Steven Pressfield Quotes

To enjoy freedom we have to control ourselves.

Self-government relies, in the end, on the governing of the self.

Absolute liberty is absence of restraint; responsibility is restraint; therefore, the ideally free individual is responsible to himself.

The greatest blessing of our democracy is freedom. But in the last analysis, our only freedom is the freedom to discipline ourselves.

Self Control, Not State Control

Those who will not govern themselves are condemned to find masters to govern over them.

Liberty is the luxury of self-discipline, that those nations historically who have failed to discipline themselves have had discipline imposed by others.

The truly free person in society is a disciplined person.

There is no liberty to men who know not how to govern themselves.

Whoever will be free must make himself free. Freedom is no fairy gift to fall into a man's lap. What is freedom? To have the will to be responsible for one's self.

Only by taking responsibility for oneself, to the greatest extent possible, can one ever be free, and only a free person can make responsible choices - between right and wrong, saving and spending, giving or taking.

Your life is the sum result of all the choices you make, both consciously and unconsciously. If you can control the process of choosing, you can take control of all aspects of your life. You can find the freedom that comes from being in charge of yourself.

A man should control his life. Mine is controlling me.

But there is a corollary to freedom and that's personal responsibility, and the real challenge is how you generate that personal responsibility without imposing it.

Implicit in true freedom of spirit lies a proud and virile will. Such glorious power of free will to choose, envisages beneficent social responsibility as manifest and welcome.

No one is free who does not lord over himself.

I think the real free person in society is one that's disciplined. It's the one that can choose; that is the free one.

To be one's own master is to be the slave of self.

Control your own destiny or someone else will.

Self regulation is a myth.

Men are not free when they are doing just what they like. The moment you can do just what you like, there is nothing you care about doing.

Liberty is that principle of spontaneity, or self-determination, which constitutes us as agents, or which gives us a command over our actions, rendering them properly ours, and not effects of the operation of any foreign cause

Whoever will be free must make himself free. Freedom is no fairy gift to fall into a man's lap.

A well-governed appetite is the greater part of liberty.

When one has genuinely chosen a course for oneself it cannot be possible to hold another responsible for it.