When you think about modern Stoicism, Ryan Holiday is likely one of the first people that pops into your mind. In this article, we’re going to take a look at some of the best Ryan Holiday quotes that will inspire you to further incorporate Stoicism into your daily life.
Though Holiday is sometimes viewed as a polarizing figure in the world of Stoicism, it’s hard to deny how much he has done for the awareness of Stoic philosophy in the modern day.
Over the years, he has published a bunch of best-selling books about our favorite ancient Greek philosophy, as well as built up a massive email list with hundreds of thousands of subscribers. With a bookshop near Austin named after the painted stoa where the ancients first held their philosophical discussions, this guy is all-in when it comes to spreading the good word about Stoicism.
Let’s take a look at some of the most compelling quotes from the best-known proponent of Stoicism in our age: Ryan Holiday.
In a recent post, I went through Ryan Holday's eleven books about Stoicism and how they helped the philosophy gain followers in the past decade. If you've ever researched Stoicism and looked for books on the topic, there's a good chance you've come across a handful of his bestsellers.
But who is Ryan Holiday? Why should we trust his interpretation of Stoicism?
Initially working as a successful marketing professional early in his career, Ryan Holiday first encountered Stoic philosophy when he was a student in college. His website, The Daily Stoic, has a huge following, and he has amassed a huge email list with hundreds of thousands of subscribers. When you consider that the content is all about how to incorporate Stoic thought into our actual lives, that's pretty impressive indeed.
If you dig into Ryan Holiday's story with any amount of depth, you're sure to come across some criticism of his work. Some have said that he has diluted the philosophy and that there's something a bit seedy about how he has marketed and monetized this ancient wisdom.
Ryan Holiday has responded to the criticism he's received at various points, stating the following:
“Of all the horrible things to be accused of, making philosophy popular and accessible doesn’t feel like a particularly bad one. Some people want to keep these ideas hopelessly obscure and opaque so they and their university buddies can debate them for a living… and pretend that isn’t ‘monetizing’ philosophy either. They’re just doing it on the taxpayer and student dime.”
One of the central ideas of Stoicism that can truly change your life is the notion that we don't control what happens in life, but we do have control over ourselves. Through control of our minds and our actions, we can change our lives.
"You have power over your mind – not external events. Realize this and you will have strength."
- Marcus Aurelius
Let's take a look at what Holiday has to say about shifting your mindset in order to improve yourself and your life.
“Where the head goes, the body follows. Perception precedes action. Right action follows the right perspective.”
- Ryan Holiday
“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
“Those who have subdued their ego understand that it doesn’t degrade you when others treat you poorly; it degrades them.”
- Ryan Holiday
“Control your perceptions. Direct your actions properly. Willingly accept what’s outside your control.”
- Ryan Holiday
“Why do you think that great leaders and thinkers throughout history have “gone out into the wilderness” and come back with inspiration, with a plan, with an experience that puts them on a course that changes the world? It’s because in doing so they found perspective, they understood the larger picture in a way that wasn’t possible in the bustle of everyday life. Silencing the noise around them, they could finally hear the quiet voice they needed to listen to.”
- Ryan Holiday
“Discipline in perception lets you clearly see the advantage and the proper course of action in every situation—without the pestilence of panic or fear.”
- Ryan Holiday
It's a common trope that we're perfect just the way we are, but deep down, we all know that's far from the truth. We can always improve ourselves.
There is a Platonic version of ourselves floating out there that is the best possible iteration of who we can be. But can we get there?
“Your potential, the absolute best you’re capable of—that’s the metric to measure yourself against. Your standards are. Winning is not enough. People can get lucky and win. People can be assholes and win. Anyone can win. But not everyone is the best possible version of themselves.”
- Ryan Holiday
“Impressing people is utterly different from being truly impressive.”
- Ryan Holiday
“Think progress, not perfection.”
- Ryan Holiday
“Ego is the enemy of what you want and of what you have: Of mastering a craft. Of real creative insight. Of working well with others. Of building loyalty and support. Of longevity. Of repeating and retaining your success. It repulses advantages and opportunities. It’s a magnet for enemies and errors. It is Scylla and Charybdis.”
- Ryan Holiday
“Each time, you’ll learn something. Each time, you’ll develop strength, wisdom, and perspective. Each time, a little more of the competition falls away. Until all that is left is you: the best version of you.”
- Ryan Holiday
It's easy to hope that the winning lotto numbers will fall in your lap one day. The truth is, though, that hard work is an essential component of success, not to mention the lessons learned from the obstacles you overcome along the way.
“Difficulties strengthen the mind as labor does the body.”
– Seneca the Younger
If we're wasting our time looking for the easy road, it means we're not putting that time to better use. The best life might not come easy, but it's a road worth walking.
“Greatness comes from humble beginnings; it comes from grunt work. It means you’re the least important person in the room—until you change that with results.”
- Ryan Holiday
“It may take some hard work. But the more you say no to the things that don’t matter, the more you can say yes to the things that do.”
- Ryan Holiday
"Be quiet, work hard, and stay healthy. It’s not ambition or skill that is going to set you apart but sanity."
- Ryan Holiday
Another key concept in Stoicism is the idea of learning to embrace or even love your own fate. This notion is often described using the Latin term amor fati-- the love of one's fate.
"It's the great soul that surrenders itself to fate, but a puny degenerate thing that struggles."
- Seneca the Younger
When your girlfriend breaks up with you, you lose your job, and your car stops working, it can sound like a tall order to love your fate. The truth is, though, that all of the hard experiences we go through are opportunities to grow and improve ourselves. Furthermore, it's a reminder that we might not be able to control the events that happen to us, but we can control ourselves and how we respond to them.
“The only guarantee, ever, is that things will go wrong. The only thing we can use to mitigate this is anticipation. Because the only variable we control completely is ourselves.”
- Ryan Holiday
"The power of amor fati is that it doesn't waste time, as Nietzsche was saying, wishing things were different, looking backwards or forwards, or through the history books to find out if what's happening to you is fair. It only looks at what's happening with enough strength to say, "I have what it takes to make this good for me." It spends nothing on bitterness or blame, and puts everything towards gratitude."
- Ryan Holiday
"We don't get to choose so much of what happens to us in life-- whether we're in a wheelchair or staring at the burnt wreckage of our factory-- but we can always choose how we feel about it, whether we're going to work with it or not. Why on earth would you choose to feel anything but good? Why would you choose not to work with it? What would that accomplish?
- Ryan Holiday
So many self-described gurus and influencers will try to tell you that you don't need to change a thing about yourself. Holiday doesn't try to flatter you-- he outright tells you that "you're not as good as you think."
All the while, though, we have to maintain humility. If we let our egos get the best of us along the way, we'll likely meet a rude awakening shortly enough.
“You’re not as good as you think. You don’t have it all figured out. Stay focused. Do better.”
- Ryan Holiday
“There’s no one to perform for. There is just work to be done and lessons to be learned, in all that is around us.”
- Ryan Holiday
“Remember, if there is one core teaching at the heart of this philosophy, it’s that we’re not as smart and as wise as we’d like to think we are. If we ever do want to become wise, it comes from the questioning and from humility—not, as many would like to think, from certainty, mistrust, and arrogance.”
- Ryan Holiday
“And that’s what is so insidious about talk. Anyone can talk about himself or herself. Even a child knows how to gossip and chatter. Most people are decent at hype and sales. So what is scarce and rare? Silence. The ability to deliberately keep yourself out of the conversation and subsist without its validation. Silence is the respite of the confident and the strong.”
- Ryan Holiday
“Most successful people are people you’ve never heard of. They want it that way. It keeps them sober. It helps them do their jobs.”
- Ryan Holiday
“When we remove ego, we’re left with what is real. What replaces ego is humility, yes—but rock-hard humility and confidence. Whereas ego is artificial, this type of confidence can hold weight. Ego is stolen. Confidence is earned. Ego is self-anointed, its swagger is artifice. One is girding yourself, the other gaslighting. It’s the difference between potent and poisonous.”
- Ryan Holiday
“Almost universally, the kind of performance we give on social media is positive. It’s more “Let me tell you how well things are going. Look how great I am.” It’s rarely the truth: “I’m scared. I’m struggling. I don’t know.”
- Ryan Holiday
Unfortunately, we can't decide we want to be better tonight and expect we'll wake up that way tomorrow morning.
“Waste no more time arguing what a good man should be. Be one.”
- Marcus Aurelius
The truth is that improving yourself is something that takes time and effort. You could spend the rest of your life working toward becoming the best person you can be. And, when you think about it, what better task could there be to spend your whole life on?
“When intelligent people read, they ask themselves a simple question: What do I plan to do with this information?”
- Ryan Holiday
“The obstacle in the path becomes the path. Never forget, within every obstacle is an opportunity to improve our condition.”
- Ryan Holiday
“The pretense of knowledge is our most dangerous vice, because it prevents us from getting any better.”
- Ryan Holiday
Reading about Stoicism and getting inspired by Stoic quotes is awesome. At the same time, we can't stay stuck in our heads all the time.
"Objective judgment, now, at this very moment. Unselfish action, now, at this very moment. Willing acceptance - now, at this very moment - of all external events. That's all you need."
- Marcus Aurelius
Without action, all of the brilliant thoughts we have and genius ideas are simply lost in the ether.
“We forget: In life, it doesn’t matter what happens to you or where you came from. It matters what you do with what happens and what you’ve been given.”
- Ryan Holiday
“In every situation, life is asking us a question, and our actions are the answer.”
- Ryan Holiday
“A person who thinks all the time has nothing to think about except thoughts, so he loses touch with reality and lives in a world of illusions.”
- Ryan Holiday
“You know what’s better than building things up in your imagination? Building things up in real life.”
- Ryan Holiday
“Stop looking for an epiphany, and start looking for weak points. Stop looking for angels, and start looking for angles.”
- Ryan Holiday
“It’s a temptation that exists for everyone—for talk and hype to replace action.”
- Ryan Holiday
“We’ve all done it. Said: “I am so [overwhelmed, tired, stressed, busy, blocked, outmatched].” And then what do we do about it? Go out and party. Or treat ourselves. Or sleep in. Or wait. It feels better to ignore or pretend. But you know deep down that that isn’t going to truly make it any better. You’ve got to act. And you’ve got to start now.”
- Ryan Holiday
“We will learn that though we think big, we must act and live small in order to accomplish what we seek. Because we will be action and education focused, and forgo validation and status, our ambition will not be grandiose but iterative—one foot in front of the other, learning and growing and putting in the time.”
- Ryan Holiday
“Routine, done for long enough and done sincerely enough, becomes more than routine. It becomes ritual—it becomes sanctified and holy.”
- Ryan Holiday
Life simply isn't always going to go your way. Sometimes, so much goes wrong at once it's hard not to wonder whether the universe is actively working against you.
Hard times can be powerful growth experiences. However, being told that when you are in the depths of despair is hardly much help.
Holiday offers some useful advice on how to deal with those really tough moments in life. Just as the good times will pass, so will the bad, and if you can keep perspective, you might just be able to recover much more gracefully and swiftly.
“Remember that this moment is not your life, it’s just a moment in your life. Focus on what is in front of you, right now. Ignore what it “represents” or it “means” or “why it happened to you.”
- Ryan Holiday
"All great men and women went through difficulties to get to where they are, all of them made mistakes. They found within those experiences some benefit—even if it was simply the realization that they were not infallible and that things would not always go their way. They found that self awareness was the way out and through—if they hadn’t, they wouldn’t have gotten better and they wouldn’t have been able to rise again."
- Ryan Holiday
Life can be so busy that we spend the entirety of our days dealing with things that happened in the past or anticipating things that will happen in the future.
But what's going on right now?
Learning to be present is one of the most useful skills you can learn in life. Not only can it help you deal with anxiety, worry, and other seriously unhelpful mental traps, but it can also improve your concentration, focus, memory, and more.
“Be present. And if you’ve had trouble with this in the past? That’s okay. That’s the nice thing about the present. It keeps showing up to give you a second chance.”
- Ryan Holiday
“The less energy we waste regretting the past or worrying about the future, the more energy we will have for what’s in front of us.”
- Ryan Holiday
“Focus on the moment, not the monsters that may or may not be up ahead.”
- Ryan Holiday
“There’s nothing shameful about sweeping. It’s just another opportunity to excel—and to learn. But you, you’re so busy thinking about the future, you don’t take any pride in the tasks you’re given right now. You just phone it all in, cash your paycheck, and dream of some higher station in life. Or you think, This is just a job, it isn’t who I am, it doesn’t matter. Foolishness. Everything we do matters—whether it’s making smoothies while you save up money or studying for the bar—even after you already achieved the success you sought.”
- Ryan Holiday
One of the aspects of Stoicism that is most often misunderstood has to do with emotions. Some mistakenly believe that the Stoics ask us to completely delete our emotions, which is ultimately a dangerous proposition that can lead to repression.
Repressed emotions can lead to psychological and physical problems. In the first Holiday quote here, he addresses this idea and explains that "no one said anything about not feeling [emotions]." There's a big difference between being self-aware of your emotions and controlling the way they impact your actions versus stuffing them deep down and pretending you don't feel how you feel.
“If an emotion can't change the condition or the situation you're dealing with, it is likely an unhelpful emotion. Or, quite possibly, a destructive one. But it's what I feel. Right, no one said anything about not feeling it. No one said you can't ever cry. Forget "manliness." If you need to take a moment, by all means, go ahead. Real strength lies in the control or, as Nassim Taleb put it, the domestication of one's emotions, not in pretending they don't exist.”
- Ryan Holiday
“...Because our senses are often wrong, our emotions overly alarmed, our projections overly optimistic, we’re better off not rushing into conclusions about anything.”
- Ryan Holiday
“What we desire makes us vulnerable.”
- Ryan Holiday
“To prevent becoming overwhelmed by the world around us, we must, as the ancients practiced, learn how to limit our passions and their control over our lives. It takes skill and discipline to bat away the pests of bad perceptions, to separate reliable signals from deceptive ones, to filter out prejudice, expectation, and fear. But it’s worth it, for what’s left is truth. While others are excited or afraid, we will remain calm and imperturbable. We will see things simply and straightforwardly, as they truly are—neither good nor bad.”
- Ryan Holiday
“The more things we desire and the more we have to do to earn or attain those achievements, the less we actually enjoy our lives—and the less free we are.”
- Ryan Holiday
Self-awareness is key if you really want to improve yourself. It's incredible how easy it is for us to have a skewed or delusional perception of ourselves. If we're not careful, we'll end up walking down roads and making decisions that don't support our deeper desires to live a meaningful life.
“You must practice seeing yourself with a little distance, cultivating the ability to get out of your own head. Detachment is a sort of natural ego antidote. It’s easy to be emotionally invested and infatuated with your own work. Any and every narcissist can do that. What is rare is not raw talent, skill, or even confidence, but humility, diligence, and self-awareness.”
- Ryan Holiday
“One might say that the ability to evaluate one’s own ability is the most important skill of all. Without it, improvement is impossible. And certainly ego makes it difficult every step of the way. It is certainly more pleasurable to focus on our talents and strengths, but where does that get us? Arrogance and self-absorption inhibit growth. So does fantasy and “vision.”
- Ryan Holiday
"It’s not as if the Stoics were Cynics who renounced all worldly goods. Seneca was quite rich. Marcus held power. They just understood what these things really were. It’s what allowed them to utilize them effectively, without becoming dependent on them."
- Ryan Holiday
In a blog post written nearly fifteen years ago by Holiday, he talks about how he deliberately recenters after making mistakes or experiencing a string of successes.
He cites the following Marcus Aurelius quote as a way to remember just how destructive the ego can be and how fleeting life really is:
"Soon you’ll be ashes or bones. A mere name at most–and even that is just a sound, an echo. The things we want in life are empty, stale, trivial."
- Marcus Aurelius
Starting from there, let's take a look at some of the other powerful ideas Holiday has put forward about success and failure in his writings.
“Failure shows us the way—by showing us what isn’t the way.”
- Ryan Holiday
“Failure really can be an asset if what you’re trying to do is improve, learn, or do something new.”
- Ryan Holiday
“When success begins to slip from your fingers—for whatever reason—the response isn’t to grip and claw so hard that you shatter it to pieces. It’s to understand that you must work yourself back to the aspirational phase. You must get back to first principles and best practices.”
- Ryan Holiday
“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
“Work is finding yourself alone at the track when the weather kept everyone else indoors. Work is pushing through the pain and crappy first drafts and prototypes. It is ignoring whatever plaudits others are getting, and more importantly, ignoring whatever plaudits you may be getting. Because there is work to be done. Work doesn’t want to be good. It is made so, despite the headwind.”
- Ryan Holiday
“It’s okay to be discouraged. It’s not okay to quit. To know you want to quit but to plant your feet and keep inching closer until you take the impenetrable fortress you’ve decided to lay siege to in your own life—that’s persistence.”
- Ryan Holiday
“Wherever we are, whatever we’re doing and wherever we are going, we owe it to ourselves, to our art, to the world to do it well.”
- Ryan Holiday
Before I sign off, let's take a look at some of the quotes that Holiday himself describes as having changed his life forever.
“Some lack the fickleness to live as they wish and just live as they have begun.”
“Life is short—the fruit of this life is a good character and acts for the common good.”
“You could leave life right now. Let that determine what you do and say and think.”
- Marcus Aurelius
“Dogs bark at what they cannot understand.”
- Heraclitus
“Thou knowest this man’s fall; but thou knowest not his wrassling.”
- James Baldwin
“It can have meaning if it changes you for the better.”
- Viktor Frankl
“If you see fraud and do not say fraud, you are a fraud.”
- Nassim Taleb
“Happiness does not come from the seeking, it is never ours by right.”
- Eleanor Roosevelt
“This is not your responsibility but it is your problem.”
- Cheryl Strayed
In our culture that values instant gratification and creature comforts over the harder-earned, more meaningful rewards in life, the philosophy of Stoicism provides a powerful antidote. Ryan Holiday, the foremost modern proponent of Stoicism, has arguably done more for spreading the good word about the usefulness of applying Stoic principles to one's life.
Are you looking for more inspiration as you work to incorporate Stoicism into your everyday experience? Make sure you check out our Stoic Quotes blog!
We encourage you to share this article on Twitter and Facebook. Just click those two links - you'll see why.
It's important to share the news to spread the truth. Most people won't.
