Ego is the enemy.

 *Ego Is the Enemy* is the title of a book by Ryan Holiday, read and listened to >twice. 

Here are some of the most insightful and popular quotes from Ryan Holiday's book *Ego Is the Enemy*, which explores how ego can sabotage success at every stage of life—aspiration, achievement, and failure. I've selected a diverse set of 12 standout ones, drawn from reliable compilations.

1. “Almost universally, the kind of performance we give on social media is positive. It’s more ‘Let me tell you how well things are going. Look how great I am.’ It’s rarely the truth: ‘I’m scared. I’m struggling. I don’t know.’”

2. “Purpose is about pursuing something outside yourself as opposed to pleasuring yourself.”

( 編注：不久前讀到的：

The purpose of life is to discover your gift.

The work of life is to develop it.

The meaning of life is to give your gift away.

 

By  David S. Viscott. psychiatrist and author： Finding Your Strength in Difficult Times: A Book of Meditations. 1993.

 

3. “One might say that the ability to evaluate one’s own ability is the most important skill of all. Without it, improvement is impossible. And certainly, ego makes it difficult every step of the way. It is certainly more pleasurable to focus on our talents and strengths, but where does that get us? Arrogance and self-absorption inhibit growth. So does fantasy and ‘vision.’”

4. “It’s time to sit down and think about what’s truly important to you and then take steps to forsake the rest.”

5. “Just because you are quiet doesn’t mean that you are without pride. Privately thinking you’re better than others is still pride. It’s still dangerous.”

6. “This is what the ego does. It crosses out what matters and replaces it with what doesn’t.”

7. “You must practice seeing yourself with a little distance, cultivating the ability to get out of your own head. Detachment is a sort of natural ego antidote. It’s easy to be emotionally invested and infatuated with your own work. Any and every narcissist can do that. What is rare is not raw talent, skill, or even confidence, but humility, diligence, and self-awareness.”

8. “Ego is its own worst enemy. It hurts the ones we love too. Our families and friends suffer for it. So do our customers, fans, and clients.”

9. “Ego is the enemy—giving us wicked feedback, disconnected from reality. It’s defensive, precisely when we cannot afford to be defensive. It blocks us from improving by telling us that we don’t need to improve. Then we wonder why we don’t get the results we want, why others are better and why their success is more lasting.”

10. “Our ego wants the ideas and the fact that we aspire to do something about them to be enough.”

11. “The pretence of knowledge is our most dangerous vice, because it prevents us from getting any better. Studious self-assessment is the antidote.”

12. “According to Seneca, the Greek word euthymia is one we should think of often: it is the sense of our own path and how to stay on it without being distracted by all the others that intersect it... It’s not about beating the other guy. It’s not about having more than the others. It’s about being what you are, and being as good as possible at it.”