Ego Is The Enemy Quotes
"The comedian Bill Hicks said the world was tainted with fevered egos. In Ego Is the Enemy, Ryan Holiday writes us all a prescription: humility."
"Whether you’re starting out or starting over, you’ll find something to steal here."
"This is a book I want every athlete, aspiring leader, entrepreneur, thinker, and doer to read."
"I see the toxic vanity of ego at play every day."
"I don’t have many rules in life, but one I never break is: If Ryan Holiday writes a book, I read it as soon as I can get my hands on it."
"In his new book Ryan Holiday attacks the greatest obstacle to mastery and true success in life—our insatiable ego."
"We’re often told that to achieve success, we need confidence. Ryan Holiday challenges that assumption."
"Every reader will find truths that are pertinent to each of our lives. Ego can be the enemy."
"The idea of success is skewed—many believing the road to their goals is a linear path."
"Philosophy has gotten a bad rap, but Ryan Holiday is restoring it to its rightful place in our lives."
"I would like to rip out every page and use them as wallpaper so I could be reminded constantly of the humility and work it takes to truly succeed."
"What a valuable book for those in positions of authority! It has made me a better judge."
"Success comes the temptation to tell oneself a story, to round off the edges, to cut out your lucky breaks and add a certain mythology to it all."
"It’s always nice to be made to feel special or empowered or inspired. But that’s not the aim of this book."
"It doesn’t matter how talented you are, how great your connections are, how much money you have. When you want to do something big and important, you will be subjected to treatment ranging from indifference to outright sabotage."
"Those who have subdued their ego understand that it doesn’t degrade you when others treat you poorly; it degrades them."
"Instead, you must do nothing. Take it. Eat it until you’re sick. Endure it. Quietly brush it off and work harder."
"Restraint is a difficult skill but a critical one."
"It is a timeless fact of life that the up-and-coming must endure the abuses of the entrenched."
"A person who thinks all the time has nothing to think about except thoughts, so he loses touch with reality and lives in a world of illusions."
"It’s always dangerous to psychologize a writer based on his work, but these are famously autobiographical novels."
"The way to do really big things seems to be to start with deceptively small things."
"The best plan is only good intentions unless it degenerates into work."
"Work is pushing through the pain and crappy first drafts and prototypes."
"We feel the life and motion about us, and the universal beauty."
"Everywhere, everywhere, beauty and life, and glad, rejoicing action."
"It is in these moments that we’re not only free but drawn toward important questions: Who am I? What am I doing? What is my role in this world?"
"Nothing draws us away from those questions like material success."
"When we lack a connection to anything larger or bigger than us, it’s like a piece of our soul is gone."
"No wonder we find success empty. No wonder we’re exhausted."
"Here’s an exercise: walk onto an ancient battlefield or a place of historical significance."
"Embrace the power of this position and learn from it. It is an exhilarating feeling to grasp this, like the one that Muir felt in Alaska."
"When I look up in the universe, I know I’m small, but I’m also big."
"Creativity is a matter of receptiveness and recognition."
"By removing the ego—even temporarily—we can access what’s left standing in relief."
"It’s sad how disconnected from the past and the future most of us really are."
"The height of cultivation runs to simplicity."
"We think that people become successful through sheer energy and enthusiasm."
"Protecting our sobriety, eschewing greed and paranoia, staying humble, retaining our sense of purpose."
"The evidence is in, and you are the verdict."
"What matters to an active man is to do the right thing; whether the right thing comes to pass should not bother him."
"If you shut up truth and bury it under the ground, it will but grow."
"We have to fight to stay sober, despite the many different forces swirling around our ego."