Top 500 Ryan Holiday Quotes (2024 Update)
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451. “Remember: even what we get for free has a cost, if only in what we pay to store it – in our garages and in our minds.”

— Ryan Holiday

452. “That’s Stoic joy – the joy that comes from purpose, excellence, and duty. It’s a serious thing – far more serious than a smile or a chipper voice.”

— Ryan Holiday

453. “If we ever do want to become wise, it comes from the questioning and from humility – not, as many would like to think, from certainty, mistrust, and arrogance.”

— Ryan Holiday

454. “Very few go astray who comport themselves with restraint. – CONFUCIUS.”

— Ryan Holiday

455. “A degree on a wall means you’re educated as much as shoes on your feet mean you’re walking. It’s a start, but hardly sufficient.”

— Ryan Holiday

456. “To be or to do – life is a constant roll call.”

— Ryan Holiday

457. “An aide to Lyndon Johnson once remarked that around the man “there was a feeling – if you did everything, you would win.” Everything. Or as Marcus Aurelius put it, if it’s humanly possible, you can do it.”

— Ryan Holiday

458. “The more time kids spend online, studies show, the worse their grades are. According to Nielson, active social networkers are 26 percent more likely to give their opinion on politics and current events off-line, even though they are exactly the people whose opinions should matter the least.”

— Ryan Holiday

459. “Humiliation should not be suppressed. It should be monetized.”

— Ryan Holiday

460. “Every obstacle is unique to each of us. But the responses they elicit are the same: Fear. Frustration. Confusion. Helplessness. Depression. Anger.”

— Ryan Holiday

461. “How often does that happen to us? We comfort a friend during a breakup, only to be surprised when our own relationship ends. We must prepare in our minds for the possibility of extreme reversals of fate. The next time you make a donation to charity, don’t just think about the good turn you’re doing, but take a moment to consider that one day you may need to receive charity yourself.”

— Ryan Holiday

462. “Whatever we face, we have a choice: Will we be blocked by obstacles, or will we advance through and over them?”

— Ryan Holiday

463. “It takes a special kind of humility to grasp that you know less, even as you know and grasp more and more. It’s remembering Socrates’ wisdom lay in the fact that he knew that he knew next to nothing.”

— Ryan Holiday

464. “Most of us are afraid of dying. But sometimes this fear begs the question: To protect what exactly? For a lot of people the answer is: hours of television, gossiping, gorging, wasting potential, reporting to a boring job, and on and on and on. Except, in the strictest sense, is this actually a life? Is this worth gripping so tightly and being afraid of losing? It doesn’t sound like it.”

— Ryan Holiday

465. “Man is a thinking reed,” D. T. Suzuki, one of the early popularizers of Buddhism in the West, once said, “but his great works are done when he is not calculating and thinking. ‘Childlikeness’ has to be restored with long years of training in the art of self-forgetfulness. When this is attained, man thinks yet he does not think.”

— Ryan Holiday

466. “There is a helpful analogy to explain the logos: We are like a dog leashed to a moving cart. The direction of the cart will determine where we go. Depending on the length of the leash, we also have a fair amount of room to explore and determine the pace, but ultimately what each of us must choose is whether we will go willingly or be painfully dragged. Which will it be?”

— Ryan Holiday

467. “While others are excited or afraid, we will remain calm and imperturbable. We will see things simply and straightforwardly, as they truly are – neither good nor bad. This will be an incredible advantage for us in the fight against obstacles.”

— Ryan Holiday

468. “The trick to forgetting the big picture is to look at everything close up. – CHUCK PALAHNIUK.”

— Ryan Holiday

469. “The belief that an individual can make a difference is the first step. The next is understanding that you can be that person.”

— Ryan Holiday

470. “We’re a country governed by public opinion, and public opinion is largely governed by the press, so isn’t it critical to understand what governs the press?”

— Ryan Holiday

471. “Greatness comes from humble beginnings; it comes from grunt work.”

— Ryan Holiday

472. “Think progress, not perfection. Under this kind of force, obstacles break apart. They have no choice. Since you’re going around them or making them irrelevant, there is nothing for them to resist.”

— Ryan Holiday

473. “If you want to be steady, if you want clarity, proper judgment is the best way.”

— Ryan Holiday

474. “In Workaholics Anonymous, one the exercises involves a simple reminder. We must, they say, “catch ourselves before we relapse into ego and self-will.” That is: Rest before you get tired. Check your impulses before they take over. Avoid the idiot lights – stop before there is a problem.”

— Ryan Holiday

475. “Almost universally, the kind of performance we give on social media is positive. It’s more “Let me tell you how well things are going. Look how great I am.” It’s rarely the truth: “I’m scared. I’m struggling. I don’t know.”

— Ryan Holiday

476. “It is not enough only to be a student at the beginning. It is a position that one has to assume for life. Learn from everyone and everything. From the people you beat, and the people who beat you, from the people you dislike, even from your supposed enemies. At every step and every juncture in life, there is the opportunity to learn – and even if the lesson is purely remedial, we must not let ego block us from hearing it again.”

— Ryan Holiday

477. “By planning to the end you will not be overwhelmed by circumstances and you will know when to stop. Gently guide fortune and help determine the future by thinking far ahead.” The second habit in The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People is: begin with an end in mind.”

— Ryan Holiday

478. “We can’t take or receive feedback if we are incapable of or uninterested in hearing from outside sources. We can’t recognize opportunities – or create them – if instead of seeing what is in front of us, we live inside our own fantasy.”

— Ryan Holiday

479. “People claim to want to do something that matters, yet they measure themselves against things that don’t, and track their progress not in years but in microseconds.”

— Ryan Holiday

480. “If an emotion can’t change the condition or the situation you’re dealing with, it is likely an unhelpful emotion. Or, quite possibly, a destructive one.”

— Ryan Holiday

481. “It’s supposed to be hard. Your first attempts aren’t going to work. It’s going to take a lot out of you – but energy is an asset we can always find more of. It’s a renewable resource. Stop looking for an epiphany, and start looking for weak points. Stop looking for angels, and start looking for angles. There are options. Settle in for the long haul and then try each and every possibility, and you’ll get there.”

— Ryan Holiday

482. “Because when you play all the way to the whistle, there’s no reason to worry about the clock.”

— Ryan Holiday

483. “To create something is a daring, beautiful act. The.”

— Ryan Holiday

484. “I know you had nothing to do with the injustice that brought me to this jail, so I’m willing to stay here until I get out. But I will not, under any circumstances, be treated like a prisoner – because I am not and never will be powerless.”

— Ryan Holiday

485. “Pageview journalism treats people by what they appear to want – from data that is unrepresentative to say the least – and gives them this and only this until they have forgotten that there could be anything else. It takes the audience at their worst and makes them worse.”

— Ryan Holiday

486. “Many of our problems come from having too much: rapid technological disruption, junk food, traditions that tell us the way we’re supposed to live our lives. We’re soft, entitled, and scared of conflict. Great times are great softeners. Abundance can be its own obstacle, as many people can attest.”

— Ryan Holiday

487. “Because sadly, this trait, the inability to get out of one’s head, is not restricted to fiction.”

— Ryan Holiday

488. “One day is as all days, as the Stoics liked to say.”

— Ryan Holiday

489. “What things do you think have been holding you back that, in fact, can be a hidden source of strength?”

— Ryan Holiday

490. “It was Eisenhower who defined freedom as the opportunity for self-discipline. In fact, freedom and power and success require self-discipline. Because without it, chaos and complacency move in. Discipline, then, is how we maintain that freedom.”

— Ryan Holiday

491. “Snark encourages the fakeness and stupidity it is supposedly trying to rail against.”

— Ryan Holiday

492. “The next time you are afraid of some supposedly disastrous outcome, remember that if you don’t control your impulses, if you lose your self-control, you may be the very source of the disaster you so fear. It has happened to smarter and more powerful and more successful people. It can happen to us.”

— Ryan Holiday

493. “Rockefeller had sangfroid: unflappable coolness under pressure. He could keep his head while he was losing his shirt. Better yet, he kept his head while everyone else lost theirs.”

— Ryan Holiday

494. “People claim to want to do something that matters, yet they measure themselves against things that don’t, and track their progress not in years but in microseconds. They want to make something timeless, but they focus instead on immediate payoffs and instant gratification.”

— Ryan Holiday

495. “Man is pushed by drives,” Viktor Frankl observed. “But he is pulled by values.” Ruled by or ruling? Which are you? Without the right values, success is brief. If we wish to do more than flash, if we wish to last, then it is time to understand how to battle this new form of ego and what values and principles are required in order to beat it.”

— Ryan Holiday

496. “There are two ways to be wealthy – to get everything you want or to want everything you have.”

— Ryan Holiday

497. “The end goal of every growth hacker is to build a self-perpetuating marketing machine that reaches millions by itself.”

— Ryan Holiday

498. “The idea that you won’t have to work to sell your product is more than entitled.”

— Ryan Holiday

499. “Determination, if you think about it, is invincible. Nothing other than death can prevent us from following Churchill’s old acronym: KBO. Keep Buggering On.”

— Ryan Holiday

500. “If you do something and it turns out pretty good, then you should go do something else wonderful, not dwell on it for too long. Just figure out what’s next.”

— Ryan Holiday