Steven Pressfield Quotes
Top 100 wise famous quotes and sayings by Steven Pressfield
Steven Pressfield Famous Quotes & Sayings
Discover top inspirational quotes from Steven Pressfield on Wise Famous Quotes.
When we see others beginning to live their authentic selves, it drives us crazy if we have not lived out our own.
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.
She (the artist, the writer) doesn't wait for inspiration, she acts in the anticipation of its apparition.
Leonidas's and Dienekes' quips draw the individual out of his private terror and yoke him to the group.
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.
plunge at once into matters as a Greek would, but offered first prayers for the free people's well-being.
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.
The working artist will not tolerate trouble in her life because she knows trouble prevents her from doing her work.
The artist and the fundamentalist both confront the same issue, the mystery of their existence as individuals.
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.
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 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.
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.
The only items you get to keep are love for the work, will to finish, and passion to serve the ethical, creative Muse.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
Casting yourself as a victim is the antithesis of doing your work. Don't do it. If you're doing it, stop.
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.
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.
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.
The essence of professionalism is the focus upon the work and its demands, while we are doing it, to the exclusion of all else.
So she concentrates on technique. The professional masters how, and leaves what and why to the gods.
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.