Ryan Holiday

There is nothing to be learned from the tragic rise and fall of public men that we see on blogs. That is not their function. Their degradation is mere spectacle that blogs use to sublimate the general anxieties of their readers. To make us feel better by hurting others. To stress that the people we’re reading about are freaks, while we are normal.

I recently grew my hair out a little differently. Yeah, I know that’s a weird thing to start an article with, but I promise this isn’t as self-indulgent as it sounds.

Obsessing about winning is a loser’s game: The most we can hope for is to create the best possible conditions for success, then let go of the outcome. The ride is a lot more fun that way.

If an undertaking was easy, someone else already would have done it.

We’ve all had to try to sneakily adjust–or worse, sat there and pretended it wasn’t torture–because that’s what guys do. Does it really have to be that way?

The mean in life, we must never forget, is punctuated bursts of violence and destruction and someone else’s whim.

Good stuff is the ultimate scarcity. And the market for it is basically infinite.

Very few people wake up and think “I need philosophy.” This is perfectly understandable. But of course, everyone has their own problems and are dealing with the difficulties of life in some way or another.

Books last because they have a unique voice, solve a common problem, and stand the test of time, not because of something as ephemeral as a trending topic.

“A book should be an axe to break the frozen sea within us.” – Kafka

Being really good at one thing is incredibly hard. Being really good at two things seems impossible. But being good at several things can actually make things easier.

People say that visiting and living in New York City are very different things. I’ve found that they are exactly the same and that’s why it is a bad place to live.