Steven Pressfield quotes - page 7

We come into this world with a specific, personal destiny. We have a job to do, a calling to enact, a self to become. We are who we are from the cradle, and we're stuck with it. (Steven Pressfield)
Ambition, I have come to believe, is the most primal and sacred and fundament of our being. To feel ambition and to act upon it is to embrace the unique calling of our souls. Not to act upon that ambition is to turn our backs on ourselves and on the reason for our existence. View quote
Steven Pressfield
Be too dumb to quit and too stubborn to back off. View quote
Steven Pressfield
That's why an artist must be a warrior and, like all warriors, artists over time acquire modesty and humility. They may, some of them, conduct themselves flamboyantly in public. But alone with the work they are chaste and humble. They know they are not the source of the creations they bring into being. They only facilitate. They carry. They are the willing and skilled instruments of the gods and goddesses they serve. View quote
Steven Pressfield
Making a judgment, taking a stand and then acting against an injustice or acting to support excellence is the stuff of the everyman hero. If you are an aspiring artist and you wish to avoid "judgments,” you'll find that you have nothing to say. View quote
Steven Pressfield
You know, Hitler wanted to be an artist. At eighteen he took his inheritance, seven hundred kronen, and moved to Vienna to live and study... Ever see one of his paintings? Neither have I. Resistance beat him. Call it overstatement but I'll say it anyway: it was easier for Hitler to start World War II than it was for him to face a blank square of canvas. View quote
Steven Pressfield
Tomorrow morning the critic will be gone, but the writer will still be there facing the blank page. Nothing matters but that he keep working. View quote
Steven Pressfield
The part we create from can't be touched by anything our parents did, or society did. That part is unsullied, uncorrupted; soundproof, waterproof, and bulletproof. In fact, the more troubles we've got, the better and richer that part becomes. View quote
Steven Pressfield
The professional arms himself with patience, not only to give the stars time to align in his career, but to keep himself from flaming out in each individual work. View quote
Steven Pressfield
The only intercourse possible between the knight and the dragon is battle. View quote
Steven Pressfield
Seeking support from friends and and family is like having people gathered around at your deathbed. It's nice, but when the ship sails, all they can do is stand on the dock waving goodbye. (Steven Pressfield)
As artists and professionals, it is our obligation to enact our own internal revolution, a private insurrection inside our own skulls. In this uprising we free ourselves from the tyranny of consumer culture. View quote
Steven Pressfield
As resistance works to keep us from becoming who we were born to be, equal and opposite powers are counterpoised against it. These are our allies and angels. View quote
Steven Pressfield
In other words, any act that rejects immediate gratification in favor of long-term grown, health, or integrity. Or, expressed another way, any act that derives from our high nature instead of our lower. Any of these will elicit Resistance. View quote
Steven Pressfield
The professional conducts his business in the real world. Adversity, injustice, bad hops and rotten calls, even good breaks and lucky bounces all comprise the ground over which the campaign must be waged. The field is level, the professional understands, only in heaven. View quote
Steven Pressfield
Do we have to stare death in the face to make us stand up and confront Resistance? View quote
Steven Pressfield
We're wrong if we think we're the only ones struggling with Resistance. Everyone who has a body experiences Resistance. View quote
Steven Pressfield
On the field of The Self stand a knight and a dragon. You are the knight. Resistance is the dragon. View quote
Steven Pressfield
It may be that the human race is not ready for freedom. The air of liberty may be too rarefied for us to breathe... The paradox seems to be, as Socrates demonstrated long ago, that the truly free individual is free only to the extent of his own self-mastery. While those who will not govern themselves are condemned to find masters to govern over them. View quote
Steven Pressfield
The professional does not permit himself to become hidebound within one incarnation, however comfortable or successful. Like a transmigrating soul, he shucks his outworn body and dons a new one. He continues his journey. View quote
Steven Pressfield
You and I may only be mortals, with all the foolishness and fallibility that that state implies, but we're mortals made in the image of heaven. The gods can't do their work without us. So let's be bold, in their cause and in our own. It's our job, we humans, to make manifest that which is unmanifest-and to raise into consciousness, in this material dimension, that which had been known before only in heaven. (Steven Pressfield)
Contempt for failure is our cardinal virtue. View quote
Steven Pressfield
Fear doesn't go away. The battle must be fought anew every day. View quote
Steven Pressfield
Playing for money, or adopting the attitude of one who plays for money, lowers the fever. View quote
Steven Pressfield
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. View quote
Steven Pressfield