Quotes about Self-discipline

The truth about human beings is, above all other forms of truth, something far too susceptible to our own willful and subjectivist distortions; by nature we never JUST LET SUCH A THING BE, or accept it as it is. Of all the decisive and strategic things that an intelligent human being needs to know about human beings, primary on the list would be this: human beings are overwhelmingly profoundly RESISTANT to knowing the truth about human nature. The one creature in all of organic nature that is capable of KNOWING its own nature is also, paradigmatic over all other creatures, the one most IN DENIAL about that nature. To ask of mortals that they should "know themselves" is little more than a cruel joke, japing at their crippled mentality and personality. Their grasp of this structural perversity or contrariety within human nature is the basis of all Greek wisdom, their aristic "misanthropy" or principled and profound distrust of human beings as pseudophiliacs. All that human beings are willing to call "truth" (for the most part) is some saccharine or cosmetic sweetness and light, some soporific opiate against all in human existence that might demand the utmost self-discipline, rationality, self-mastery, or spirituality from them.

I regret not getting brutally forthright with human beings a hell of a lot sooner than I did. Civility and obliquity are wasted on people who will not make the effort to be harsher or stricter on their own gooey egos than they are on other people.

I should, there for I shall.

"Discipline" is a difficult word for most of us. It conjures up images of somebody standing over you with a stick, telling you that you're wrong. But self-discipline is different. It's the skill of seeing through the hollow shouting of your own impulses and piercing their secret. They have no power over you. It's all a show, a deception. Your urges scream and bluster at you; they cajole; they coax; they threaten; but they really carry no stick at all. You give in out of habit. You give in because you never really bother to look beyond the threat. It is all empty back there. There is only one way to learn this lesson, though. The words on this page won't do it. But look within and watch the stuff coming up-restlessness, anxiety, impatience, pain-just watch it come up and don't get involved. Much to your surprise, it will simply go away. It rises, it passes away. As simple as that. There is another word for self-discipline. It is patience.

Where would I possibly find enough leather
With which to cover the surface of the earth?
But (just) leather on the soles of my shoes
Is equivalent to covering the earth with it

Likewise it is not possible for me
To restrain the external course of things
But should I restrain this mind of mine
What would be the need to restrain all else?

Real peace comes only to those who control the body and mind with self-discipline.