1. People
    2.  › 
  2. Ryan Holiday
Ryan Holiday photo

Ryan Holiday Quotes

Total quotes: 94
“All we need to do are these three little duties—to try hard, to be honest, and to help ourselves and others.”
— Ryan Holiday, The Obstacle Is the Way: The Timeless Art of Turning Trials into Triumph
Tagged: Inspirational, Helping Others, Our Responsibilities As Humans
“When everyone tells you you’re wrong and you turn out to be right, you learn a dangerous lesson: Never listen to warnings.”
— Ryan Holiday, Conspiracy: Peter Thiel, Hulk Hogan, Gawker, and the Anatomy of Intrigue
Tagged: Contrarian, thinking differently, Ego Boosters
“Loss inherently makes the loser sympathetic. We can easily be made to feel bad for the person on the other side of a true catastrophe, even if just minutes before we thought they had it coming to them.”
— Ryan Holiday, Conspiracy: Peter Thiel, Hulk Hogan, Gawker, and the Anatomy of Intrigue
Tagged: Human Nature, Looking at Loss, vulnerability, Pity
“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, The Obstacle Is the Way: The Timeless Art of Turning Trials into Triumph
Tagged: Inspirational, Obstacles
“What is rare is not raw talent, skill, or even confidence, but humility, diligence, and self-awareness.”
— Ryan Holiday, Ego Is the Enemy
Tagged: Diligence, Self-awareness, Confidence
“The benefit of control and self-sovereignty—is its own kind of freedom.”
— Ryan Holiday, 29 Pieces Of Life Changing Advice I Collected By My 29th Birthday
Tagged: Constraints, The Joy of Restraint, The Freedom of Restraint
“Stop looking for angels, and start looking for angles.”
— Ryan Holiday, The Obstacle Is the Way: The Timeless Art of Turning Trials into Triumph
Tagged: strategy, Clever Wordplay
“The bigger the ego the harder the fall.”
— Ryan Holiday, Ego Is the Enemy
Tagged: Independence, Follow Your Dreams, Make It Happen
“Impressing people is utterly different from being truly impressive.”
— Ryan Holiday, Ego Is the Enemy
Tagged: Impressive, How To Be Impressive
“If you want to try to make the world a slightly better place, there’s a lot you can do. But only one thing guarantees an impact. Step away from the simulation. Step away from the argument. Dig yourself out of the rubble. Stop wasting time with how things should be, would be, could be.

Be that thing.”
— Ryan Holiday, Don’t Waste Time Arguing What A Good Man Is. Be One
Tagged: Ethics, How To Be, How A Person Should Be
“How To Stay Calm While Everyone Else Freaks Out:

→ Separate things into what you control and what you don't

→ Focus on the smallest thing you can do right now

→ Examine the costs of panicking or emotional reaction

→ Have confidence in your ability to make the best of anything”
— Ryan Holiday, How To Stay Calm
Tagged: How To Stay Calm, Positive Thoughts During Coronavirus
“Pick up a book on a topic you know next to nothing about. Put yourself in rooms where you’re the least knowledgeable person. That uncomfortable feeling, that defensiveness that you feel when your most deeply held assumptions are challenged— what about subjecting yourself to it deliberately? Change your mind. Change your surroundings… An amateur is defensive. The professional finds learning (and even, occasionally, being shown up) to be enjoyable; they like being challenged and humbled, and engage in education as an ongoing and endless process.”
— Ryan Holiday, Ego Is the Enemy
Tagged: Amateurs vs. Professionals, What Makes Someone A Professional, How To Learn, Work Strategies, Mix It Up, Get Confused
“It was an awards show. And they won! Why are we even talking about this?”
— Ryan Holiday, Don’t Waste Time Arguing What A Good Man Is. Be One
Tagged: Pop Culture, News, Media, What Matters, Quote of the Moment
“As a creator, you need to actively bake the marketing into your product.”
— Ryan Holiday, 21 Marketing Lessons Every Creative Needs to Master
Tagged: Marketing
“What was once inconceivable becomes not just obvious but glaringly so.”
— Ryan Holiday, Why Are We So Certain About Our Mistakes? A Technique To Avoid Future Regret
Tagged: Writing
“To try to break a man is one thing, to see him broken before you is another.”
— Ryan Holiday, Conspiracy: Peter Thiel, Hulk Hogan, Gawker, and the Anatomy of Intrigue
Tagged: Doing Harm, Fighting, Knocking Someone Out
“We decide what story to tell ourselves. Or whether we will tell one at all.”
— Ryan Holiday, The Obstacle Is the Way: The Timeless Art of Turning Trials into Triumph
Tagged: Narrative Creation, Story of Our Lives, Soundtrack of Our Lives, What We Say To Ourselves
“But a trial is not about a judge— who is an arbiter in matters of law. It’s about a jury— who are arbiters in matters of fact, but make decisions, like all human beings, based on emotion.”
— Ryan Holiday, Conspiracy: Peter Thiel, Hulk Hogan, Gawker, and the Anatomy of Intrigue
Tagged: Law, The justice system, Reason, Emotion vs. reason, Decisions, Epistemology
“Art is the kind of marathon where you cross the finish line and instead of getting a medal placed around your neck, the volunteers roughly grab you by the shoulders and walk you over to the starting line of another marathon.”
— Ryan Holiday, Perennial Seller: The Art of Making and Marketing Work that Lasts
Tagged: Making Art, Work Hard, Long-Term Thinking
“You have to understand, if you have a good book, offering it to an agent appeals directly to their self-interest. Does anyone ever say: How will I ever find a real estate agent? Of course not.”
— Ryan Holiday, How To Get A Book Agent
Tagged: Book Publishing, How To Get An Agent
“You've got to cultivate people around you who are not afraid to tell you the truth.”
— Ryan Holiday, Overcome Your Ego with Ryan Holiday
Tagged: Trust, Confidence Men, Lewis Howes Podcast
“We decide what we will make of each and every situation. We decide whether we’ll break or whether we’ll resist.”
— Ryan Holiday, The Obstacle Is the Way: The Timeless Art of Turning Trials into Triumph
Tagged: Autonomy, Control Yourself, Control
“It doesn’t make a difference because really good stuff is timeless. It doesn’t need to be rushed.”
— Ryan Holiday, How to Create a Perennial Bestseller
Tagged: Focus On The Long-Term
“It doesn’t matter whether this is the worst time to be alive or the best, whether you’re in a good job market or a bad one, or that the obstacle you face is intimidating or burdensome. What matters right now is right now.”
— Ryan Holiday, The Obstacle Is the Way: The Timeless Art of Turning Trials into Triumph
Tagged: The Power of Now
“A critical test of any product: Does it have a purpose? Does it add value to the world? How will it improve the lives of the people who buy it?”
— Ryan Holiday, Perennial Seller: The Art of Making and Marketing Work that Lasts
Tagged: Building Value, Creating Value, Building Great Products
“Focusing on smaller, progressive parts of the work also eliminates the tendency to sit on your ass and dream indefinitely.”
— Ryan Holiday, Perennial Seller: The Art of Making and Marketing Work that Lasts
Tagged: Incremental Growth, Stop Procrastinating, procrastination
“Classics stay classic and become more so over time. Think of it as compound interest for creative work.”
— Ryan Holiday, Perennial Seller: The Art of Making and Marketing Work that Lasts
Tagged: What Makes A Classic Book, Classic
“There is no good or bad without us, there is only perception. There is the event itself and the story we tell ourselves about what it means.”
— Ryan Holiday, The Obstacle Is the Way: The Timeless Art of Turning Trials into Triumph
“When intelligent people read, they ask themselves a simple question: What do I plan to do with this information?”
— Ryan Holiday, The Obstacle Is the Way: The Timeless Art of Turning Trials into Triumph
“Putting I in front of events.

I did this. I was so smart. I got that., etc.

No wonder you take losses personally. You've inflated your own role in them.”
— Ryan Holiday, The Obstacle Is the Way: The Timeless Art of Turning Trials into Triumph
Tagged: Thinking Of Others
“Find out why you’re after what you’re after. Ignore those who mess with your pace. Let them covet what you have, not the other way around. ”
— Ryan Holiday, Ego Is the Enemy
Tagged: Independence, Follow Your Dreams, Make It Happen
“The question to ask, when you feel pride, then, is this: What am I missing right now that a more humble person might see?”
— Ryan Holiday, Ego Is the Enemy
Tagged: Humble, How To Fight Against Pride, Pride, Be Humble
“What is truly ambitious is to face life and proceed with quiet confidence in spite of the distractions.”
— Ryan Holiday, Ego Is the Enemy
Tagged: Ambitious, What It Means To Be Ambitious
“Success is intoxicating, yet to sustain it requires sobriety. We can’t keep learning if we think we already know everything.”
— Ryan Holiday, Ego Is the Enemy
Tagged: Success, Stop Ego, Keep Learning, Stay Open
“A smart man or woman must regularly remind themselves of the limits of their power and reach.”
— Ryan Holiday, Ego Is the Enemy
Tagged: Power, Reach
“Fuck my dreams of hearing ‘It’s perfect’ on the first try. I need to hear ‘It can be a lot better.”
— Ryan Holiday, ‘F*ck Your Dreams’(And Other Painful Things You Have To Hear To Be Successful)
Tagged: Dreams, Success, How to be a writer, Self-improvement, Quote of the Moment
“Why do good work when studies show that this is actually a deterrent to social sharing?”
— Ryan Holiday, We Don’t Have a Fake News Problem—We Are the Fake News Problem
Tagged: Media, News, Fake News, Writing, Journalism
“Seneca is the author you read when your life’s work has been destroyed.”
— Ryan Holiday, Conspiracy: Peter Thiel, Hulk Hogan, Gawker, and the Anatomy of Intrigue
Tagged: Seneca, Stoicism
“It was founded, remember, by paying writers for each morsel they dropped into it, not how nutritious each morsel was.”
— Ryan Holiday, Conspiracy: Peter Thiel, Hulk Hogan, Gawker, and the Anatomy of Intrigue
Tagged: Gawker, Media, News
“Ask yourself: If other people knew I was doing this, would I be embarrassed or ashamed? If so, it’s probably not a good thing to be doing.”
— Ryan Holiday, 21 Stoic Life Hacks For #Stoicweek
Tagged: Life Hacks, How To Make A Decision, How To Live A Good Life, Making Smart Decisions
loading next page...