Quotes from Steven Pressfield

If Resistance couldn't be beaten, there would be no Fifth Symphony, no Romeo and Juliet, no Golden Gate Bridge. Defeating Resistance is like giving birth. It seems absolutely impossible until you remember that women have been pulling it off successfully, with support and without, for fifty million years.

The amateur is often unkind or insensitive to others, but she saves her most exquisite cruelty for herself.

Miraculously, cancers go into remission. People recover. Is it possible, Tom Laughlin asks, that the disease itself evolved as a consequence of actions taken (or not taken) in our lives? Could our unlived lives have exacted their vengeance upon us in the form of cancer? And if they did, can we cure ourselves, now, by living these lives out?

That fearsome emotion that animates the female in all-female groups (called outere in Amazon and gynekophoitos in Greek)

We're facing dragons too. Fire-breathing griffins of the soul, whom we must outfight and outwit to reach the treasure of our self-in-potential and to release the maiden who is God's plan and destiny for ourselves and the answer to why we were put on this planet.

In other words, any act that rejects immediate gratification in favor of long-term growth, health, or integrity.

The more important a call or action is to our soul's evolution, the more Resistance we will feel toward pursuing it.

There are gods who watch over lost souls, particularly those who dream, and when these divinities' unknowable purposes align with the enterprise of these exiled souls, a force begins to flow that is as unquenchable as it is pure, and as knowing as it is indefatigable.

The Bhagavad-Gita changes this. It takes the Warrior Ethos and elevates it to a loftier and nobler plane—the plane of the individual's inner life, to his struggle to align himself with his own higher nature.

There's no mystery to turning pro. It's a decision brought about by an act of will. We make up our minds to view ourselves as pros and we do it. Simple as that.

The most pernicious aspect of procrastination is that it can become a habit. We don't just put off our lives today; we put them off till our deathbed.

Who profits from a king's fidelity save generations a thousand years unborn, and which of his works will they recall at that remove, or care?

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.

Bhagavad-Gita tells us we have a right only to our labor, not to the fruits of our labor.

We were put here on earth to act as agents of the Infinite, to bring into existence that which is not yet, but which will be, through us.

Decisions are crazy. Sometimes all it takes to get over the hump is a friend who gives you permission.

The opposite of love isn't hate; it's indifference.

RESISTANCE PLAYS FOR KEEPS Resistance's goal is not to wound or disable. Resistance aims to kill. Its target is the epicenter of our being: our genius, our soul, the unique and priceless gift we were put on earth to give and that no one else has but us. Resistance means business. When we fight it, we are in a war to the death.

Improvisation is not a wild scramble at the last minute. You are not pulling plans out of thin air. Improvisation is the payoff of scrupulous preparation and drill.

There's a secret that real writers know that wannabe writers don't, and the secret is this: 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.

In my experience, when we project a quality or virtue onto another human being, we ourselves almost always already possess that quality, but we're afraid to embrace (and to live) that truth.

Cualquier cosa que puedas hacer, o piensas que puedes hacer, empiézala. El atrevimiento posee genio, magia y poder en sí mismo. Empiézalo ahora.

When an idea pops into our head and we think, "No, this is too crazy," … that's the idea we want. When we think, "This notion is completely off the wall … should I even take the time to work on this?" … the answer is yes. Never doubt the soup. Never say no. The answer is always yes.

Theseus overturned this by a single stroke: he moved the sessions outdoors, to the hill of the Pnyx, where the people could attend and observe their betters. What a revolution this affected! Before