Top 500 Ryan Holiday Quotes (2026 Update)
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251. “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

252. “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

253. “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

254. “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

255. “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

256. “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

257. “Man does not simply exist but always decides what his existence will be, what he will become the next moment. By the same token, every human being has the freedom to change at any instant. – VIKTOR FRANKL.”

— Ryan Holiday

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

— Ryan Holiday

259. “He who fears death will never do anything worthy of a living man,” Seneca once said. Alter that: He who will do anything to avoid failure will almost certainly do something worthy of a failure.”

— Ryan Holiday

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

— Ryan Holiday

261. “You don’t have to always be amazing. You do always have to show up. What matters is sticking around for the next at bat.”

— Ryan Holiday

262. “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

263. “There is nothing worth doing that is not scary. There is no one who has achieved greatness without wrestling with their own doubts, anxieties, limitations, and demons.”

— Ryan Holiday

264. “Modern philosopher Nassim Taleb has warned of the “narrative fallacy” – the tendency to assemble unrelated events of the past into stories. These stories, however gratifying to create, are inherently misleading. They lead to a sense of cohesion and certainty that isn’t real.”

— Ryan Holiday

265. “Stop pretending that what you’re going through is somehow special or unfair. Whatever trouble you’re having – no matter how difficult – is not some unique misfortune picked out especially for you. It just is what it is.”

— Ryan Holiday

266. “John Boyd, a sort of warrior-monk who revolutionized Western military strategy in the latter half of the twentieth century, refused to take checks from defense contractors and deliberately lived in a small condo even as he advised presidents and generals. “If a man can reduce his needs to zero,” he said, “he is truly free: there is nothing that can be taken from him and nothing anyone can do to hurt him.”

— Ryan Holiday

267. “He that is slow to anger is better than the mighty; and he that ruleth his spirit than he that taketh a city. – PROVERBS 16:32.”

— Ryan Holiday

268. “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

269. “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

270. “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

271. “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

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

— Ryan Holiday

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

— Ryan Holiday

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

— Ryan Holiday

275. “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

276. “Every day for the rest of your life you will find yourself at one of three phases: aspiration, success, failure. You will battle the ego in each of them. You will make mistakes in each of them. You must sweep the floor every minute of every day. And then sweep again.”

— Ryan Holiday

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

— Ryan Holiday

278. “Because obstacles are not only to be expected but embraced. Embraced? Yes, because these obstacles are actually opportunities to test ourselves, to try new things, and, ultimately, to triumph. The Obstacle Is the Way.”

— Ryan Holiday

279. “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

280. “What’s essential is invisible to the eye. That is: Appearances are misleading.”

— Ryan Holiday

281. “Passion is form over function. Purpose is function, function, function.”

— Ryan Holiday

282. “Don’t seek for everything to happen as you wish it would, but rather wish that everything happens as it actually will – then your life will flow well.” – EPICTETUS, ENCHIRIDION, 8.”

— Ryan Holiday

283. “The foundation of a free country is that your freedom to swing your fist ends where someone else’s nose begins. That is, someone else is free to do what they like until it interferes with your physical body and space. This saying can work as a great personal philosophy as well.”

— Ryan Holiday

284. “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

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

— Ryan Holiday

286. “The extent of the struggle determines the extent of the growth. The obstacle is an advantage, not adversity. The enemy is any perception that prevents us from seeing this.”

— Ryan Holiday

287. “We must prepare for pride and kill it early – or it will kill what we aspire to. We must be on guard against that wild self-confidence and self-obsession.”

— Ryan Holiday

288. “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

289. “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

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

— Ryan Holiday

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

— Ryan Holiday

292. “The only real failure is abandoning your principles. Killing what you love because you can’t bear to part from it is selfish and stupid. If your reputation can’t absorb a few blows, it wasn’t worth anything in the first place.”

— Ryan Holiday

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

— Ryan Holiday

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

— Ryan Holiday

295. “Okay, you’ve got to do something very difficult. Don’t focus on that. Instead break it down into pieces. Simply do what you need to do right now. And do it well. And then move on to the next thing. Follow the process and not the prize.”

— Ryan Holiday

296. “Jesus told his disciples not to worry about tomorrow, because tomorrow will take care of itself.”

— Ryan Holiday

297. “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

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

— Ryan Holiday

299. “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

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

— Ryan Holiday