Steven Pressfield Quotes

No one rises above who he or she has been without first having fallen down. The best time - in fact, the only time - to make a real change in your life is in the moment of seeing the need for it. He who hesitates always gets lost in the hundred reasons why tomorrow is a better day to get started.

Defeat may serve as well as victory To shake the soul and let the glory out. When the great oak is straining in the wind, The boughs drink in new beauty and the trunk Sends down a deeper root on the windward side. Only the soul that knows the mighty grief Can know the mighty rapture, Sorrows come To stretch out spaces in the heart for joy.

Joy is sometimes a blessing, but it is often a conquest. Our magic moment help us to change and sends us off in search of our dreams. Yes, we are going to suffer, we will have difficult times, and we will experience many disappointments — but all of this is transitory it leaves no permanent mark. And one day we will look back with pride and faith at the journey we have taken.

Not the intensity but the duration of high feelings makes high men.

You're always trying to look for material that is as challenging as possible, so that's why I like stuff where the characters go through the most difficult times they've ever had in their life. It makes me push myself further and learn more about myself.

Never does a man know the force that is in him till some mighty affliction or grief has humanized the soul.

Nature is so powerful, so strong. It takes you to a place within yourself.

I've overcome a lot - sexual abuse, death of a loved one, bad parents and experienced life. My nature is such I not only survived all this but I have thrived. I've always been psychologically ambitious in that I've never been willing to settle emotionally for anything less then what's needed. I've wanted more then that from life.

Suffering in life can uncover untold depths of character and unknown strength for service. People who go through life unscathed by sorrow and untouched by pain tend to be shallow in their perspectives on life. Suffering, on the other hand, tends to plow up the surface of our lives to uncover the depths that provide greater strength of purpose and accomplishment. Only deeply plowed earth can yield bountiful harvests.

Tell me what you are doing with your suffering, and I will tell you who you are.

As a matter of fact I had a terribly traumatic childhood. But afterward I sort of reraised myself.

Anything that forces the human soul to scream out and fight really brings out the best in us, and to have an opportunity to portray characters like that is inspiring.

The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain.

The person may have a scar, but it also means they have a story

What makes a strong female character is a character who has weaknesses, who has flaws, who is maybe not immediately likable, but eventually relatable.

Even across the dark, even across the loss, even across the emptiness, soul will speak to soul

You should never be embarrassed by your trouble with living, because it's the ones with the sorest throats who have done the most singing.

If, in fact, it is what's inside us that makes all the difference, then the difference is made when we choose what goes inside.

It's an awful truth that suffering can deepen us, give a greater lustre to our colours, a richer resonance to our words. That is, if it doesn't destroy us, if it doesn't burn away the optimism and the spirit, the capacity for visions, and the respect for simple yet indispensable things.

We rightly scorn those who have no made use of their defects, who have not exploited their deficiencies, and have not been enriched by their losses, as we despise any man who does not suffer at being a man or simply at being. Hence no graver insult can be inflicted than to call someone 'happy', no greater flattery than to grant him a 'vein of melancholy'... This is because gaiety is link to no important action and because, except for the mad, no one laughs when he is alone.

A man who can take anything will find most things unsatisfying. And a man without memories is just a shell.

Trouble teaches men how much there is in manhood.

Joy is a mystery because it can happen anywhere, anytime, even under the most unpromising circumstances, even in the midst of suffering, with tears in its eyes.

But in my heart I knew that just like the new grass, I wasn't strong enough yet to be walked on