Do "nice guys finish last?" Or first? Do quitters never win? Or is stubbornness the real enemy? Does confidence rule the day? When it is just a delusion?
June 12th: A trained mind is better than any script
Ryan Holiday, The 366 Meditations on Wisdom, Perseverance, and the Art of Living
In this way you must understand how laughable it is to say, "Tell me what to do!" What advice could I possibly give? No, a far better request is, "Train my mind to adapt to any circumstance"... In this way, if circumstances take you off script... you won't be deperate for a new prompting. —Epictetus, Discourses, 2.2.20b-1;24b-25a
Ryan Holiday, The 366 Meditations on Wisdom, Perseverance, and the Art of Living
At this moment you aren't on a journey, but wandering about being driven from place to place, even though what you seek — to live well — is found in all places more full of confusion than the Forum? Yet even there you can live at peace, if needed. — Seneca, Moral Letters, 28.5b-6a
Ryan Holiday, The 366 Meditations on Wisdom, Perseverance, and the Art of Living
For even peace itself will supply more reason to worry. Not even safe circumstances will bring you confidence once your mind has been shocked — once it get in the habit of blind panic, it can't provide for its own safety. For it doesn't really avoid danger, it just runs away. Yet we are exposed to greater danger with our backs turned. — Seneca, Moral Letters, 104.10b
Ryan Holiday, The 366 Meditations on Wisdom, Perseverance, and the Art of Living
Don't trust in your reputation, money, or position, but in the strength that is yours — namely, your judgments about the things that you control. For this alone is what makes us free and unfettered, that picks us up by the neck from the depths and lifts us eye to eye with the rich and powerful. — Epictetus, Discourses, 3.26.34-35
Ryan Holiday, The 366 Meditations on Wisdom, Perseverance, and the Art of Living
The person who has practiced philosophy as a cure for the self becomes great of soul, filled with confidence, invincible — and greater as you draw near. — Seneca, Moral Letters, 111.2
Ryan Holiday, The 366 Meditations on Wisdom, Perseverance, and the Art of Living
Every great power is dangerous for the beginner. You must therefore wield them as you are able, but in harmony with nature.— Epictetus, Discourses, 3.13.20
Ryan Holiday, The 366 Meditations on Wisdom, Perseverance, and the Art of Living
Don't you know life is like a military campaign? One must serve on watch, another in reconnaissance, another on the front line... So it is for us —each person's life is a kind of battle, and a long and varied one too. You must keep watch like a soldier and do everything commanded... You have been stationed in a key post, not some lowly place, and not for a short time but for life. —Epictetus, Discourses, 3.24.31-36
