Every man speaks… of impracticality and difficulties and loftiness… But even the Impossible is made Possible by a man's Sincerity. Impossibility simply has no power in the face of genuine desire. Every single man will have what he insists upon having. (Page 7)
Greed To Win Breeds The Fear Of Losing
I was prey to the greed of winning. And this greed of winning led me into the bowels of fear. And a fearful man cannot fight. He can only fail. (Page 42)
Truth Demands Abandoning Society’s Approval
If you speak The Truth, the rest will think you mad. But understand this, the madman has no need whatsoever to acquire confidence. For he is never without it. (Page 73)
Disgust Drives Evolution
A man must somehow accumulate a basic level of disgust for the status quo. If he is not disgusted by it, he will become a part of it. He must understand that that which society values is the low and mediocre. (Page 136)
Knowledge Must Become Visceral Experience
How did this intellectual understanding transform into a knowing? It happens through a constant revisitation of the ideal that you wish to know. A constant revisitation allows one to understand it from all angles. And that which was once intellectual, in time becomes Experiential. (Page 5)
Problems Are Misperceptions
Every problem in your life exists because you fail to see it for what it truly is. If you were, for a single moment, able to see these problems for what they truly were, every one of them would vanish before your next breath. (Page 144)
Train For Spirit, Not Victory
Only the fool trains in order to win. The wise man trains in order to forge his spirit. He trains in order to perfect his skill. For his craft is his life. And its refinement is his Journey. (Page 120)
Hierarchies of Importance Are A Trap
If you create a category called "importance" you will naturally be compelled to create a hierarchy of "importance" following which you will find yourself with the difficult task of placing yourself somewhere within this hierarchy. And the moment you place yourself within this hierarchy, you will have created a problem. (Page 68)
Suffering Cannot Be Solved, Only Seen
Man must recognize that his life is fundamentally pain. And that all his efforts at "happiness" only lead him further into that pain. He must understand that no matter what he tries, whether it is meditation or psychotherapy or medications or support from friends, such things will not have the power to cure his pain. (Page 104)
Wisdom Sees The Inevitability of Suffering After Joy
The man of wisdom has seen that all joys are followed by misery. All pleasures are followed by pain. He has seen the undeniable reproducibility of this fact. And thus he has grown tired of seeking pleasure. And in doing so he has become immune to the pain that follows. (Page 154)
