Stillness Is The Key Quotes
"The problem was the ear-shattering, soul-rattling noise that poured in from the street below."
"The noise and distractions of the empire were enough 'to make me hate my very powers of hearing,' Seneca told a friend."
"Seneca’s life was falling apart. It was crisis upon crisis upon crisis."
"To Seneca and to his fellow adherents of Stoic philosophy, if a person could develop peace within themselves—then the whole world could be at war, and they could still think well, work well, and be well."
"All of humanity’s problems," Blaise Pascal said in 1654, "stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone."
"Stillness allows us to persevere. To succeed."
"Stillness is the key to, well, just about everything."
"Stillness is what aims the archer’s arrow. It inspires new ideas."
"Being present demands all of us. It’s not nothing. It may be the hardest thing in the world."
"The best athletes, in the biggest games, are completely there. They are within themselves, within the now."
"We are not present... and so we miss out. On life. On being our best. On seeing what’s there."
"The real present moment is what we choose to exist in, instead of lingering on the past or fretting about the future."
"If you wish to improve," Epictetus once said, "be content to appear clueless or stupid in extraneous matters."
"Knowing what not to think about. What to ignore and not to do. It’s your first and most important job."
"What stands in your way is that you have too much willful will."
"The hits on the target are only the outward proof and confirmation of your purposelessness at its highest, of your egolessness, your self-abandonment, or whatever you like to call this state."
"If you just look for it, you discover more and more happiness and regain your balance."
"We’ll think better if we aren’t thinking so hard."
"The more at peace we are, the more productive we can be."
"On the surface of the ocean there is stillness,"
"Mediocrity knows nothing higher than itself."
"Anger is counterproductive... The person we yelled at is now an enemy."
"The Buddhists believed that anger was a kind of tiger within us... we need to tame that tiger before it kills us."
"People who are driven by anger are not happy. They are not still."
"All that you behold, that which comprises both god and man, is one—we are the parts of one great body." - Seneca
"The realization that we are all one, that we are all in this together, is the only thing that truly matters."
"The truly philosophical view is that not only is originality necessary, but everyone is necessary."
"To understand all is to forgive all. To love all is to be at peace with all, including yourself."
"In every situation ask: What is it? Why does it matter? Do I need it? Do I want it?"
"Few in the world attain these [advantages of nonaction]."
"It is only ideas gained from walking that have any worth." - Friedrich Nietzsche
"The more of the details of our daily life we can hand over to the effortless custody of automatism, the more our higher powers of mind will be set free."
"A master is in control. A master has a system. A master turns the ordinary into the sacred."
"You were born free—free of stuff, free of burden."
"Solitude allows you to reflect while others are reacting."
"Work is what horses die of. Everybody should know that." - Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
"Sleep is the source of all health and energy." - Arthur Schopenhauer
"Sleep is the other side of the work we’re doing—sleep is the recharging of the internal batteries whose energy stores we recruit in order to do our work."
"A smart person understands this and guards it carefully."
"They protect their sleep because it’s where the best state of mind comes from."
"According to Ericsson, great players nap more than lesser ones."
"It was the product of a rested mind that took care of its body."
"Leisure historically meant simply freedom from the work needed to survive, freedom for intellectual or creative pursuits."
"Leisure is not the absence of activity, it is activity."
"Leisure can be anything. It can be cutting down trees, or learning another language."
"Life is about balance, not about swinging from one pole to the other."
"Leisure is also a reward for the work we do."
"We must be disciplined about our discipline and moderate in our moderation."
"You were given one body when you were born—don’t try to be someone else, somewhere else."
"If you see fraud, and do not say fraud, you are a fraud."
"If we want to be good and feel good, we have to do good."
"We must learn to think rationally and clearly about our own fate."
"We must find spiritual meaning and goodness while we are alive."