Stillness is the Key (Ryan Holiday)

Quotes from Stillness is the Key by Ryan Holiday:

• “You may be sure that you are at peace with yourself when no noise reaches you, when no word shakes you out of yourself, whether it be flattery or a threat, or merely an empty sound buzzing about you with unmeanining sin” — Seneca
• To be steady while the world spins around you. To act without frenzy. To hear only what needs to be heard. To possess quietude — exterior and interior — on command.
• We are overfed and undernourished. Overstimulated, overscheduled, and lonely.
• All of humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone. — Blaise Pascal
• Be here. Be all of you. Be present.
• A wealth of information creates a poverty of attention — Herbert Simon
• To become empty is to become one with the divine — this is the Way. — Awa Kenzo
• All profound things, and emotions of things are preceded and attended by Silence….Silence is the general consecration of the universe. - Herman Melville
• Imperturbable wisdom is worth everything — Democritus
• This is also confidence. Which needs neither congratulations nor glory in which to revel, because it is an honest understanding of our strengths and weakness that reveals the path to a greater glory: inner peace and a clear mind.
• Character is fate — Heraclitus
• When you realize there is nothing lacking, the whole world belongs to you — Lao Tzu
• Nothing is enough for the man to whom enough is too little — Epicurus
• Very few go astray who comport themselves with restraint — Confucius
• “The advantages of nonaction. Few in the world attain these.” — The Daodejing
• The gentleman makes things his servants. The petty man is servant to things.
• “If a man can reduce his needs to zero, he is truly free: there is nothing that can be taken from him and nothing anyone can do to hurt him” — John Boyd
• The person who is afraid to lose their stuff, who has their identity wrapped up in their things, gives their enemies an opening. They make themselves extra vulnerable to fate.
• Sleep is the interest we have to pay on the capital which is called in at death. The higher the interest rate and the more regularity it is paid, the further the date of redemption is postponed.
• As a well-spent day brings a happy sleep, so a well-employed life brings a happy death — Leonardo da Vinci