#mastery

You may be unconquerable, if you enter into no combat in which it is not in your own power to conquer.

Practice not to be hurried away by the appearance; make delay, and you will more easily become master of yourself.

No great thing is created suddenly, any more than a bunch of grapes or a fig. If you tell me that you desire a fig, I answer you that there must be time.

If you would be a reader, read; if a writer, write. In general, whatever you would become, practice that very thing.

Any person capable of angering you becomes your master; he can anger you only when you permit yourself to be disturbed by him.

He has suppressed all desire in himself, and transferred his aversion only to the things contrary to nature which are within his own power.

The Master acts without doing anything and teaches without saying anything.

Because he does not compete, no one can compete with him.

A good knot needs no rope and cannot be untied. A good traveler leaves no tracks.

He who cannot command himself should obey. And many a one can command himself, but still lacks much of self-obedience!

There is no contradiction between spontaneous freedom and disciplined skill; they are the two sides of the same coin.

A master in the art of living draws no sharp distinction between his work and his play, his labor and his leisure.

The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting.

Be extremely subtle, even to the point of formlessness. Be extremely mysterious, even to the point of soundlessness.

The attempt to develop a sense of humor and to see things in a humorous light is some kind of a trick learned while mastering the art of living.

Every human being is a sculptor, chiseling his own character out of the marble of hardship.

Habit simplifies the movements required to achieve a given result, makes them more accurate and diminishes fatigue.

An education which should improve this faculty would be the education par excellence.

The greatest effort of the human will is the effort of attention.

A mind that cannot hold an idea steadily before itself is at the mercy of every transient impulse.

The greatest thing, then, in all education, is to make our nervous system our ally instead of our enemy.

The world is all the richer for having a devil in it, so long as we keep our foot upon his neck.

True peace of mind does not come from the absence of storms, but from knowing yourself sovereign over the ship.

The supreme mastery of life is to recognize our own illusions before they crush us.

Take up one idea. Make that one idea your life; think of it, dream of it, live on that idea. Let the brain, muscles, nerves, every part of your body be full of that idea, and just leave every other idea alone. This is the way to success.

No one succeeds without effort... Mind control is not your birthright. Those who have succeeded owe their success to perseverance.

Do one thing at a time, and while doing it put your whole soul into it to the exclusion of all else.

Great work requires great and persistent effort for a long time. Character has to be established through a thousand stumbles.

Work as if you were a master, not as a slave. Work through love, not through compulsion.

Even the greatest fool can accomplish a task if it were after his or her heart. But the intelligent one is he who can turn every task into his heart's delight.