As powerful as is our soul's call, so potent are the forces of Resistance arrayed against it. We're not alone if we've been mowed down by Resistance; millions of good men and women have bitten the dust before us.
Interpretation
This quote emphasizes the struggle against inner and outer resistance when pursuing one's true calling.
Steven Pressfield highlights the common experience of fighting against resistance when trying to fulfill one's soul's purpose. He reassures individuals that feeling defeated by this resistance is a shared struggle, experienced by many others who have also faced significant challenges in their quest for creativity and achievement.
In practice
This quote can be shared during a motivational speech about pursuing one's dreams.
Late at night have you experienced a vision of the person you might become, the work you could accomplish, the realized being you were meant to be? Are you a writer who doesn't write, a painter who doesn't paint, an entrepreneur who never starts a venture? Then you know what Resistance is.
It is one thing to study war and another to live the warrior's life.
The amateur believes he must first overcome his fear; then he can do his work. The professional knows that fear can never be overcome. He knows there is no such thing as a fearless warrior or a dread-free artist.
When we sit down day after day and keep grinding, something mysterious starts to happen... Unseen forces enlist in our cause; serendipity reinforces our purpose.
You know, Hitler wanted to be an artist. At eighteen he took his inheritance, seven hundred kronen, and moved to Vienna to live and study... Ever see one of his paintings? Neither have I. Resistance beat him. Call it overstatement but I'll say it anyway: it was easier for Hitler to start World War II than it was for him to face a blank square of canvas.
It’s better to be in the arena, getting stomped by the bull, than to be up in the stands or out in the parking lot.
Come you masters of war You that build all the guns You that build the death planes You that build the big bombs You that hide behind walls You that hide behind desks I just want you to know I can see through your masks.
To be a follower of the Crucified means, sooner or later, a personal encounter with the cross. And the cross always entails loss.
That's been the story of my life - obstacles: trying to figure a way over them, around them, under them; sometimes you have to go straight through them.
I can only say that there is not a man living who wishes more sincerely than I do to see a plan adopted for the abolition of slavery.
As I recovered at Walter Reed, I worried about the soldiers who pulled me out of my helicopter that Friday afternoon. Would they make it back okay? And what about all the other soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines and Coast Guardsmen who were also putting their lives on the line every day?
His headstone said FREE AT LAST, FREE AT LAST But death is a slave's freedom We seek the freedom of free men And the construction of a world Where Martin Luther King could have lived and preached nonviolence.
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