#Mastery Quotes

“All great masters are chiefly distinguished by the power of adding a second, a third, and perhaps a fourth step in a continuous line. Many a man has taken the first step. With every additional step you enhance immensely the value of your first.”

“The chess master says nothing, other than moving the silient chess piece.”

“Once you learn to do something consciously, you can move it into the subconscious and do it well. Everything you do well will be done subconsciously.”

“The shoemaker makes a good shoe because he makes nothing else.”

“Writing is like anything else - the more you do it, the better you get at it, the easier it comes, and the less concerned you'll be about what's going to happen to it, where it's going, what it sounds like, whether it's right.”

“It was my ambition all of my life to be master of the spoken word.”

“A masterpiece is something said once and for all, stated, finished, so that it's there complete in the mind, if only at the back.”

“Repetition is the mother of skill.”

“Contrary to popular wisdom, knowledge is not power-it's potential power. Knowledge is not mastery. Execution is mastery. Execution will trump knowledge every day of the week.”

“If you hit a hole in one every hole, you wouldn’t play golf for very long.”

“Most people have no idea of the giant capacity we can immediately command when we focus all of our resources on mastering a single area of our lives.”

“Ultimately the way to win the game of life, is found in only one thing: Our ability to choose meaning in any life circumstance. Become the master of meaning and you master your life.”

“All the elements, whose aid man calls in, will sometimes become big masters.”

“In daily life what distinguishes the master is the using those materials he has, instead of looking about for what are more renowned, or what others have used well.”

“Regardless of what you do put in, every game boils down to doing the things you do best and doing them over and over again.”

“Practice does not make perfect. Only perfect practice makes perfect.”

“Unless you try to do something beyond what you have already mastered, you will never grow.”

“You have to learn the rules of the game. And then you have to play better than anyone else.”

“The best way to get trained is to get mentored - live or by reading or watching videos by masters. That way, you start executing based on lessons from the best.”

“One reason so few of us achieve what we truly want is that we never direct our focus; we never concentrate our power. Most people dabble their way through life, never deciding to master anything in particular.”

“Life, never deciding to master anything in particular.”

“The masters painted for joy, and knew not that virtue had gone out of them. They could not paint the like in cold blood. The masters of English lyric wrote their songs so. It was a fine efflorescence of fine powers.”

“Only those who want nothing are masters of Nature.”

“He who knows even how to prepare a smoke properly, knows also how to meditate. And he who cannot cook well cannot be a perfect sannyasin. Unless cooking is performed with a pure mind and concentration, the food is not palatable.”

“He who conquers self conquers all.”

“If you want to be a good saddler, saddle the worst horse; for if you can tame one, you can tame all.”

“Each movement is only learned after you've perfected the one before it.”

“The Artist always has the masters in his eyes.”

“The poet is the supreme artist, for he is the master of colour and of form, and the real musician besides, and is lord over all life and all arts.”

“There's nothing more difficult than a line.”

“If you have five elements available use only four. If you have four elements use three.”

“The more technique there is, the less there is”

“You must always work not just within but below your means. If you can handle three elements, handle only two. If you can handle ten, then handle only five. In that way the ones you do handle, you handle with more ease, more mastery, and you create a feeling of strength in reserve.”

“I'm always doing things I can't do. That's how I get to do them.”

“I have discovered photography. Now I can kill myself. I have nothing else to learn.”

“When I was a kid I drew like Michelangelo. It took me years to learn to draw like a kid.”

“Good designers copy; great designers steal.”

“It took me four years to paint like Raphael, but a lifetime to paint like a child.”

“Being an artist doesn't mean that you're a good artist. That was the bargain I first made with myself: I'd say, I'm an artist, but I'm not really very good.”

“A master can tell you what he expects of you. A teacher, though, awakens your own expectations.”

“The more technique you have, the less you have to worry about it. The more technique there is, the less there is.”

“Good artists copy, great artists steal.”

“It took me a lifetime.”

“Learn the rules like a pro, so you can break them like an artist.”

“Disciples be damned. It's not interesting. It's only the masters that matter. Those who create.”

“The person who knows one thing and does it better than anyone else, even if it only be the art of raising lentils, receives the crown he merits. If he raises all his energy to that end, he is a benefactor of mankind and its rewarded as such.”

“Every event that a man would master must be mounted on the run, and no man ever caught the reins of a thought except as it galloped past him.”

“Courage faces fear and thereby masters it”

“I hated the sight on TV of big, clumsy, lumbering heavyweights plodding, stalking each other like two Frankenstein monsters, clinging, slugging toe to toe. I knew I could do it better ... circle, dance, shuffle, hit and move ... make an art out of it.”

“We have already discovered the fact that fear is the chief reason for poverty and failure and misery that takes on a thousand different forms. We have already discovered the fact that the man who masters fear may march on to successful achievement in practically any undertaking, despite all efforts to defeat him.”