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Nothing Fires The Warrior’s Heart More With Courage Than To Find Himself And His Comrades At The Point Of Annihilation, At The Brink Of Being Routed And Overrun, And Then To Dredge Not Merely From One’s Own Bowels Or Guts But From One’s Discipline And Training The Presence Of Mind Not To Panic, Not To Yield To The Possession Of Despair, But Instead To Complete Those Homely Acts Of Order Which Dienekes Had Ever Declared The Supreme Accomplishment Of The Warrior: To Perform The Commonplace Under Far-from-commonplace Conditions.

-Steven Pressfield

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Nothing Fires The Warrior’s

Steven Pressfield

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Nothing Fires The Warrior’s Heart More With Courage Than To Find Himself And His Comrades At The Point Of Annihilation, At The Brink Of Being Routed And Overrun, And Then To Dredge Not Merely From One’s Own Bowels Or Guts But From One’s Discipline And Training The Presence Of Mind Not To Panic, Not To Yield To The Possession Of Despair, But Instead To Complete Those Homely Acts Of Order Which Dienekes Had Ever Declared The Supreme Accomplishment Of The Warrior: To Perform The Commonplace Under Far-from-commonplace Conditions.

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Seeking Support From Friends And And Family Is Like Having People Gathered Around At Your Deathbed. It's Nice, But When The Ship Sails, All They Can Do Is Stand On The Dock Waving Goodbye.

As Resistance Works To Keep Us From Becoming Who We Were Born To Be, Equal And Opposite Powers Are Counterpoised Against It. These Are Our Allies And Angels.

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Anything That Draws Attention To Ourselves Through Pain-free Or Artificial Means Is A Manifestation Of Resistance.

Fame Imperishable And Glory That Will Never Die -- That Is What We March For!

Resistance’s Goal Is Not To Wound Or Disable. Resistance Aims To Kill

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Put Your Ass Where Your Heart Wants To Be.

Don't Prepare, Do. Don't Let Resistance Sucker You Into Wasting Months On Background, Foundation, Planning. All That Can Come Later.

When We Turn Pro We Stop Running From Our Fears. We Turn Around And Face Them.

Thr Principle Of Organization Is Built Into Nature. Chaos Itself Is Self-organizing. Out Of Primordial Disorder, Stars Find Their Orbit; Rivers Make Their Way To The Sea.

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.

Be Too Dumb To Quit And Too Stubborn To Back Off.

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Start Before You’re Ready.

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Uncharted Waters

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Meeting Someone

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The Critic Hates Most That Which He Would Have Done Himself If He Had Had The Guts.

Do You Love Your Idea? Does It Feel Right On Instinct? Are You Willing To Bleed For It?

The Last Thing We Want Is To Remain As We Are.

The Professional, Though He Accepts Money, Does His Work Out Of Love. He Has To Love It. Otherwise He Wouldn’t Devote His Life To It Of His Own Free Will.

I Love Memoirs, Particularly Obscure Ones Because The Writer Is Usually A Regular Guy Just Telling What Happened To Him And To His Friends. What These Tales Lack In Artfulness They Make Up For In Passion And Authenticity. For A Writer Of Fiction, They Are Solid Gold. I Have Stolen So Much From Memoirs It's Ridiculous.

We Feed It [resistance] With Power By Our Fear Of It. Master That Fear And We Conquer Resistance.

These Scars On My Body,” Alexander Declared, “were Got For You, My Brothers. Every Wound, As You See, Is In The Front. Let That Man Stand Forth From Your Ranks Who Has Bled More Than I, Or Endured More Than I For Your Sake. Show Him To Me, And I Will Yield To Your Weariness And Go Home.” Not A Man Came Forward. Instead, A Great Cheer Arose From The Army. The Men Begged Their King To Forgive Them For Their Want Of Spirit And Pleaded With Him Only To Lead Them Forward.

Nothing Is As Empowering As Real-world Validation, Even If It's For Failure.

A Great Trick That I Learned Having Worked As A Screenwriter For Many Years, The Way Screenwriters Work, Is They Break The Project Down Into Three-act Structure: Act 1, Act 2, Act 3. I Think That Is A Great Way To Break Down Any Project, Whether It's A New Business Or Anything At All.

No Matter How Great A Writer, Artist, Or Entrepreneur, He Is A Mortal, He Is Fallible. He Is Not Proof Against Resistance. He Will Drop The Ball; He Will Crash. That’s Why They Call It Rewriting.

The Artist And The Mother Are Vehicles, Not Originators. They Don't Create The New Life, They Only Bear It. This Is Why Birth Is Such A Humbling Experience. The New Mom Weeps In Awe At The Little Miracle In Her Arms. She Knows It Came Out Of Her But Not From Her, Through Her But Not Of Her.

You Are A Writer When You Tell Yourself You Are. No One Else's Opinion Matters. Screw Them. You Are When You Say You Are.

Resistance Cannot Be Seen, Touched, Heard, Or Smelled. But It Can Be Felt.

It’s Better To Be In The Arena, Getting Stomped By The Bull, Than To Be Up In The Stands Or Out In The Parking Lot.

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.

Procrastination

Playing The Game For Money Produces The Proper Professional Attitude. It Inculcates The Lunch-pail State Of Mind That Shows Up For Work Despite Rain Or Snow Or Dark Of Night And Slugs It Out Day After Day.

Nothing Fires The Warrior’s Heart More With Courage Than To Find Himself And His Comrades At The Point Of Annihilation, At The Brink Of Being Routed And Overrun, And Then To Dredge Not Merely From One’s Own Bowels Or Guts But From One’s Discipline And Training The Presence Of Mind Not To Panic, Not To Yield To The Possession Of Despair, But Instead To Complete Those Homely Acts Of Order Which Dienekes Had Ever Declared The Supreme Accomplishment Of The Warrior: To Perform The Commonplace Under Far-from-commonplace Conditions.

There's A Phrase You Hear In Israel: "we're Not Jews, We're Israelis." What That Means Is That The Stereotype We're Familiar With Here In The States Of The Diaspora Jew, I.e. Jews In America Or Europe Or Russia, Etc. Does Not Fit At All With The Reality Of The Homegrown "sabras" Of Israel.

The Difference Between An Amateur And A Professional Is In Their Habits. An Amateur Has Amateur Habits. A Professional Has Professional Habits. We Can Never Free Ourselves From Habit. But We Can Replace Bad Habits With Good Ones.

As All Born Teachers, He Was Primarily A Student.

I Had Always Been An Enthusiastic Reader Of Stuff About Ancient Greece. I Would Read Herodotus And Thucydides Just For Fun.

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.

Our Greatest Battle Is To Become Ourselves, In The Face Of Adversity.

The Athlete Knows The Day Will Never Come When He Wakes Up Pain-free. He Has To Play Hurt.

The Professional Loves Her Work. She Is Invested In It Wholeheartedly. But She Does Not Forget That The Work Is Not Her.

The Kabbalah Describes Angels As Bundles Of Light, Meaning Intelligence, Consciousness. Kabbalists Believe That Above Every Blade Of Grass Is An Angel Crying "grow! Grow!" ... I Believe That Above The Entire Human Race Is One Super-angel, Crying "evolve! Evolve!"

These Are Not Easy Questions. Who Am I? Why Am I Here? They're Not Easy Because The Human Being Isn't Wired To Function As An Individual.

Picasso Painted With Passion, Mozart Composed With It. A Child Plays With It All Day Long. You May Think You’ve Lost Your Passion, Or That You Can’t Identify It, Or That You Have So Much Of It, It Threatens To Overwhelm You. None Of These Is True.

When You're A Working Writer, Sooner Or Later Friends And Acquaintances Will Get You Alone And Confide That They, Too, Have A Book In Them.

Sooner Or Later

Evolution Has Programmed Us To Feel Rejection In Our Guts. This Is How The Tribe Inforced Obedience, By Wielding The Threat Of Expulsion. Fear Of Rejection Isn't Just Psychological; It's Biological. It's In Our Cells.

Reading Is Alive And Well And Will Get More Alive And More Well. Reading On Tablets (or Whatever The Next Tech Device Will Be) Is The Future - And The Future Is Now.

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.

We’re All Pros Already. 1) We Show Up Every Day 2) We Show Up No Matter What 3) We Stay On The Job All Day 4) We Are Committed Over The Long Haul 5) The Stakes For Us Are High And Real 6) We Accept Remuneration For Our Labor 7) We Do Not Overidentify With Our Jobs 8 ) We Master The Technique Of Our Jobs 9) We Have A Sense Of Humor About Our Jobs 10) We Receive Praise Or Blame In The Real World

I'm Superstitious. I Keep Mum While I'm Working On Something.

The Most Important Thing About Art Is To Work. Nothing Else Matters Except Sitting Down Every Day And Trying.

Positive Thinking

On The Field Of The Self Stand A Knight And A Dragon. You Are The Knight. Resistance Is The Dragon.

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. Rule Of Thumb: The More Important A Call Or Action Is To Our Soul's Evolution, The More Resistance We Will Feel Toward Pursuing It.

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Gotthold Ephraim Lessing

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