User:Khannaford

Never give in — never, never, never, never, in nothing great or small, large or petty, never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense. Never yield to force; never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy. - Winston Churchill

“Life is a constant oscillation between the sharp horns of dilemmas.” - H. L. Mencken

“In this world, where the game is played with loaded dice, a man must have a temper of iron, with armor proof to the blows of fate, and weapons to make his way […]. Life is one long battle; we have to fight it every step” - Schopenhauer

“To prosper in life, or just to withstand its vicissitudes, a person has to possess some dark traits in controlled doses: aggression, swagger, ruthlessness verging on chicanery, an ability to block out other people and their judgments. Much more than a trace of this stuff and you are on to the first rungs of sociopathy. Much less and the world sniffs a soft touch. [...] life will demand [...] mental toughness, the projection of confidence even when it is insincere and the extraction of marginal gains through cunning.” - Janan Ganesh

“[T]he greatest battle of all is with yourself--your weaknesses, your emotions, your lack of resolution in seeing things through to the end. You must declare unceasing war on yourself. As a warrior in life, you welcome combat and conflict as ways to prove yourself, to better your skills, to gain courage, confidence, and experience. Instead of repressing your doubts and fears, you must face them down, do battle with them. You want more challenges, and you invite more war. You are forging the warrior's spirit, and only constant practice will lead you there.” - Robert Greene

“The Knight-errant searches all the corners of the world, enters the most complicated labyrinths, accomplishes at every step the impossible, endures the fierce rays of the sun in uninhabited deserts, the inclement sea of wind and ice in winter. Lions cannot daunt him nor demons affright nor dragons, for to seek, assault, and overcome such is the whole business of his life, and true office. - Don Quixote

Lean just beyond your edge. In any given moment, a man's growth is optimized if he leans just beyond his edge, his capacity, his fear. He should not be too lazy, happily stagnating in the zone of security and comfort. Nor should he push far beyond his edge, stressing himself unnecessarily, unable to metabolize his experience. He should lean just slightly beyond the edge of fear and discomfort. Constantly. In everything he does. - David Deida

We should never let ourselves get to the place where all of this feels like work. It’s not work. It’s how we were designed to be and designed to live. The masculine grows with challenge.

Once you make some decent gains on attractiveness and frame, it's less about what you do or say and much more about how you do or say it. There are limits, of course. But... you get wayyyy more leeway to be whoever you want to be and say whatever you want to say if you have your shit together. An attractive guy can get a wildly different response saying the exact same thing as an unattractive guy.

Strive to be a better man than you were yesterday. Then tomorrow strive to be better. "The only easy day was yesterday".

“Run from what's comfortable. Forget safety. Live where you fear to live. Destroy your reputation. Be notorious.” - Rumi

“...[D]esire the challenge of a calamity.” - Taleb

“Life is either a daring adventure or nothing at all. Security is mostly a superstition.” - Helen Keller

“It is precisely in times of immunity from care that the soul should toughen itself beforehand for occasions of greater stress and it is while Fortune is kind that it should fortify itself against her violence. In days of peace the soldier performs maneuvers, throws up earthworks with no enemy in sight, and wearies himself by gratuitous toil, in order that he may be equal to unavoidable toil. If you would not have a man flinch when the crisis comes, train him before it comes.” - Seneca “Power comes upon me clothed in a thousand phenomena; and these manifestations of power open to me a new spiritual resource. In submitting to power, I learn its ways; from being passive my spirit becomes active; it begins to enjoy one of its essential prerogatives.” - Santayana

“To be cool, decisive, precise, yes, while the barn door hits you in the face.” - Frank O’Hara

“Every now and then you run up on one of those days when everything’s in vain … a stone bummer from start to finish; and if you know what’s good for you, on days like these you sort of hunker down in a safe corner and watch.” - Hunter S. Thompson

“When you want to help people, you tell them the truth. When you want to help yourself, you tell them what they want to hear.” - Thomas Sowell

“Your interest in war is not the violence, the brutality, the waste of lives and resources, but the rationality and pragmatism it forces on us and the ideal of winning without bloodshed. [...] You are always one step ahead, making your moves more indirect. Your goal is to blend philosophy and war, wisdom and battle.” - Robert Greene “[When] we feel as though we’re in a trench on the front lines with bullets whizzing past our heads [...], become the commander looking out at the battlefield from a hilltop. […L]ook at a map of the territory and make high-level decisions. ‘These guys shouldn’t even be fighting over here. What the hell is Regiment B doing over there? Call them out. We need more troops around the ridge. For objectives, we should be going after A, B, and C in that order. Ignore all the other so-called emergencies until those are handled. Great. Now, deep breath, and...execute.’” - Tim Ferriss

"Expect the best, plan for the worst, and prepare to be surprised." - Denis Waitley