Quotes

The motto of the philosopher Epicurus, which was taken up by the great essayist Montaigne as well, was lathe biōsas. Live in obscurity.
The French saying, Pour vivre heureux, vivons cachés: ‘In order to live happily, live hidden.’
— Ryan Holiday

Freedom of the mind requires not only, or not even specially, the absence of legal constraints but the presence of alternative thoughts. The most successful tyranny is not the one that uses force to assure uniformity but the one that removes the awareness of other possibilities.
— Allan Bloom, The Closing of the American Mind

Yet if a student can – and this is most difficult and unusual – draw back, get a critical distance on what he clings to, come to doubt the ultimate value of what he loves, he has taken the first and most difficult step toward the philosophic conversion. — Indignation is the soul’s defense against the wound of doubt about its own; it reorders the cosmos to support the justice of its cause. It justifies putting Socrates to death. — Recognizing indignation for what it is constitutes knowledge of the soul, and thus an experience more philosophic than the study of mathematics.
— Allan Bloom, The Closing of the American Mind

Relax. Look around. Make a call.
— Jocko Willink

The best lack all conviction, while the worst are filled with passionate intensity.
— Yeats

You have to keep a dozen of your favorite problems constantly present in your mind, although by and large they will lay in a dormant state. Every time you hear or read a new trick or a new result, test it against each of your twelve problems to see whether it helps. Every once in a while there will be a hit, and people will say, ‘How did he do it? He must be a genius!
— Richard Feynman

So it’s thanks to that Magna Carta
that was signed with the barons of old
that in England today we can do as we like — so long as we do as we’re told.
— recalled from boyhood by Alan Watts

We can’t slap trigger warnings all over the last ten thousand years because Hobbes was right––it was all pretty nasty and brutish.
— Jamie Wheal

Whiteness is also a bizarre and recent construction, and insisting achronically that it is pervasive, timeless and eternal, and underpins all of Western Civilization, does grave injustice to Persians, Egyptians, Hindus, Slavs, Celts, Roma, Semites (both Arab and Jewish), and hundreds of other civilizations whose fingerprints are all over the Western Canon.
— Jamie Wheal

Who knows only his own generation remains forever a child.
— Churchill

He never exhibited rudeness, lost control of himself, or turned violent. No one ever saw him sweat. Everything was to be approached logically and with due consideration, in a calm and orderly fashion but decisively, with no loose ends.

Action is a test of learning, but only the learner can know the motive or the out come of the tests.
— James Zull

Evil resides in the very gaze which perceives Evil all around itself.
— Hegel

Only by the creation of change can I perceive something.
— Gregory Bateson

Don’t talk about your philosophy, embody it.
— Epictetus

Objective judgement, now at this very moment. Unselfish action, now at this very moment. Willing acceptance—now at this very moment—of all external events. That’s all you need.
— Marcus Aurelius

Practice becomes firmly established when it has been cultivated uninterruptedly and with devotion over a prolonged period of time.
— Yoga Sutras

Having a routine makes for a better professional.
— Iman Shumpert

Our brains are designed to solve some of our most complex problems when we’re distracted by routine habits.
— Charles Best

Routinize the routine. The things that aren’t important to you, whether it’s breakfast or your commute, try to do them with the least energy possible so that leaves you with more energy for other things.
— Robert Pozen

Novelists do not write as birds sing, by the push of nature. It is part of the job that there should be much routine and some daily stuff on the level of carpentry.
— William Golding

When you have a system, you kind of get in a routine of what’s important. And then you spend a lot more time on thinking of things that would make it better.
— Nick Saban

… stop-and-go traffic wears more on a vehicle than consistent-speed highway driving. No matter our driving habits, we all know we must regularly maintain our car’s vitals – oil, tires, brakes, etc. Similarly, our brains and bodies perform best with a mindful focus on tasks and a routine maintenance of healthy habits.
— Dinesh Paliwal

Celebrate life in all its glory – challenge yourself to let the routine sing, and the new dance.
— Maximillian Degenerez

The first step to take to wake up earlier is to have a nighttime routine that not only encourages you to fall asleep but also guarantees you’ll sleep soundly each and every night.
— John Rampton

The secret of your future is hidden in your daily routine.
— Mike Murdock

No matter what your job is, you know that you need to have a routine, that you need to be disciplined, you need to work.
— J. B. Bickerstaff

I like having a routine, because everything else… is so unpredictable.
— Jordana Brewster

One of my key mental fitness tips is to make sure you are aware of your target and develop a strategy – a routine that you can depend on while in the race. This is a crucial part of mental fitness and preparation.
— Nino Schurter

I want to fit everything I love in my daily routine.
— Jessica Jung

I’ve been through the routine so many times that I genuinely don’t even think about a big fight very much beforehand.
— Joe Calzaghe

Discipline is just doing the same thing the right way whether anyone’s watching or not.
— Michael J. Fox

Confidence comes from discipline and training.
— Robert Kiyosaki

The discipline of writing something down is the first step toward making it happen.
— Lee Iacocca

Without discipline, there’s no life at all.
— Katharine Hepburn

I had to learn, really, how to rein in my energies and discipline myself. And I found it very very useful. I rebelled against it at first, but it’s a good thing to have.
— Patti Smith

Education must lead us from the irresponsible opinion to true responsible judgment. It must lead us from chance and arbitrariness to rational clarity and intellectual order. Therefore, let us guide our students over the road of discipline from materials, through function, to creative work.
— Ludwig Mies van der Rohe

I think there’s some connection between absolute discipline and absolute freedom.
— Alan Rickman

In the last analysis, our only freedom is the freedom to discipline ourselves.
— Bernard Baruch

Age acquires no value save through thought and discipline.
— James Truslow Adams

The forthputting of willpower is a means of strengthening willpower. The will becomes strong by exercise. To stick to a thing till you are master is a test of intellectual discipline and power.
— Orison Swett Marden

The age in which we live, this non-stop distraction, is making it more impossible for the young generation to ever have the curiosity or discipline… because you need to be alone to find out anything.
— Vivienne Westwood

The best do sweat the small stuff. They get the seemingly insignificant details right. They have the discipline to shine at the baby things which they get gives birth to spectacular giant things.
— Robin S. Sharma

Your billion-dollar ideas don’t show up in the middle of dramatic distraction. They show up when you have the business and personal discipline to make space for your creative mind to flourish.
— Robin S. Sharma

Some people regard discipline as a chore. For me, it is a kind of order that sets me free to fly.
— Julie Andrews

The temptation to take the easy road is always there. It is as easy as staying in bed in the morning and sleeping in. But discipline is paramount to ultimate success and victory for any leader and any team.
— Jocko Willink

The moment the alarm goes off is the first test; it sets the tone for the rest of the day. The test is not a complex one: when the alarm goes off, do you get up out of bed, or do you lie there in comfort and fall back to sleep? If you have the discipline to get out of bed, you win – you pass the test.
— Jocko Willink

There is one thing that gets you out of bed in the morning, and that is discipline. Because your dreams and your goals are not there waking up for you in the morning.
— Jocko Willink

While discipline and freedom seem like they sit on opposite sides of the spectrum, they are actually very connected.
— Jocko Willink

I would venture to guess that the biggest reason creative types don’t produce isn’t because they don’t have vision… or talent… in most cases, it’s a lack of discipline.
— Jocko Willink

Freedom is what everyone wants – to be able to act and live with freedom. But the only way to get to a place of freedom is through discipline.
— Jocko Willink

Waking up early was the first example I noticed in the SEAL Teams in which discipline was really the difference between being good and being exceptional.
— Jocko Willink

It doesn’t matter whether you are pursuing success in business, sports, the arts, or life in general: The bridge between wishing and accomplishing is discipline.
— Harvey Mackay

You need to constantly remind yourself what is the most important thing that is happening in the world – what is the most important thing that is happening in history. The discipline to have this focus is something I gained from meditation.
— Yuval Noah Harari

Success isn’t measured by money or power or social rank. Success is measured by your discipline and inner peace.
— Mike Ditka

In order to be responsible, you need some discipline in your life.
— Donatella Versace

Seek freedom and become captive of your desires. Seek discipline and find your liberty.
— Frank Herbert

The discipline you learn and character you build from setting and achieving a goal can be more valuable than the achievement of the goal itself.
— Bo Bennett

Discipline is the refining fire by which talent becomes ability.
— Roy L. Smith

I believe that through knowledge and discipline, financial peace is possible for all of us.
— Dave Ramsey

Basically, discipline, effort, patience and courage are hugely important core values for kids to grow up embracing.
— Karen Salmansohn

If I couldn’t have discipline, if I sit up eatin’ fried chicken in bed at night, I’d just as soon be dead. I take care of myself.
— Jim Brown

Discipline may be identified neither with an institution nor with an apparatus; it is a type of power, a modality for its exercise, comprising a whole set of instruments, techniques, procedures, levels of application, targets; it is a ‘physics’ or ‘anatomy’ of power, a technology.
— Michel Foucault

It is one thing to praise discipline, and another to submit to it.
— Miguel de Cervantes

It doesn’t matter what you’re trying to accomplish. It’s all a matter of discipline. I was determined to discover what life held for me beyond the inner-city streets.
— Wilma Rudolph

I believed in studying just because I knew education was a privilege. It was the discipline of study, to get into the habit of doing something that you don’t want to do.
— Wynton Marsalis

To become the kind of person you want to become, you’ve got to have discipline. It’s easier to keep to your standards 100 percent of the time versus 98 percent of the time.
— Clayton M. Christensen

I’ve learned over the years that freedom is just the other side of discipline.
— Jake Gyllenhaal

As long as you have discipline, you can be a success. Discipline is what makes you do everything you need to do.
— Anthony Joshua

Paying attention to what we allow ourselves to pay attention to is a tricky thing. It’s like being in two places at once but completely worth the discipline. We can react mindlessly or respond mindfully. It’s up to us.
— Tara Stiles

As a man may be born with a mathematical faculty, and by training that faculty year after year may immensely increase his mathematical capacity, so may a man be born with certain faculties within him, faculties belonging to the soul, which he can develop by training and by discipline.
— Annie Besant

When someone is successful, there’s always a feeling that they were lucky. Luck plays a part, sure, but to be successful, you must have iron discipline. You must have energy and hunger and desire and honesty.
— Faye Dunaway

Error is discipline through which we advance.
— William Ellery Channing

Progress takes time and discipline.
— Ronnie Coleman

Discipline is wisdom and vice versa.
— M. Scott Peck

Discipline is doing what you really don’t want to do so you can do what you really want to do.
— Jeff Fisher

Discipline is creating the situation.
— Shunryu Suzuki

Being the patriarch means having to exercise discipline every waking moment, and that includes the second you wake up.
— Gavin McInnes

The only discipline that lasts is self-discipline.
— Bum Phillips

I am a believer in discipline; it takes a lot to do well. You need discipline for those little excursions into the chaotic that make life interesting.
— Linda Ronstadt

Without hard work and discipline it is difficult to be a top professional.
— Jahangir Khan

Believe in yourself, and find ways to express yourself, and find the discipline to keep growing.
— Michael Feinstein

Once you have commitment, you need the discipline and hard work to get you there.
— Haile Gebrselassie

Few men are born brave. Many become so through training and force of discipline.
— Publius Flavius Vegetius Renatus

Affirmation without discipline is the beginning of delusion.
— Jim Rohn

Discipline is the bridge between goals and accomplishment.
— Jim Rohn

It’s absolutely true that unless you can instill discipline upon yourself, you will never be able to lead others.
— Zig Ziglar

Personal discipline, when it becomes a way of life in our personal, family, and career lives, will enable us to do some incredible things.
— Zig Ziglar

There is something good in men that really yearn for discipline.
— Vince Lombardi

It’s easy to have faith in yourself and have discipline when you’re a winner, when you’re number one. What you got to have is faith and discipline when you’re not a winner.
— Vince Lombardi

No evil propensity of the human heart is so powerful that it may not be subdued by discipline.
— Lucius Annaeus Seneca

Discipline yourself, and others won’t need to.
— John Wooden

Right discipline consists, not in external compulsion, but in the habits of mind which lead spontaneously to desirable rather than undesirable activities.
— Bertrand Russell

I have learned that I really do have discipline, self-control, and patience. But they were given to me as a seed, and it’s up to me to choose to develop them.
— Joyce Meyer

Most people want to avoid pain, and discipline is usually painful.
— John C. Maxwell

We must all suffer one of two things: the pain of discipline or the pain of regret or disappointment.
— Jim Rohn

Discipline is the soul of an army. It makes small numbers formidable; procures success to the weak, and esteem to all.
— George Washington

Winners embrace hard work. They love the discipline of it, the trade-off they’re making to win. Losers, on the other hand, see it as punishment. And that’s the difference.
— Lou Holtz

Most of us don’t mind doing what we ought to do when it doesn’t interfere with what we want to do, but it takes discipline and maturity to do what we ought to do whether we want to or not.
— Joseph B. Wirthlin

Genius at first is little more than a great capacity for receiving discipline.
— George Eliot

Even as you make progress, you need the discipline to keep from backtracking and sabotaging the success as it’s happening.
— Nipsey Hussle

I think of discipline as the continual everyday process of helping a child learn self-discipline.
— Fred Rogers

Talent without discipline is like an octopus on roller skates. There’s plenty of movement, but you never know if it’s going to be forward, backwards, or sideways.
— H. Jackson Brown, Jr.

The discipline of the written word punishes both stupidity and dishonesty.
— John Steinbeck

Read some good, heavy, serious books just for discipline: Take yourself in hand and master yourself.
— W. E. B. Du Bois

Discipline means to prevent everything in your life from being filled up. Discipline means that somewhere you’re not occupied, and certainly not preoccupied. In the spiritual life, discipline means to create that space in which something can happen that you hadn’t planned or counted on.
— Henri Nouwen

Contrary to popular belief, productivity isn’t about how much you can do. It’s about whether or not you’re doing the right things—the things that matter to your work and to you. And that means starting small with what you know matters to you.
— Melissa Steginus

Self-care is how you take your power back.
— Lalah Delia

For discipline is imposed not just on oneself but on those in one’s orbit.
— Philip Roth

Routine, in an intelligent man, is a sign of ambition.
— W. H. Auden

Routine is liberating, it makes you feel in control.
— Carol Shields

The Marquesa would even have been astonished to learn that her letters were very good, for such authors live always in the noble weather of their own minds and those productions which seem remarkable to us are little better than a day’s routine to them.
— Thornton Wilder

… a collective made up of individuals. Individuals need to make the right choices to make change. I always think of Gandhi’s saying, “be the change you want to see in the world.” The quote isn’t the easiest thing to implement, but it is something I try to live by.
— Ngozi Paul

Civilization advances by extending the number of important operations which we can perform without thinking about them.
— Alfred North Whitehead

The purpose of a habit is to remove that action from self-negotiation. You no longer expend energy deciding whether to do it. You just do it. Good habits can range from telling the truth, to flossing.
— Kevin Kelly

Simple, clear purpose and principles give rise to complex and intelligent behavior. Complex rules and regulations give rise to simple and stupid behavior.
— Dee Hock

I always wanted to be somebody. I should have been more specific.
— Lily Tomlin

Effective people are proactive and take personal responsibility for the events in their lives. They form a vision of how they want their life to be, and work toward achieving that vision. They identify problems in their lives, and work toward solutions to those problems.
— Michael A. Nielsen

The value of action is not in what observers perceive, but in what the learner perceives about his or her own actions. Action is a test of learning, but only the learner can know the motive or the outcome of the tests.
— James Zull

The soul should always stand ajar, ready to welcome the ecstatic experience.
— Emily Dickinson