Pankaj Mishra Quotes

If we resist our passions, it is more due to their weakness than our strength.

Only the disciplined ones in life are free. If you are undisciplined, you are a slave to your moods and your passions.

Why do they always teach us that it's easy and evil to do what we want and that we need discipline to restrain ourselves? It's the hardest thing in the world--to do what we want. And it takes the greatest kind of courage. I mean, what we really want.

A man who wills commands something within himself that renders obedience, or that he believes renders obedience.

He who cannot obey himself will be commanded. That is the nature of living creatures.

The disciplined are free.

In the matter of learning, the difference between the earnest and the careless student stands out clearly. The same holds true in the mastering of passion and the weaknesses to which our nature is subject, as in the acquiring of virtue.

Self-respect is the fruit of discipline; the sense of dignity grows with the ability to say no to oneself.

A man must drive his energy, not be driven by it.

The discipline of desire is the background of character.

There is something good in men that really yearn for discipline.

He who controls others may be powerful, but he who has mastered himself is mightier still.

It is his restraint that is honorable to a person, not their liberty.

Strength instead of being the lusty child of passion, grows by grappling with and subduing them.

A man who is a master of patience is master of everything else.

Patience means restraining one's inclinations.

Mastering others is strength. Mastering yourself is true power.

The happiness of a man in this life does not consist in the absence but in the mastery of his passions.

There is little that can withstand a man who can conquer himself.

Those who can command themselves command others.

Will power is only the tensile strength of one's own disposition. One cannot increase it by a single ounce.

If you want to control other people, first control yourself.

I count him braver who overcomes his desires than him who conquers his enemies; for the hardest victory is over self.

You can learn not to want what you want, to recognize desires but not be controlled by them.

They who overcome their desires once can overcome them always.