77 The Obstacle Is The Way Quotes (+Summary) By Ryan Holiday

Top 10 QuotesThe Obstacle Is The Way Original QuoteOn DifficultiesOn SuccessDeep QuotesQuotes From Stoics – Last Quote From The BookSummaryVideo Review

The Obstacle Is The Way is a MASTERPIECE.

It’s loaded with quotes and stories from Steve Jobs, Thomas Edison, Theodore Roosevelt, Barack Obama, Amelia Earhart, and many more.

So I had to create this page: 77 The Obstacle Is The Way Quotes (+Summary).

This book by Ryan Holiday is not only inspirational, but also applicable in today’s life.

Countless professional teams and world-class performers recommend it:

And the list goes on and on.

This book is for you if you’re struggling to find motivation in life.

And it will change your perspective on adversity forever.

Let’s get started with the quotes.


Buy the book here: AudiobookPaperbackHardcover

Top 10 Quotes From The Obstacle Is The Way

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The obstacle in the path becomes the path. Ryan Holiday

That thing you dread or secretly hope will never happen. What if it wasn’t so bad? Ryan Holiday

Focus on the moment, not the monsters that may or may not be up ahead. Ryan Holiday

In every situation, life is asking us a question, and our actions are the answer. Our job is simply to answer well. Ryan Holiday

Whatever we face, we have a choice: Will we be blocked by obstacles, or will we advance through and over them? Ryan Holiday

First, see clearly. Next, act correctly. Finally, endure and accept the world as it is. Ryan Holiday

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Within every obstacle is an opportunity to improve our condition. Ryan Holiday

Problems are rarely as bad as we think — or rather, they are precisely as bad as we think. Ryan Holiday

Setbacks or problems are always expected and never permanent. Ryan Holiday

Love everything that happens. Ryan Holiday

What Is The Obstacle Is The Way Original Quote?

The Obstacle Is The Way is based on this famous line by Marcus Aurelius (Roman Emperor and Stoic philosopher, 161 to 180 AD).

Our actions may be impeded… but there can be no impeding our intentions or dispositions. Because we can accommodate and adapt. The mind adapts and converts to its own purposes the obstacle to our acting. The impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way. Marcus Aurelius

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Quotes On Difficulties From The Obstacle Is The Way

the obstacle is the way quotes summary ryan holiday acknowledge pain onward task wisdom

Acknowledge the pain but trod onward in your task. Ryan Holiday

Failure shows us the way — by showing us what isn’t the way. Ryan Holiday

It’s okay to be discouraged. It’s not okay to quit. Ryan Holiday

All we need to do is those three little duties — to try hard, to be honest, and to help others and ourselves. That’s all that’s been asked of us. No more and no less. Ryan Holiday

The path of least resistance is a terrible teacher. We can’t afford to shy away from the things that intimidate us. Ryan Holiday

Take your time, don’t rush. Some problems are harder than others. Deal with the ones right in front of you first. Come back to the others later. You’ll get there. Ryan Holiday

Temporary setbacks aren’t discouraging. They are just bumps along a long road that you intend to travel all the way down. Ryan Holiday

Passing one obstacle simply says you’re worthy of more. The world seems to keep throwing them at you once it knows you can take it. Which is good, because we get better with every attempt. Ryan Holiday

Can you get past the things that inevitably fall in your way? Will you stand up and show us what you’re made of? Ryan Holiday

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the obstacle is the way quotes summary ryan holiday where loses control emotions remain calm wisdom

Where one loses control of emotions, another can remain calm. Ryan Holiday

The process is doing the right things, right now. Not worrying about what might happen later, or the results, or the whole picture. Ryan Holiday

You will come across obstacles in life — fair and unfair. And you will discover, time and time again, that what matters most is not what these obstacles are but how we see them, how we react to them, and whether we keep our composure. Ryan Holiday

The only guarantee, ever, is that things will go wrong. The only thing we can use to mitigate this is anticipation. Because the only variable we control completely is ourselves. Ryan Holiday

Failure really can be an asset if what you’re trying to do is improve, learn, or do something new. Ryan Holiday

Focus on what is in front of you, right now. Ignore what it “represents” or it “means” or “why it happened to you.” Ryan Holiday

Remember that this moment is not your life, it’s just a moment in your life. Ryan Holiday

Today most of our obstacles are internal, not external. Ryan Holiday

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Quotes On Success From The Obstacle Is The Way

the obstacle is the way quotes summary ryan holiday consider mindset never hurry stopping short wisdom

Consider this mindset: Never in a hurry. Never worried. Never desperate. Never stopping short. Ryan Holiday

Wherever we are, whatever we’re doing and herever we are going, we owe it to ourselves, to our art, to the world to do it well. Ryan Holiday

It feels better to ignore or pretend. But you know deep down that that isn’t going to truly make it any better. You’ve got to act. And you’ve got to start now. Ryan Holiday

All great victories, be they in politics, business, art, or seduction, involved resolving vexing problems with a potent cocktail of creativity, focus, and daring. Ryan Holiday

Help your fellow humans thrive and survive, contribute your little bit to the universe before it swallows you up, and be happy with that. Lend a hand to others. Be strong for them, and it will make you stronger. Ryan Holiday

Each project matters, and the only degrading part is giving less than one is capable of giving. Ryan Holiday

This is one thing all great men and women of history have in common. Like oxygen to a fire, obstacles became fuel for a blaze that was their ambition. Ryan Holiday

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Persist in your efforts. Resist giving in to distraction, discouragement, or disorder. Ryan Holiday

To do great things, we need to be able to endure tragedy and setbacks. We’ve got to love what we do and all that it entails, good and bad. We have to learn to find joy in every single thing that happens. Ryan Holiday

Only in struggling with the impediments that made others quit can we find ourselves on untrodden territory — only by persisting and resisting can we learn what others were too impatient to be taught. Ryan Holiday

When action is our priority, vanity falls away. Ryan Holiday

The Stoics called the Inner Citadel, that fortress inside of us that no external adversity can ever break down. An important caveat is that we are not born with such a structure; it must be built and actively reinforced. Ryan Holiday

Focusing exclusively on what is in our power magnifies and enhances our power. Ryan Holiday

Like any good school, learning from failure isn’t free. The tuition is paid in discomfort or loss and having to start over. Ryan Holiday

The good thing about true perseverance is that it can’t be stopped by anything besides death. Ryan Holiday

Deep Quotes From The Obstacle Is The Way

the obstacle is the way quotes summary ryan holiday blessings burdens exclusive wisdom

Blessings and burdens are not mutually exclusive. Ryan Holiday

Whatever our individual goals, most of us sit frozen before the many obstacles that lie ahead of us. Ryan Holiday

For all species other than us humans, things just are what they are. Our problem is that we’re always trying to figure out what things mean — why things are the way they are. Ryan Holiday

In life, it doesn’t matter what happens to you or where you came from. It matters what you do with what happens and what you’ve been given. Ryan Holiday

In the shadow of death, prioritization is easier. Ryan Holiday

Why feel fear? Why let yourself and others down? Life will be over soon enough; death chides us that we may as well do life right. Ryan Holiday

Let each new moment be a refresh wiping clear what came before and what others were hoping would come next. Ryan Holiday

the obstacle is the way quotes summary ryan holiday plan things turn out resemble other wisdom

Your plan and the way things turn out rarely resemble each other. Ryan Holiday

We can be blindly led by these primal feelings or we can understand them and learn to filter them. Ryan Holiday

To argue, to complain, or worse, to just give up, these are choices. Choices that more often than not, do nothing to get us across the finish line. Ryan Holiday

Certain things in life will cut you open like a knife. When that happens — at that exposing moment — the world gets a glimpse of what’s truly inside you. Ryan Holiday

True will is quiet humility, resilience, and flexibility; the other kind of will is weakness disguised as bluster and ambition. See which lasts longer under the hardest of circumstances. Ryan Holiday

Thinking about and being aware of our mortality creates real perspective and urgency. It doesn’t need to be depressing. Because it’s invigorating. Ryan Holiday

Death doesn’t make life pointless, but rather purposeful. Ryan Holiday

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Quotes From Stoics From The Obstacle Is The Way

Ryan Holiday cites many interesting Stoic authors in The Obstacle Is The Way.

The list includes:

  • Marcus Aurelius
  • Seneca
  • Epictetus
  • Nietzsche
  • Roosevelt
  • Viktor Frankl
  • and more

the obstacle is the way quotes summary ryan holiday nothing either good bad william shakespeare wisdom

Nothing is either good or bad, but thinking makes it so. William Shakespeare

Would you have a great empire? Rule over yourself. Publius Syrus

There is good in everything if only we look for it. Laura Ingalls Wilder

The best way out is always through. Robert Frost

Wise men are able to make a fitting use even of their enmities. Plutarch

In the meantime, cling tooth and nail to the following rule: not to give in to adversity, not to trust prosperity, and always take full note of fortune’s habit of behaving just as she pleases. Seneca

A good person dyes events with his own color… and turns whatever happens to his own benefit. Seneca

My formula for greatness in a human being is amor fati: that one wants nothing to be different, not forward, not backward, not in all eternity. Not merely bear what is necessary, still less conceal it… but love it. Friedrich Nietzsche

What such a man needs is not courage but nerve control, cool headedness. This he can get only by practice. Theodore Roosevelt

the obstacle is the way quotes summary ryan holiday choose harmed feel marcus aurelius wisdom

Choose not to be harmed — and you won’t feel harmed. Don’t feel harmed — and you haven’t been. Marcus Aurelius

In life our first job is this, to divide and distinguish things into two categories: externals I cannot control, but the choices I make with regard to them I do control. Epictetus

Man does not simply exist but always decides what his existence will be, what he will become the next moment. By the same token, every human being has the freedom to change at any instant. Viktor Frankl

A man’s job is to make the world a better place to live in, so far as he is able — always remembering the results will be infinitesimal — and to attend to his own soul. LeRoy Percy

The Fates guide the person who accepts them and hinder the person who resists them. Cleanthes

What is defeat? Nothing but education; nothing but the first steps to something better. Wendell Phillips

We must all either wear out or rust out, every one of us. My choice is to wear out. Theodore Roosevelt

Behind mountains are more mountains. Haitian proverb

The things that hurt, instruct. Benjamin Franklin

Last Quote From The Book

the obstacle is the way quotes summary ryan holiday things what endure bear must wisdom

See things for what they are. Do what we can. Endure and bear what we must. What blocked the path now is a path. What once impeded action advances action. The obstacle is the way. Ryan Holiday

Conclusion From The Obstacle Is The Way

the obstacle is the way quotes summary ryan holiday always fighting uphill train accordingly wisdom

The more you accomplish, the more things will stand in your way. There are always more obstacles, bigger challenges. You’re always fighting uphill. Get used to it and train accordingly. Ryan Holiday

Summary Of The Obstacle Is The Way

  • What is the one-sentence summary of The Obstacle Is The Way?
    • Life is a never-ending series of problems and those who succeed are the ones who focus on what they control, not external events.
  • What is the meaning Of “The Obstacle Is The Way”?
    • Obstacles are often necessary to grow into the person you need to be to reach your higher purpose.
  • How many pages is The Obstacle Is The Way?
    • 224 pages
  • Year of publication?
    • 2014
  • What are the 3 key takeaways in The Obstacle Is The Way?
    • Face reality, with courage, and it will liberate you
    • You can always choose how you react to external events
    • The ultimate wisdom? To accept (and even love) whatever happens in your life
  • Is The Obstacle Is The Way worth reading?
    • Absolutely. This book is a 9.5/10. You’ll find many inspiring stories about adversity, from modern and ancient history.


Buy the book here: AudiobookPaperbackHardcover

Video Review by Ryan Holiday Himself

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I hope you enjoyed these quotes from the book The Obstacle Is The Way: The Timeless Art of Turning Trials into Triumph, by Ryan Holiday.

If you did, please share them with a friend who could benefit from more persistence and Stoicism in his/her life.

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