Ryan Holiday Quote on Ego: The Enemy Within

Quote

"Ego is the enemy: the self-importance that blocks the progress, the pride that precedes the fall, and the voice that tells you you are done when you have only begun." — Ryan Holiday, Ego Is the Enemy (2016)

Author

Ryan Holiday is an American author and media strategist, the most prominent popularizer of Stoicism in the English-speaking world. Ego Is the Enemy is the second book of his Stoic trilogy.

Source

The quotation is the central thesis of Ego Is the Enemy (New York: Portfolio, 2016).

Context

The account of the ego is the modern form of the ancient Stoic diagnosis. The Stoics identified the pride and the self-importance as the root of the disturbance: Epictetus taught that the person who is attached to the reputation is the slave of the reputation, and Marcus Aurelius meditated daily on the vanity of the self-importance. Holiday developed the diagnosis into a complete account of the ego as the enemy of the progress: the self-importance that blocks the learning, the pride that precedes the fall, and the voice that tells the person they are done when they have only begun.

Meaning

The quotation states the modern Stoic account of the ego with complete clarity. "Ego is the enemy" — the identification: the ego — the self-importance, the pride — is the enemy of the progress. "The self-importance that blocks the progress" — the first harm: the self-importance blocks the learning — the person who thinks they know cannot learn. "The pride that precedes the fall" — the second harm: the pride is the preparation of the fall — the overconfidence that blinds the person to the danger. "The voice that tells you you are done when you have only begun" — the third harm: the voice of the ego is the false conclusion — the person who has only begun is told they are done, and the progress stops. The quotation is the modern form of the ancient Stoic discipline of humility, and it grounds the Stoic wisdom tradition's account of the ego in the language of the modern world.

Related Wisdom

The quotation belongs to the modern practice of Stoicism and the discipline of humility. Its account of the ego as the enemy connects to the ancient Stoic diagnosis of the pride and to the wider wisdom tradition's teaching on the self-importance. The formula is among the most quoted of the modern Stoic literature.