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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.

Steven Pressfield

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.
STEVEN PRESSFIELD

Act Attention Cheating Contribution Creativity Yourself
The professional tackles the project that will make him stretch. He takes on the assignment that will bear him into uncharted waters, compel him to explore unconscious parts of himself. Is he scared? Hell, yes. He’s petrified.
STEVEN PRESSFIELD

Exploration Himself Professional Project Water
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.
STEVEN PRESSFIELD

Amateur Call Live Meaning Run True Work
We come into this world with a specific, personal destiny. We have a job to do, a calling to enact, a self to become. We are who we are from the cradle, and we’re stuck with it.
STEVEN PRESSFIELD

Destiny Personal Stuck World
Playing the game for money produces the proper professional attitude. It inculcates the lunch-pail state of mind that shows up for work despite rain or snow or dark of night and slugs it out day after day.
STEVEN PRESSFIELD

Attitude Day Game Mindset Night Play Production Professional
Be too dumb to quit and too stubborn to back off.
STEVEN PRESSFIELD

Attitude Inspirational Quit Stubborn Success
A cavalryman’s horse should be smarter than he is. But the horse must never be allowed to know this.
STEVEN PRESSFIELD

Animal Home Man Smart
Our greatest battle is to become ourselves, in the face of adversity.
STEVEN PRESSFIELD

Adversity Battle Face Greatness Ourselves
The most important thing about art is to work. Nothing else matters except sitting down every day and trying.
STEVEN PRESSFIELD

Art Day Exception Important Try Work
To yield to Resistance deforms our spirit. It stunts us and makes us less than we are and were born to be.
STEVEN PRESSFIELD

Born Limitation Ourselves Resistance Spirit Worth
The amateur tweets. The pro works.
STEVEN PRESSFIELD

Amateur Effort Master One Liner Work
A child has no trouble believing the unbelievable, nor does the genius or the madman. It’s only you and I, with our big brains and our tiny hearts, who doubt and overthink and hesitate.
STEVEN PRESSFIELD

Believe Big Children Doubt Heart Hesitation Mad Man Myself Thinking Trouble
Defeating Resistance is like giving birth. It seems absolutely impossible until you remember that women have been pulling it off successfully, with support and without, for fifty million years.
STEVEN PRESSFIELD

Born Defeat Impossible Resistance Success Support Time
Resistance will tell you anything to keep you from doing your work.
STEVEN PRESSFIELD

Resistance Work Yourself
This man has conquered the world! What have you done?” The philosopher replied without an instant’s hesitation, “I have conquered the need to conquer the world.
STEVEN PRESSFIELD

Deep Hesitation Man Myself Need Philosophy World
The last thing we want is to remain as we are.
STEVEN PRESSFIELD

Be Yourself Original Reality
Figure out what scares you the most and do that first.
STEVEN PRESSFIELD

Act Brave Fear Inspirational Scare Yourself
What finally convinced me to go ahead was simply that I was so unhappy not going ahead.
STEVEN PRESSFIELD

Happiness Myself Simplicity
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.
STEVEN PRESSFIELD

Challenge Dreams Fear Joy Love Ourselves Passion See Work
Never forget: This very moment, we can change our lives. There never was a moment, and never will be, when we are without the power to alter our destiny.
STEVEN PRESSFIELD

Change Destiny Forget Live Moments Ourselves Power
Don’t cheat the world of your contribution. Give it what you’ve got.
STEVEN PRESSFIELD

Cheating Contribute World Yourself
There’s a secret that real writers know that wannabe writers don’t, and the secret is this: It’s not the writing part that’s hard. What’s hard is sitting down to write. What keeps us from sitting down is Resistance.
STEVEN PRESSFIELD

Reality Resistance Secret Writing
If you were meant to cure cancer or write a symphony or crack cold fusion and you don’t do it, you not only hurt yourself, even destroy yourself. You hurt your children. You hurt me. You hurt the planet.
STEVEN PRESSFIELD

Cure Destroy Fusion Hurt Planet Symphony Writing Yourself
When we sit down day after day and keep grinding, something mysterious starts to happen… Unseen forces enlist in our cause; serendipity reinforces our purpose.
STEVEN PRESSFIELD

Day Force Mystery Purpose Start
The Principle of Priority states (a) you must know the difference between what is urgent and what is important, and (b) you must do what’s important first.
STEVEN PRESSFIELD

Difference Important Principle Urgent Yourself
When we turn pro we stop running from our fears. We turn around and face them.
STEVEN PRESSFIELD

Face Fears Run Stop
The sign of the amateur is overglorification of and preoccupation with the mystery. The professional shuts up. She doesn’t talk about it. She does her work.
STEVEN PRESSFIELD

Amateur Glory Hereslf Mystery Occupation Professional Talk Work

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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The best and only thing that one artist can do for another is to serve as an example and an inspiration.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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