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Steven Pressfield Quotes | Quotes said by Steven Pressfield

  • Steven Pressfield Quote #1

    . . . None of us are born as passive generic blobs waiting for the world to stamp its imprint on us. Instead we show up possessing already a highly refined and individuated soul.

    Another way of thinking of it is: We're not born with unlimited choices.

    We can't be anything we want to be.

    We come into this world with a specific, personal destiny. We have a job to do, a calling to enact, a self to become. We are who we are from the cradle, and we're stuck with it.

    Our job in this lifetime is not to shape ourselves into some ideal we imagine we ought to be, but to find out who we already are and become it.

  • Steven Pressfield Quote #2

    ...she (the artist, the writer) doesn't wait for inspiration, she acts in the anticipation of its apparition.

  • Steven Pressfield Quote #3

    A cavalryman's horse should be smarter than he is. But the horse must never be alowed to know this.

  • Steven Pressfield Quote #4

    A horse must be a bit mad to be a good cavalry mount, and its rider must be completely so.

  • Steven Pressfield Quote #5

    A work-in-progress generates its own energy field. You, the artist or entrepreneur, are pouring love into the work; you are suffusing it with passion and intention and hope.

  • Steven Pressfield Quote #6

    A writer writes with his genius; an artist paints with hers; everyone who creates operates from this sacramental center.

  • Steven Pressfield Quote #7

    Always attack. Even in defense, attack. The attacking arm possesses the
    initiative and thus commands the action. To attack makes men brave; to defend
    makes them timorous.

  • Steven Pressfield Quote #8

    Anything that draws attention to ourselves through pain-free or artificial means is a manifestation of Resistance.

  • Steven Pressfield Quote #9

    Are you a born writer? Were you put on earth to be a painter, a scientist, an apostle of peace? In the end the question can only be answered by action.

    Do it or don't do it.

    It may help to think of it this way. If you were meant to cure cancer or write a symphony or crack cold fusion and you don't do it, you not only hurt yourself, even destroy yourself,. You hurt your children. You hurt me. You hurt the planet.

    You shame the angels who watch over you and you spite the Almighty, who created you and only you with your unique gifts, for the sole purpose of nudging the human race one millimeter farther along its path back to God.

    Creative work is not a selfish act or a bid for attention on the part of the actor. It's a gift to the world and every being in it. Don't cheat us of your contribution. Give us what you've got.

  • Steven Pressfield Quote #10

    Artists, writers and people in creative fields are entrepreneurs by necessity. Nobody gives them a paycheck or picks up their medical insurance. The ones who succeed learn to think and act like 'independent operators.' I think people who are technically 'employees' have to think this way as well. The company is not looking out for you.

  • Steven Pressfield Quote #11

    As powerful as is our soul's call, so potent are the forces of Resistance arrayed against it. We're not alone if we've been mowed down by Resistance; millions of good men and women have bitten the dust before us.

  • Steven Pressfield Quote #12

    At least twice a week, I pause in the rush of work and have a meeting with myself. (If I were part of a team, I’d call a team meeting.) I ask myself, again, of the project: “What is this damn thing about?” Keep refining your understanding of the theme; keep narrowing it down.

  • Steven Pressfield Quote #13

    Do we have to stare death in the face to make us stand up and confront Resistance?

  • Steven Pressfield Quote #14

    Fame Imperishable and glory that will never die -- that is what we march for!

  • Steven Pressfield Quote #15

    Fear doesn’t go away. The warrior and the artist live by the same code of necessity, which dictates that the battle must be fought anew every day.

  • Steven Pressfield Quote #16

    Fear is good. Like self-doubt, fear is an indicator. Fear tells us what we have to do.

    Remember our rule of thumb: The more scared we are of a work or calling, the more sure we can be that we have to do it.

    Resistance is experienced as fear; the degree of fear equates to the strength of Resistance. Therefore the more fear we feel about a specific enterprise, the more certain we can be that that enterprise is important to us and to the growth of our soul. That's why we feel so much Resistance. If it meant nothing to us, there'd be no Resistance.

  • Steven Pressfield Quote #17

    He who whets his steel, whets his courage.

  • Steven Pressfield Quote #18

    I wouldn’t say “art” as much as “virtue,” in the ancient Greek sense of “andreia” – manly action – or “arete,” excellence. In my experience, Resistance kicks in any time we try to move ourselves from a lower plane to a higher. In other words, when we try to align with the better parts of our nature. This move can be creative (art) or physical (athletics) or it can be ethical, moral or spiritual. Have you ever tried to meditate? I have and it kicks my butt every time. Spiritual stuff is hard! But so is making “cold calls” if you’re opening a new business. Somehow the principle is the same. We’re trying to overcome our natural laziness, selfishness, sloppiness, etc. So I wouldn’t say “art,” I’d say “virtue.

  • Steven Pressfield Quote #19

    If you're are paralyzed with fear it's a good sign. It shows you what you have to do.

  • Steven Pressfield Quote #20

    In my younger days dodging the draft, I somehow wound up in the Marine Corps. There's a myth that Marine training turns baby-faced recruits into bloodthirsty killers. Trust me, the Marine Corps is not that efficient. What it does teach, however, is a lot more useful.

    The Marine Corps teaches you how to be miserable.
    This is invaluable for an artist.

    Marines love to be miserable. Marines derive a perverse satisfaction in having colder chow, crappier equipment, and higher casualty rates than any outfit of dogfaces, swab jockeys, or flyboys, all of whom they despise. Why? Because these candy-asses don't know how to be miserable.

    The artist committing himself to his calling has volunteered for hell, whether he knows it or not. He will be dining for the duration on a diet of isolation, rejection, self-doubt, despair, ridicule, contempt, and humiliation.

    The artist must be like that Marine. He has to know how to be miserable. He has to love being miserable. He has to take pride in being more miserable than any soldier or swabbie or jet jockey. Because this is war, baby. And war is hell.
    Page 68

  • Steven Pressfield Quote #21

    In other words, any act that rejects immediate gratification in favor of long-term grown, health, or integrity. Or, expressed another way, any act that derives from our high nature instead of our lower. Any of these will elicit Resistance.

  • Steven Pressfield Quote #22

    In their minds it is the mark of an ill-prepared and amateur army to rely in the moments before battle on what they call pseudoandreia, false courage, meaning the artificially inflated martial frenzy produced by a general's eleventh-hour harangue or some peak of bronze-banging bravado built to by shouting, shield-pounding and the like[...] It made no difference. None was a match for the warriors of Lakedaemon, and all knew it.

  • Steven Pressfield Quote #23

    It can pay off, being a hack. Given the depraved state of American culture, a slick dude can make millions being a hack. But even if you succeed, you lose, because you've sold out your Muse, and your Muse is you, the best part of yourself, where your finest and only true work comes from.

  • Steven Pressfield Quote #24

    It's not the writing part that's hard. What's hard is sitting down to write.

    What keeps us from sitting down is Resistance.

  • Steven Pressfield Quote #25

    Its [Resistance] aim is to shove us away, distract us from doing our work.

  • Steven Pressfield Quote #26

    Lat at nigh have you experienced a vision of the person you might become, the work you could accomplish, the realized being you were mean to be? Are you a writer who doesn't write, a painter who doesn't pain, an entrepreneur who never starts a venture? Then you know what Resistance is.

  • Steven Pressfield Quote #27

    Like a magnetized needle floating on a surface of oil, Resistance will unfailingly point to true North - meaning that calling or action it most wants to stop us from doing.

    We can use this. We can use it as a compass. We can navigate by Resistance, letting it guide us to that calling or action that we must follow before all others.

  • Steven Pressfield Quote #28

    Long-term, we must begin to build our internal strengths. It isn't just skills like computer technology. It's the old-fashioned basics of self-reliance, self-motivation, self-reinforcement, self-discipline, self-command.

  • Steven Pressfield Quote #29

    My wish for you, Kallistos, is that you survive as many battles in the flesh as you have already fought in your imagination. Perhaps then you will acquire the humility of a man and bear yourself no longer as the demigod you presume yourself to be.

  • Steven Pressfield Quote #30

    Never forget: This very moment, we can change our lives. There never was a moment, and never will be, when we are without the power to alter our destiny. This second, we can turn the tables on Resistance. This second, we can sit down and do our work.

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