Seeking support from friends and and family is like having people gathered around at your deathbed. It’s nice, but when the ship sails, all they can do is stand on the dock waving goodbye.
STEVEN PRESSFIELDThe more fear we feel about a specific enterprise, the more certain we can be that that enterprise is important to us and to the growth of our soul.
More Steven Pressfield Quotes
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I wrote in the War of Art that I could divide my life neatly into two parts: before turning pro and after. After is better.
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When we’re living as amateurs, we’re running away from our calling – meaning our work, our destiny, the obligation to become our truest and highest selves.
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The opposite of fear is love – love of the challenge, love of the work, the pure joyous passion to take a shot at our dream and see if we can pull it off.
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The amateur believes he must first overcome his fear; then he can do his work. The professional knows that fear can never be overcome. He knows there is no such thing as a fearless warrior or a dread-free artist.
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The artist cannot look to others to validate his efforts or his calling. If you don’t believe me, ask Van Gogh, who produced masterpiece after masterpiece and never found a buyer in his whole life.
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Long-term, we must begin to build our internal strengths. It isn’t just skills like computer technology. It’s the old-fashioned basics of self-reliance, self-motivation, self-reinforcement, self-discipline, self-command.
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The best and only thing that one artist can do for another is to serve as an example and an inspiration.
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When we turn pro we stop running from our fears. We turn around and face them.
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Stay stupid. Follow your unconventional crazy heart.
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Creative work is not a selfish act or a bid for attention on the part of the actor. It’s a gift to the world and every being in it. Don’t cheat us of your contribution. Give us what you’ve got.
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Do you love your idea? Does it feel right on instinct? Are you willing to bleed for it?
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Courage is inseparable from love and leads to what may arguably be the noblest of all warrior virtues: selflessness.
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The professional will not tolerate disorder… He wants the carpet vacuumed and the threshold swept, so the Muse may enter and not soil her gown.
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The amateur tweets. The pro works.
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Our job in this lifetime is not to shape ourselves into some ideal we imagine we ought to be, but to find out who we already are and become it.
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