Blog — Quotes

Not a dancer but a wrestler: waiting, poised, and dug in, for sudden assaults.

Ultimately, happiness comes down to choosing between the discomfort of becoming aware of your mental afflictions and the discomfort of being ruled by them.

Concentrate every minute like a Roman—like a man—on doing what’s in front of you with precise and genuine seriousness, tenderly, willingly, with justice. And on freeing yourself from all other distractions. Yes, you can—if you do everything as if it were the last thing you were doing in your life, and stop being aimless, stop letting your emotions override what your mind tells you, stop being hypocritical, self-centered, irritable. You see how few things you have to do to live a satisfying and reverent life? If you can manage this, that’s all even the gods can ask of you.

Mindfulness is healthy, it’s professional, and it allows us to be our best self. It is also maddeningly difficult, particularly in a culture that prizes busyness over just about everything else.

But mindful isn’t the opposite of busy.

Mindfulness demands intention. Mindfulness is the practice of simply doing the work. Without commentary, without chatter, without fear.

The first step: Don't be anxious. Nature controls it all. And before long you'll be no one, nowhere—like Hadrian, like Augustus.
The second step: Concentrate on what you have to do. Fix your eyes on it. Remind yourself that your task is to be a good human being; remind yourself what nature demands of people. Then do it, without hesitation, and speak the truth as you see it. But with kindness. With humility. Without hypocrisy.