#mastery

One can have no smaller or greater mastery than mastery of oneself. ↗

— Leonardo da Vinci

#self-mastery #art

A strong life force can be seen in physical vitality, courage, competent judgment, self-mastery, sexual vigor, and the realization of each person’s unique talents and purpose in life. To maintain a powerful life force, forget yourself, forget about living and dying, and bring your full attention into this moment. ↗

— H.E. Davey

#courage #judgment #ki #life-force #meditation

The ability to subordinate an impulse to a value is the essence of the proactive person. ↗

— Stephen R. Covey

#self-mastery #change

It is not possible to control the outside of yourself until you have mastered your breathing space. It is not possible to change anything until you understand the substance you wish to change. ↗

— Jeanette Winterson

#change

Think of the most discouraging thing that you are currently carrying or the biggest project you can’t seem to tackle. Forget about how it happened, forget about how you got there, just look at the clock, and before that number changes, do one little thing to make it better. After you do, enjoy your moment of victory, and then do it again. In less than the time it takes you to blink, the past will burden you no more. ↗

— Dan Pearce

#changing-ourselves #goals #our-pasts #overcoming-negativity #overcoming-obstacles

Mastering the art of seduction gives one a great power, and like any power, it's to be wielded with responsibility; a man who wields the art of seduction without a sense of responsibility and restraint is a walking proximity bomb of viral epidemics, needless procreation, heartbroken families, and shattered dreams. ↗

— Mike Norton

#bomb #heartbreak #heartbroken #mastery #power

Can anything be imagined so ridiculous, that this miserable and wretched creature [man], who is not so much as master of himself, but subject to the injuries of all things, should call himself master and emperor of the world, of which he has not power to know the least part, much less to command the whole? ↗

— Michel de Montaigne

#hubris #mankind #mastery #perspective #world

When your efforts run in the face of conventional wisdom and accepted mastery, persistence can look like madness. If you succeed in the end, this extreme originality reformulates into a new level of mastery, sometimes even genius; if you fail in the end, you remain a madman in the eyes of others, and maybe even yourself. When you are in the midst of the journey…there’s really no way of knowing which one you are.” (p.129) ↗

— Hilary Austen

#conventional-wisdom #effort #extreme-originality #genius #journey

We love the imperfect shapes in nature and in the works of art, look for an intentional error as a sign of the golden key and sincerity found in true mastery. ↗

— Dejan Stojanovic

#dejan-stojanovic #golden #golden-rule #imperfect #imperfection

We should every night call ourselves to an account; What infirmity have I mastered today? What passions opposed? What temptation resisted? What virtue acquired? Our vices will abort of themselves if they be brought every day to the shrift. ↗

— Lucius Annaeus Seneca

#temptation