Steven Pressfield Quotes

In reading the lives of great men, I found that the first victory they won was over themselves... self-discipline with all of them came first.

The important thing to me is that I'm not driven by people's praise and I'm not slowed down by people's criticism. I'm just trying to work at the highest level I can.

I think that when people who've had success from a young age go through a train-wreck cycle, it's usually because they're working on someone else's terms, so they feel the need to rebel. But when it's something you've built, you don't have that same kind of resentment or angstiness. But it's also difficult to keep those standards for yourself.

I'm highly critical of myself. There's not something someone else might say that makes me feel I need to be motivated in a different way. I'm a self-motivated guy.

I train as smart as I can. I'm not concerned what others think. I do what works for me.

I've had to push myself and I've really matured.

Do not whine... Do not complain. Work harder. Spend more time alone.

Every attainment, every step forward in knowledge, follows from courage, from hardness against oneself, from cleanliness in relation to oneself.

I've always been strong-minded, but I wonder.

When you don't have people in your life pushing you, can you push yourself?

The spirit of self-help is the root of all genuine growth in the individual.

I guess more players lick themselves that are ever licked by an opposing team. The first thing any man has to know is how to handle himself.

I've always been my own hitting coach.

The only one who can beat me is me.

Influential people have a profound impact on everyone they encounter. Yet, they achieve this only because they exert so much influence inside, on themselves.

Since I've started fighting it has taught me a lot about self respect, self confidence and self control.

Scouting teaches a boy to take care of himself and stand on his own two feet.

I'm a very competitive person, but competitive with myself. I want to be the best that I can be, and if that means that I'm eventually better than everyone else, then so be it. But I don't go around comparing and contrasting myself with other actors if I can help it. It's also, I think, the key to my success.

There's a victory, and defeat; the first and best of victories, the lowest and worst of defeats which each man gains or sustains at the hands not of another, but of himself.

I think self-reliance and self-responsibility and self-accountability will help you as a parent, a teacher, as a citizen as a friend.

You cannot lead others until you have first learned to lead yourself.

I think self-discipline is something, it's like a muscle. The more you exercise it, the stronger it gets.

Who has a harder fight than he who is striving to overcome himself.

I am not struggling. What I do, it is what I do.

If you're trying to raise a son, it gives you a chance to say things like, 'Chop your own wood; it will warm you twice.'