Eric Greitens Quotes

I was worried that all the corners of the earth had been explored, all the great battles fought. The famous people on TV were athletes and actresses and singers. What did they stand for? I wondered: Had the time for heroes passed?

Humility leads to an open mind and a forgiving heart.

The work of reflection is something you have to do for yourself. No one else can make you wise.

The Lance Corporal [a junior enlisted rank] at the back of your platoon may not know every detail of your operation. He may not have read every piece of intelligence about your enemy, or every nuance of your larger strategy, but he'll always know one thing: he'll know whether or not you care about him.

As warriors, as humanitarians, they've taught me that without courage, compassion falters, and that without compassion, courage has no direction.

Warriors are warriors not because of their strengh, but because of their ability strengh to good purpose

Virtue is not about what you deny yourself, but what you make of yourself.

Arrogance is the armor worn by hollow men,

In the name of "force protection," the military often rolls up windows, builds walls, and points rifles at the outside world. The best force protection, however, is to be surrounded by friends and allies.

Are you going to let what someone might say prevent you from doing what you must do?

To move through pain to wisdom, through fear to courage, through suffering to strength, requires resilience.

Death is like the sun. It infuses every part of our lives, but it doesn't make sense to stare at it.

If you respected someone, then you had to ask something of them.

Education aims to change what you know. Training aims to change who you are.

What usually matters in your life is not the magical moment, but the quality of your daily practice.

Teams that are moved by great purpose become tighter still when things are tough.

can listen and counsel. You can lend ideas and hard work and home-cooked meals. You can be a friend and a fan. You can share your favorite books and fix a flat tire. You can inspire people and encourage them. You can sweat beside them and support them. But you cannot make their choices for them. You cannot take their excuses from them. You cannot make them resilient.

If you take responsibility for anything in your life, know that you'll feel fear. That fear will manifest itself in many ways: fear of embarrassment, fear of failure, fear of hurt. Such fears are entirely natural and healthy, and you should recognize them as proof that you've chosen work worth doing. Every worthy challenge will inspire some fear. A

Across the globe, even in the world's "worst places," people found ways to turn pain into wisdom and suffering into strength. They made their own actions, their very lives, into a memorial that honored the people they had lost.

The excellent fail more often than the mediocre.

Savor the flashes of wonder that light your life,

Great calamity met with great spirit can create great strength.

First, many critics are cowards. Not only do they snipe at lives that they are unwilling to live themselves, but they'll mouth off for years and never once have the courage to sit down with you, face to face, and tell you what they think. If you let them direct what you do, you are turning your life over to cowards. Second,

It's not enough to fight for a better world; we also have to live lives worth fighting for.

Someone else can put a thought in your head. But an insight is something you have to earn on your own.

We grow when we recover from the right pain in the right way.

Don't do this for me - do this with me. A leader earns devotion by showing devotion.

Often, your mentors are already in your life; you just haven't yet found a way to learn from them.

The world needs many more humanitarians than it needs warriors, but there can be none of the former without enough of the latter.

Yet the basic fact remains: we live in a world marked by violence, and if we want to protect others, we sometimes have to be willing to fight.

Alone, human beings can feel hunger. Alone, we can feel cold. Alone, we can feel pain. To feel poor, however, is something we do only in comparison to others.

A veteran who comes home from war is returning from one of the most intense experiences a human being can have. Even if he was not under fire every day, he woke up every morning as part of a team. He started every day with a purpose, and a mission that mattered to those around him.

What happens to us becomes part of us. Resilient people do not bounce back from hard experiences; they find healthy ways to integrate them into their lives. In

First, you can develop resilience. Anyone can do it. No one can do it for you. You and you alone have to do the work. Second, you can develop resilience. It's possible to build virtues. It's possible to change your character. It's possible, therefore, to change the direction of your life. Third, you can develop resilience. Resilience cannot be purchased or given to you; you have to do the hard work of building excellence in your life.

If you're growing, you're likely failing. If you're not failing, you're likely not growing.

HAPPINESS: "Flourishing is a fact, not a feeling. We flourish when we grow and thrive. We flourish when we exercise our powers. We flourish when we become what we are capable of becoming...Flourishing is rooted in action..."happiness is a kind of working of the soul in the way of perfect excellence"...a flourishing life is a life lived along lines of excellence...Flourishing is a condition that is created by the choices we make in the world we live in...Flourishing is not a virtue, but a condition; not a character trait, but a result. We need virtue to flourish, but virtue isn't enough. To create a flourishing life, we need both virtue and the conditions in which virtue can flourish...Resilience is a virtue required for flourishing, bur being resilient will not guarantee that we will flourish. Unfairness, injustice, and bad fortune will snuff our promising lives. Unasked-for pain will still come our way...We can build resilience and shape the world we live in. We can't rebuild the world...three primary kinds of happiness: the happiness of pleasure, the happiness of grace, and happiness of excellence...people who are flourishing usually have all three kinds of happiness in their lives...Aristotle understood: pushing ourselves to grow, to get better, to dive deeper is at the heart of happiness...This is the happiness that goes hand in hand with excellence, with pursuing worthy goals, with growing mastery...It is about the exercise of powers. The most common mistake people make

I've learned that courage and compassion are two sides of the same coin, and that every warrior, every humanitarian, every citizen is built to live with both.
In fact, to win a war, to create peace, to save a life, or just to live a good life requires of us - of every one of us - that we be both good and strong.

Virtues that are not practiced die. Resilience that is not practiced weakens.

Whatever my limited knowledge, I tried to make up for it with energy.

Accept that you are imperfect and always will be. Your quest is not to perfect yourself, but to better your imperfect self.

Would you love people the same if they could never die?

I find myself praying more when things are harder. I also find myself drinking water more when I am thirsty, and eating more when I am hungry, and sleeping more when I am tired. And I've finally begun to accept that if I pray more when I am troubled, that's just as natural.

Wise people could sometimes be dumb.

Viktor Frankl, a Holocaust survivor and the author of Man's Search for Meaning, wrote that human beings create meaning in three ways: thought their work, though their relationships, and by how they choose to meet unavoidable suffering. Every life brings hardship and trial, and every life also offers deep possibilities for meaningful work and love ... I've learned that courage and compassion are two sides of the same coin.

Self-respect isn't something a teacher or a coach or a government can hand you. Self-respect grows through self-created success: not because we've been told we're good, but when we know we're good. Not everyone gets a trophy, because not every performance merits celebration. If we want our children to have a shot at resilience, they must learn what failure means. If they don't learn that lesson from loving parents and coaches and teachers, life will teach it to them in a far harsher way.

Practice builds habits. Our habits are our character. When it comes to virtue, practice makes a very great difference - or rather, all the difference.

Start with this: not all pain matters. There are people whose attention is consistently drawn away from their purpose and toward their pain, like a moth to a light. Such people, who pay attention to every annoyance and obstacle in their way, are usually unsuccessful in their endeavors. In extreme cases they are mentally ill. A healthy person, a flourishing person, learns to move past a lot of annoyance and a good deal of pain.

FEARLESS is a vivid account of one man's journey from all-American boy to all-American hero. Blehm's writing takes you beyond the battlefield and right to the heart of the personal battles, sacrifices, and triumphs of one of America's elite warriors. Anyone looking for an inspiring story of inner strength and courage will be richly rewarded by this book.

Some people are made stronger by suffering. Others are defeated. The difference is resilience.

The fox knows many things . . . the hedgehog knows one big thing.

It was foolish to cast someone as a saint just because they had suffered.

And it's often in those battles that we are most alive: it's on the frontlines of our lives that we earn wisdom, create joy, forge friendships, discover happiness, find love, and do purposeful work. If you want to win any meaningful kind of victory, you'll have to fight for it.

Those who are excellent at their work have learned to comfortably coexist with failure. The excellent fail more often than the mediocre. They begin more. They attempt more. They attack more. Mastery lives quietly atop a mountain of mistakes.

You don't have a choice about being an alcoholic. But you do get to choose what kind of alcoholic you're going to be: the kind who lets his addiction define his life, or the kind whose life is too rich and purposeful to be defined by addiction.

In the midst of hardship and fear, suffering and difficulty, the person who's built the habit of focus harnesses tremendous power.

It's easier to measure what we've told people than it is to measure how we've changed people. It is easier to preach to people than to practice with them.

An unwillingness to endure the hardship of a depressed time keeps us from the possibility of capturing the wisdom and strength and joy that can exist on the other side. There is a season to be sad. Painful things hurt. Allow yourself to be hurt.

Seneca: Fate guides the willing but drags the unwilling.

If you're a real frogman," he said, "then every time a woman leaves your side, she'll feel better about herself." ... The message felt similar to what Earl had taught: being strong meant being able to do good, to lift up and protect those whose lives you touched.

Courage overcomes, but does not replace, fear. Joy overcomes, but does not replace, pain.

Mother Teresa's Missionaries of Charity run a home for the destitute and dying. Their mission is simple: help the poorest of the poor die with dignity

You don't have to know what perfect looks like, but you do have to know what better looks like.

Interahamwe and became a murderer. The stories they told were straightforward:

Resilience is cultivated not so that we can perform well in a single instance, but so that we can live a full and flourishing life.

When all I thought about was my own pain and how the world had dealt me an unfair hand, I became weaker. When I thought of the needs of my team, my friends, I became stronger. We often think that our friends help us when we are weak. And they do. But it's also true that we become strong when we have friends to be strong for.

So you ask yourself: Am I willing to take responsibility for my life, in word and in deed? If not, your chances of living a rich and fulfilling life are almost zero. If so, you have the potential for a joyous journey ahead.

You can't say there shouldn't be poisonous serpents - that's the way life is. But in the field of action, if you see a poisonous serpent about to bite somebody, you kill it. That's not saying no to the serpent. That's saying no to that situation. So let's accept what must be accepted, without letting our acceptance justify inaction.

It's less about choosing an adventure and more about choosing a path with purpose.

Excellence is renewed through deliberate practice, day in and day out.

The best definition I have ever heard of a vocation is that it's the place where your great joy meets the world's great need. We need all of you to find your vocation. To develop your joys, your passions, and to match them to the world's great needs.

I thought of Pericles' speech to the families of the Athenian war dead, in which he said, What you leave behind is not what is engraved in stone monuments, but what is woven into the lives of others.

The point is to read in a way that leads to better thinking, and to think in a way that leads to better living.

Smiling and breathing. These are simple things. Exercising and serving. These are simple things. Being grateful and gracious. These are simple things. Acting with humility. Acting with courage. These are simple things. Some people try to make this business of living too complicated,

Please, dear Lord, don't let me f*** up. - ALAN SHEPARD, first American in space, seconds before liftoff

Earl rarely used the word, but his whole system of teaching and his whole way of living was built around the concept of honor. You honored God by using your time wisely, and you honored your fellow man by treating him with respect. You honored your teacher by calling him "sir," and he honored his students by challenging them to face pain and become stronger. Earl had come to associate charity with pain, and he believed that love did its deepest work when applied to a wound.

We learn who we are and where we come from, what is right and what is wrong, from hearing and telling stories - something

The best experts and the best mentors have flexible minds.

People always ask me, "What kind of people make it through Hell Week?" I don't really have an answer to that. I do know
generally
who won't make it through Hell Week. The weightlifting meatheads who think the size of their biceps indicates their strength: they usually fail. The kids covered in tattoos announcing to the world how tough they are: they usually fail. The preening leaders who don't want to be dirty: they usually fail. The "me first, look at me, I'm the best" former athletes who've always been told they're stars: they usually fail. The blowhards who have a thousand stories about what they're going to do but a thin record of what they've actually done: they usually fail. The whiners, the "this is not fair" guys: they usually fail.

storytelling is not just a way to remember what happened; it's a way to understand what happened.

I begin with humility, I act with humility, I end with humility. Humility leads to clarity. Humility leads to an open mind and a forgiving heart. With an open mind and a forgiving heart, I see every person as superior to me in some way; with every person as my teacher, I grow in wisdom. As I grow in wisdom, humility becomes ever more my guide. I begin with humility, I act with humility, I end with humility.

Why Resilience? Of all the virtues we can learn, no trait is more useful, more essential for survival, and more likely to improve the quality of life than the ability to transform adversity into an enjoyable challenge. - MIHALY CSIKSZENTMIHALYI Walker,

As a leader, you have to have the humility to understand that your power is limited.

The first step to building resilience is to take responsibility for who you are and for your life. If you're not willing to do that, stop wasting your time reading this letter. The essence of responsibility is the acceptance of the consequences - good and bad - of your actions.

There is no school of thought that can save us from the simple fact that hard decisions are best made by good people, and that the best people can only be shaped by hard experience.

Remember that deciding is not doing, and wanting is not choosing.
Transformation will take place not because of what you decide you
want, but because of what you choose to do.

Eric Hoffer, studied the reasons why people voluntarily give away responsibility and join mass movements and mobs. One quote he collected came from a young German who explained that he joined the Nazi party to be "free from freedom.

When people have a shared commitment, differences and disagreements don't disappear, but they can be seen in a new light.

Today, in a culture that should know enough to be forgiving of human weakness, we often fail to remember that people are not great all the time. People practice greatness. They perform with greatness. People practice courage. They perform with courage. And then, one day, they don't. This does not make them cowards. It makes them human.

When I was in third grade
the age of many of the boys here
my parents had debated whether or not to buy me a pair of [special soccer shoes] ... Here in Bolivia most of the kids played in bare feet, and they had as much fun as we ever had. Alone, human beings can feel hunger. Alone, we can feel cold. Alone, we can feel pain. To feel poor, however, is something that we do only in comparison to others. I took off my shoes.

For many people in the Western world, freedom is limited not so much by what others do to us, but by what we cannot do for ourselves. Walker,

I can't speak for Aeschylus or Epictetus or Aristotle. But I am convinced of this: they would have hated having their wisdom confined to classrooms and textbooks. This is wisdom about how to live. And it's your property as much as anyone's. It is yours. Take it. Use it.

Beware the person who seeks to lead and has not suffered, who claims responsibility on the grounds of a spotless record.

Friends challenge the flaws in our thinking and the flaws in our character. When they do that, they make us better. Good friends hold us to a higher standard when we are ready to make an excuse for ourselves. Friends sympathize with our pain, but they stop us from wallowing in it. Friends point out our blind spots, and they do so not with vindictiveness or cruelty, but out of honesty, love, and a desire that we live the fullest and best life possible.

One of his co-workers told me one time when I was about 20 years old, "I like your dad. He hates me, but the thing about your old man is that he hates everyone the same." I've