Discipline is Destiny: Powerful Quotes on Self-Discipline

Below are the quotes and notes I took while reading Discipline is Destiny by Ryan Holiday:

• Persist and resist — Epictetus
• We mistake liberty for license.
• [Note]: Liberty and license are not the same—the latter abuses the former.
• License: Excess of liberty; exorbitant freedom; freedom abused, or used in contempt of law or decorum.
• Freedom requires discipline. Discipline gives us freedom.
• When you love the work, you don’t cheat it or the demands it asks of you. You respect even the most trivial aspects of the pursuit.
• Once you start compromising, well, now you’re compromised.
• The obligation of a champion is to act like a champion.
• The body is a metaphor. It’s a training ground, a proving ground for the mind and the soul.
• You say you love what you do. Where is your proof? What kind of streak do you have to show for it?
• Attack the dawn: Wake up. Show up. Be present. Give it everything you’ve got.
• [Marcus Aurelius in Meditations]: Is this what I was created for? To huddle under the blankets and stay warm?
• [Paraphrase]: The point of frugality is not deprivation, it is independence.
• “Freedom is what we reap from this way of life” — A Spartan king when asked about the benefits of spartan habits.
• By being a little hard on ourselves, it makes it harder for others to be hard on us. By being strict with ourselves, we take away others’ power over us.
• [Paraphrase]: Real wealth is autonomy.
• [Maxwell Perkins]: “The more a man is, the less he wants. When you strip away the unnecessary and the excessive, what’s left is you. What’s left is what’s important”
• The less you desire, the richer you are, the freer you are, the more powerful you are. It’s that simple.
• The space where great work is done is holy. We must respect it.
• Be regular and orderly in your life, so that you can be violent and original in your work.
• Clean up your desk. Make your bed. Get your things in order. Now get after it.
• Show up … when you’re tired; when you don’t have to; even if you have an excuse; even if you’re busy; even if you won’t get recognized for it.
• One thing a day adds up. Each day adds up. But the numbers are only interesting if they accumulate in large quantities.
• [Zelda Fitzgerald]: It is the loose ends with which men hang themselves.
• Get the little things right.
• To last, to be great, you have to understand how to rest.
• The decisions we make today and always are being recorded, daily, silently, in who we are, what we look like, how we feel.
• We choose the hard way … because in the long run, it’s actually the only way.
• [Edited]: The flip side of privilege is duty. Power must be complemented by restraint.
• Greatness is not just what one does, but also what one refuses to do.
• [Stoics]: If you don’t know where you are sailing, no wind is favorable.
• The secret to success in almost all fields is large, uninterrupted blocks of focused time.
• This is why finishing is itself an achievement, an act of monumental discipline that must happen.
• Do the hard things first.
• [Horace]: He who postpones the hour of living right is like the rustic who waits for the river to run dry before the crosses.
• Silence is strength.
• An expert on speaking also knows when not to do so.
• [A famous spartan]: … it was impossible to find a man who knew more but spoke less
• You can decide not to speak through words at all … and let your work speak for you.
• Decide what you want or ought to do during the day, then always do it exactly the same moment every day, and passion will give you no trouble.
• If you’re not giving your best, why are you doing it at all?
• Show, not tell.
• First in line for duty, last in line for recognition.
• Greatness isn’t what you have. It’s who you choose to become. Or who you choose to remain.
• [Epaminondas]: It is not the office that brings distinction to the man, it is the man who brings distinction to the office.
• [Paraphrase}: The past is important, but not a prison.