel, whets his courage

The professional will not tolerate disorder ... He wants the carpet vacuumed and the threshold swept, so the Muse may enter and not soil her gown.

The professional does not wait for inspiration; he acts in anticipation of it. He

She (the artist, the writer) doesn't wait for inspiration, she acts in the anticipation of its apparition.

preparation, order, patience, endurance, acting in the face of fear and failure

There never was a moment, and never will be, when we are without the power to alter our destiny.

When we raise our game aesthetically, we elevate it morally and spiritually as well.

Leonidas's and Dienekes' quips draw the individual out of his private terror and yoke him to the group.

The universe is not indifferent. It is actively hostile.

performing the commonplace under uncommonplace conditions.

Art is a war - between ourselves and the forces of self-sabotage that would stop us from doing our work. The artist is a warrior.

Alexander operated by the same principle. Let us conduct ourselves so that all men wish to be our friends and all fear to be our enemies.

Faced with our imminent extinction, Tom Laughlin believes, all assumptions are called into question.

Turning pro is like kicking a drug habit or stopping drinking. It's a decision, a decision to which we must re-commit every day.

The most important thing about art is to work. Nothing else matters except sitting down every day and trying.

...fear doesn't go away.

plunge at once into matters as a Greek would, but offered first prayers for the free people's well-being.

Every virtue that reaches the exaggeration, is becoming a defect

What could be more natural for this man than to draw to his bosom all with whom he shared that time, even his foes? Perhaps his foes more than any.

Bhagavad-Gita tells us we have a right only to our labor, not to the fruits of our labor.

The working artist will not tolerate trouble in her life because she knows trouble prevents her from doing her work.

she doesn't wait for inspiration, she acts in anticipation of its apparition.

The artist and the fundamentalist both confront the same issue, the mystery of their existence as individuals.

We feed it [Resistance] with power by our fear of it. Master that fear and we conquer Resistance.

Don't prepare, do. Don't let Resistance sucker you into wasting months on background, foundation, planning. All that can come later.

Rule of thumb: The more important a call or action is to our soul's evolution, the Resistance we will feel toward pursuing it.

Nothing is as empowering as real-world validation, even if it's for failure.

I wrote in the 'War of Art' that I could divide my life neatly into two parts: before turning pro and after. After is better.

The best and only thing that one artist can do for another is to serve as an example and an inspiration.

Resistance is implacable, intractable, indefatigable.

Of any activity you do, ask yourself: If I were the last person on earth, would I still do it?

Don't cheat the world of your contribution. Give it what you've got.

Eternity is in love with the creations of time,

Resistance will tell you anything to keep you from doing your work.

Resistance is directly proportional to love. If you're feeling massive Resistance, the good news is that it means there's tremendous love there too.

A warrior culture trains for adversity. Luxury and ease are the goals advertised to the civilian world.

I'm superstitious. I keep mum while I'm working on something.

Every sun casts a shadow, and genius's shadow is Resistance.

We master the technique of our jobs.

Warfare is theatre, I have said, and the essence of theatre is aritifce. What we show, we will not do. What we don't show, we will do.

Do we have to stare death in the face to make us stand up and confront Resistance?

As all born teachers, he was primarily a student.

The athlete knows the day will never come when he wakes up pain-free. He has to play hurt.

The only items you get to keep are love for the work, will to finish, and passion to serve the ethical, creative Muse.

Put your ass where your heart wants to be.

Be too dumb to quit and too stubborn to back off.

Research can become Resistance. We want to work, not prepare to work.

You are a writer when you tell yourself you are. No one else's opinion matters. Screw them. You are when you say you are.

We're wrong if we think we're the only ones struggling with Resistance. Everyone who has a body experiences Resistance.

Do you love your idea? Does it feel right on instinct? Are you willing to bleed for it?

The only intercourse possible between the knight and the dragon is battle.

I knew I wanted to write novels, but I could not finish what I started. The closer I got, the more ways I'd find to screw it up.

Don't think. Act. We can always revise and revisit once we've acted. But we can accomplish nothing until we act.

The professional cannot allow the actions of others to define his reality.

Resistance is the most toxic force on the planet.

it. If you find yourself asking yourself (and your friends), "Am I really a writer? Am I really an artist?" chances are you are.

Most of us have two lives. The life we live, and the unlived life within us. Between the two stands Resistance.

Our job in this lifetime is not to shape ourselves into some ideal we imagine we ought to be, but to find out who we already are and become it. If

The most pernicious aspect of procrastination is that it can become a habit. We don't just put off our lives today; we put them off till our deathbed.

Discipline yourself to boil down your story/new business/philanthropic enterprise to a single page.

The more fear we feel about a specific enterprise, the more certain we can be that that enterprise is important to us and to the growth of our soul,

Fear conquers fear. This is how we Spartans do it, counterpoising to fear of death a greater fear: that of dishonor. Of exclusion from the pack.

BOOK TWO COMBATING RESISTANCE

Resistance by definition is self-sabotage.

The problem with friends and family is that they know us as we are. They are invested in maintaining us as we are.

Our job, as souls on this mortal journey, is to shift the seat of our identity from the lower realm to the upper, from the ego to the Self. Art

Tolstoy had 13 kids and still wrote War & Peace.

Resistance's goal is not to would or disable. Resistance aims to kill.

Casting yourself as a victim is the antithesis of doing your work. Don't do it. If you're doing it, stop.

Artists are modest. They know they're not doing the work; they're just taking dictation.

We have the right to our labor but not to the fruit of our labor.

Figure out what scares you the most and do that first.

Once we commit to action, the worst thing we can do is to stop.

Gobartes the son of Artabazos

Playing for money, or adopting the attitude of one who plays for money, lowers the fever.

Last of terror's stages, Selene had tutored Europa and me, is busyness.

A writer is a writer when he says he is.

Maybe it's less threatening to believe that our beloved spouse is worthy to live out his or her unlived life, while we are not.

The professional knows that Resistance is like a telemarketer; if you so much as say hello, you're finished.

The concept in all these environments seems to be that one needs to complete his healing before he is ready to do his work.

When you're a working writer, sooner or later friends and acquaintances will get you alone and confide that they, too, have a book in them.

Our guns do not strip the foe of life with surgical strokes. They take them in a holocaust.

In my view, the amateur does not love the game enough. If he did, he would not pursue it as a sideline, distinct from his "real" vocation.

The hack is like a politician who consults the polls before he takes a position. He's a demagogue. He panders.

The enemy is Resistance.

What force is yanking at our sleeves? This process of self-revision and self-correction is so common we don't even notice. But it's a miracle.

A horse must be a bit mad to be a good cavalry mount, and its rider must be completely so.

It's one thing to lie to ourselves. It's another thing to believe it.

The pain of being human is that we're all angels imprisoned in vessels of flesh.

The essence of professionalism is the focus upon the work and its demands, while we are doing it, to the exclusion of all else.

The hardest thing in the world is to be ourselves.

So she concentrates on technique. The professional masters how, and leaves what and why to the gods.

Do it or don't do it.

The sure sign of an amateur is he has a million plans and they all start tomorrow.

Next morning I went over to Paul's for coffee and told him I had finished. "Good for you," he said without looking up. "Start the next one today.

Resistance is not a peripheral opponent. Resistance arises from within. It is self-generated and self-perpetuated. resistance is the enemy within.

It's better to be in the arena, getting stomped by the bull, than to be up in the stands or out in the parking lot.