Top 380 Steven Pressfield Quotes (2025 Update)
Page 3 of 8

101. “We need to ascend beyond our own petty Resistance, our own negative self-judgment and self-sabotage, our own “I’m not worthy” mind-set.”

— Steven Pressfield

102. “The professional loves her work. She is invested in it wholeheartedly. But she does not forget that the work is not her.”

— Steven Pressfield

103. “Many pedestrians have been maimed or killed at the intersection of Resistance and Commerce.”

— Steven Pressfield

104. “In other words, any act that rejects immediate gratification in favor of long-term grown, health, or integrity. Or, expressed another way, any act that derives from our high nature instead of our lower. Any of these will elicit Resistance.”

— Steven Pressfield

105. “The last thing we want is to remain as we are.”

— Steven Pressfield

106. “What does Resistance feel like? First, unhappiness. We feel like hell. A low-grade misery pervades everything. We’re bored, we’re restless. We can’t get no satisfaction. There’s guilt but we can’t put our finger on the source. We want to go back to bed; we want to get up and party. We feel unloved and unlovable. We’re disgusted. We hate our lives. We hate ourselves. Unalleviated, Resistance mounts to a pitch that becomes unendurable. At this point vices kick in. Dope, adultery, web surfing.”

— Steven Pressfield

107. “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.”

— Steven Pressfield

108. “We must do our work for its own sake, not for fortune or attention or applause.”

— Steven Pressfield

109. “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.”

— Steven Pressfield

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

— Steven Pressfield

111. “Habit will be your champion. When you train the mind to think one way and one way only, when you refuse to allow it to think in another, that will produce great strength in battle.”

— Steven Pressfield

112. “Anything that draws attention to ourselves through pain-free or artificial means is a manifestation of Resistance.”

— Steven Pressfield

113. “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.”

— Steven Pressfield

114. “The professional tackles the project that will make him stretch. He takes on the assignment that will bear him into uncharted waters, compel him to explore unconscious parts of himself. Is he scared? Hell, yes. He’s petrified.”

— Steven Pressfield

115. “If you’re are paralyzed with fear it’s a good sign. It shows you what you have to do.”

— Steven Pressfield

116. “I guess what I want to say to us artists and entrepreneurs is that conventional yardsticks of success don’t apply to all enterprises. Labors of love count.”

— Steven Pressfield

117. “Resistance cannot be seen, touched, heard, or smelled. But it can be felt.”

— Steven Pressfield

118. “Have you ever wondered why the slang terms for intoxication are so demolition-oriented? Stoned, smashed, hammered. It’s because they’re talking about the Ego. It’s the Ego that gets blasted, waxed, plastered.”

— Steven Pressfield

119. “A cavalryman’s horse should be smarter than he is. But the horse must never be alowed to know this.”

— Steven Pressfield

120. “Resistance is implacable, intractable, indefatigable.”

— Steven Pressfield

121. “Nothing is as empowering as real-world validation, even if it’s for failure.”

— Steven Pressfield

122. “Artists are modest. They know they’re not doing the work; they’re just taking dictation.”

— Steven Pressfield

123. “Creative work is not a selfish act or a bid for attention on the part of the actor. It’s a gift to the world and every being in it. Don’t cheat us of your contribution. Give us what you’ve got.”

— Steven Pressfield

124. “Playing for money, or adopting the attitude of one who plays for money, lowers the fever.”

— Steven Pressfield

125. “Depression and anxiety may be real. But they can also be Resistance. When we drug ourselves to blot out our soul’s call, we are being good Americans and exemplary consumers. We’re doing exactly what TV commercials and pop materialist culture have been brainwashing us to do from birth. Instead of applying self-knowledge, self-discipline, delayed gratification and hard work, we simply consume a product. Many pedestrians have been maimed or killed at the intersection of Resistance and Commerce.”

— Steven Pressfield

126. “Dienekes says the mind is like a house with many rooms,” he said. “There are rooms one must not go into. To anticipate one’s death is one of those rooms. We must not allow ourselves even to think it.”

— Steven Pressfield

127. “We know that if we embrace our ideals, we must prove worthy of them. And that scares the hell out of us.”

— Steven Pressfield

128. “The hero wanders, the hero suffers, the hero returns. You are that hero.”

— Steven Pressfield

129. “Making a judgment, taking a stand and then acting against an injustice or acting to support excellence is the stuff of the everyman hero. If you are an aspiring artist and you wish to avoid “judgments,” you’ll find that you have nothing to say.”

— Steven Pressfield

130. “The Bhagavad-Gita tells us we have a right only to our labor, not to the fruits of our labor. All the warrior can give is his life; all the athlete can do is leave everything on the field.”

— Steven Pressfield

131. “The best and only thing that one artist can do for another is to serve as an example and an inspiration.”

— Steven Pressfield

132. “Late at night have you experienced a vision of the person you might become, the work you could accomplish, the realized being you were meant to be? Are you a writer who doesn’t write, a painter who doesn’t paint, an entrepreneur who never starts a venture? Then you know what Resistance is.”

— Steven Pressfield

133. “It’s one thing to lie to ourselves. It’s another thing to believe it.”

— Steven Pressfield

134. “The professional respects his craft. He does not consider himself superior to it. He recognizes the contributions of those who have gone before him. He apprentices himself to them.”

— Steven Pressfield

135. “The professional does not permit himself to become hidebound within one incarnation, however comfortable or successful. Like a transmigrating soul, he shucks his outworn body and dons a new one. He continues his journey.”

— Steven Pressfield

136. “All that matters is I’ve put in my time and hit it with all I’ve got. All that counts is that, for this day, for this session, I have overcome Resistance.”

— Steven Pressfield

137. “It is a commonplace among artists and children at play that they’re not aware of time or solitude while they’re chasing their vision. The hours fly. The sculptress and the tree-climbing tyke both look up blinking when Mom calls, ‘Suppertime!’”

— Steven Pressfield

138. “When we’re living as amateurs, we’re running away from our calling – meaning our work, our destiny, the obligation to become our truest and highest selves.”

— Steven Pressfield

139. “The sure sign of an amateur is he has a million plans and they all start tomorrow.”

— Steven Pressfield

140. “Men wanted for hazardous journey, small wages, bitter cold, long months of complete darkness, constant danger, safe return doubtful; honor and recognition in case of success.”

— Steven Pressfield

141. “The professional cannot take rejection personally because to do so reinforces Resistance. Editors are not the enemy; critics are not the enemy. Resistance is the enemy. The battle is inside our own heads. We cannot let external criticism, even if it’s true, fortify our internal foe. That foe is strong enough already.”

— Steven Pressfield

142. “Once we commit to action, the worst thing we can do is to stop.”

— Steven Pressfield

143. “We’re wrong if we think we’re the only ones struggling with Resistance. Everyone who has a body experiences Resistance.”

— Steven Pressfield

144. “A horse must be a bit mad to be a good cavalry mount, and its rider must be completely so.”

— Steven Pressfield

145. “Of any activity you do, ask yourself: If I were the last person on earth, would I still do it?”

— Steven Pressfield

146. “As all born teachers, he was primarily a student.”

— Steven Pressfield

147. “How many pages have I produced? I don’t care. Are they any good? I don’t even think about it. All that matters is I’ve put in my time and hit it with all I’ve got. All that counts is that, for this day, for this session, I have overcome Resistance.”

— Steven Pressfield

148. “Figure out where you want to go; then work backwards from there.”

— Steven Pressfield

149. “Resistance is experienced as fear; the degree of fear equates to the strength of Resistance.”

— Steven Pressfield

150. “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.”

— Steven Pressfield