Top 500 Ryan Holiday Quotes (2025 Update)
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201. “Focusing exclusively on what is in our power magnifies and enhances our power. But every ounce of energy directed at things we can’t actually influence is wasted – self-indulgent and self-destructive. So much power – ours, and other people’s – is frittered away in this manner. To see an obstacle as a challenge, to make the best of it anyway, that is also a choice – a choice that is up to us.”

— Ryan Holiday

202. “Pride blunts the very instrument we need to own in order to succeed: our mind. Our ability to learn, to adapt, to be flexible, to build relationships, all of this is dulled by pride.” Ryan Holiday, Ego is the Enemy, pg 74.”

— Ryan Holiday

203. “Yesterday’s the past, tomorrow’s the future, but today is a gift. That’s why it’s called the present.”

— Ryan Holiday

204. “Persistence is an action. Perseverance is a matter of will. One is energy. The other, endurance.”

— Ryan Holiday

205. “As they say, this moment is not your life. But it is a moment in your life. How will you use it?”

— Ryan Holiday

206. “Aristotle described virtue as a kind of craft, something to pursue just as one pursues the mastery of any profession or skill. “We become builders by building and we become harpists by playing the harp,” he writes. “Similarly, then, we become just by doing just actions, temperate by doing temperate actions, brave by doing brave actions.”

— Ryan Holiday

207. “Beyond this place of wrath and tears Looms but the Horror of the shade, And yet the menace of the years Finds and shall find me unafraid. William Ernest Henley.”

— Ryan Holiday

208. “Put yourself in tough situations. Accept challenges. Familiarize yourself with the unfamiliar. That’s how you widen your perspective and your understanding.”

— Ryan Holiday

209. “Not, I want to do good – that’s an excuse. But, I will do good in this particular instance, right now. Set a standard; hold fast to it. That’s all there is.”

— Ryan Holiday

210. “Character,” de Gaulle reflected at the end of his life, “is above all the ability to disregard insults or abandonment by one’s own people. One must be willing to lose everything. There is no such thing as half a risk.”

— Ryan Holiday

211. “Our capacity to try, try, try is inextricably linked with our ability and tolerance to fail, fail, fail.”

— Ryan Holiday

212. “A man’s job is to make the world a better place to live in, so far as he is able – always remembering the results will be infinitesimal – and to attend to his own soul. – LEROY PERCY.”

— Ryan Holiday

213. “Our reasoned choice – our ‘prohairesis,’ as the stoics called it – is a kind of invincibility that we can cultivate. We can shrug off hostile attacks and breeze through pressure and problems.”

— Ryan Holiday

214. “The goodness inside you is like a small flame, and you are its keeper. It’s your job, today and every day, to make sure that it has enough fuel, that it doesn’t get obstructed or snuffed out.”

— Ryan Holiday

215. “When it comes to your goals and the things you strive for, ask yourself: Am I in control of them or they in control of me?”

— Ryan Holiday

216. “Begin with awareness and reflection. Not just once, but every single second of every single.”

— Ryan Holiday

217. “Have you taken the time to get clarity about who you are and what you stand for?”

— Ryan Holiday

218. “Every chemical reaction requires a catalyst. Let this be yours.”

— Ryan Holiday

219. “The most critical part of this system was the belief that you, the student who has sought out Stoicism, have the most important job: to be good! To be wise. “To remain the person that philosophy wished to make us.” Do your job today. Whatever happens, whatever other people’s jobs happen to be, do yours. Be good.”

— Ryan Holiday

220. “Lord Byron said: ‘Tis the Cause makes all, Degrades or hallows courage in its fall.”

— Ryan Holiday

221. “La adversidad puede endurecerte. O puede soltarte y mejorarte, si se lo permites.”

— Ryan Holiday

222. “Humble in our aspirations Gracious in our success Resilient in our failures.”

— Ryan Holiday

223. “Epicurus once said that the wise will accomplish three things in their life: leave written works behind them, be financially prudent and provide for the future, and cherish country living.”

— Ryan Holiday

224. “Because like Epicurus says, nothing is unending. You just need to be strong and gracious enough to get through it.”

— Ryan Holiday

225. “Throw out your conceited opinions, for it is impossible for a person to begin to learn what he thinks he already knows.” E PICTETUS, D ISCOURSES, 2.17.1.”

— Ryan Holiday

226. “Churchill’s old acronym: KBO. Keep Buggering On.”

— Ryan Holiday

227. “To bear trials with a calm mind robs misfortune of its strength and burden.”

— Ryan Holiday

228. “Knowing what your goal is – having that crystal clear – allows you to know when to follow conventional wisdom and when to say “Screw it.”

— Ryan Holiday

229. “Virtue” can seem old-fashioned. Yet virtue – arete – translates to something very simple and very timeless: Excellence. Moral. Physical. Mental. In the ancient world, virtue was comprised of four key components. Courage. Temperance. Justice. Wisdom.”

— Ryan Holiday

230. “Focusing on smaller, progressive parts of the work also eliminates the tendency to sit on your ass and dream indefinitely. There.”

— Ryan Holiday

231. “The Stoics believed that every person, animal, and thing has a purpose or a place in nature. Everyone had a job-a specific duty. Even people who did bad things-they were doing their job of being evil because evil is a part of life. Do your job today. Whatever happens, whatever other people’s jobs happen to be, do yours. Be good.”

— Ryan Holiday

232. “No one is alone, in suffering or in joy.”

— Ryan Holiday

233. “Meanwhile, love is right there. Egoless, open, positive, vulnerable, peaceful, and productive.”

— Ryan Holiday

234. “Seize this moment to deploy the plan that has long sat dormant in your head.”

— Ryan Holiday

235. “Silence is the general consecration of the universe. – HERMAN MELVILLE.”

— Ryan Holiday

236. “This is the skill that must be cultivated – freedom from disturbance and perturbation – so you can focus your energy exclusively on solving problems, rather than reacting to them.”

— Ryan Holiday

237. “We tell ourselves that we’ll get started once the conditions are right, or once we’re sure we can trust this or that. When, really, it’d be better to focus on making due with what we’ve got. On focusing on results instead of pretty methods.”

— Ryan Holiday

238. “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

239. “In a sense, ego is the enemy of building, of maintaining, and of recovering.”

— Ryan Holiday

240. “The single most important practice in Stoic philosophy is differentiating between what we can change and what we can’t. What we have influence over and what we do not. A flight is delayed because of weather – no amount of yelling at an airline representative will end a storm. No amount of wishing will make you taller or shorter or born in a different country. No matter how hard you try, you can’t make someone like you.”

— Ryan Holiday

241. “Your potential, the absolute best you’re capable of – that’s the metric to measure yourself against.”

— Ryan Holiday

242. “The advantages of nonaction. Few in the world attain these. – THE DAODEJING.”

— Ryan Holiday

243. “Both egotistical and insecure people make their flaws central to their identity – either by covering them up or by brooding over them or externalizing them.”

— Ryan Holiday

244. “It means you’re the least important person in the room – until you change that with results.”

— Ryan Holiday

245. “If we’re to overcome our obstacles, this is the message to broadcast – internally and externally. We will not be stopped by failure, we will not be rushed or distracted by external noise. We will chisel and peg away at the obstacle until it is gone. Resistance is futile.”

— Ryan Holiday

246. “The market was inherently unpredictable and often vicious –.”

— Ryan Holiday

247. “What does not kill me makes me stronger,” Nietzsche said.”

— Ryan Holiday

248. “Epictetus is saying that one becomes a philosopher when they begin to exercise their guiding reason and start to question the emotions and beliefs and even language that others take for granted.”

— Ryan Holiday

249. “True will is quiet humility, resilience, and flexibility;.”

— Ryan Holiday

250. “When student is ready, the teacher appears.”

— Ryan Holiday