Chris Matakas Quotes

I have always found that effort is most easily produced when performed for the benefit of something external to ourselves.

~ Chris Matakas

As a human being, I know of no greater example of success than someone who is self-sustaining through using his passion in the service of others.

~ Chris Matakas

You have been blessed to stand on the shoulders of giants. Make sure that someone stands on yours as well. This is the only way of human progress.

~ Chris Matakas

I believe it is the responsibility of each of us to pass on whatever we have learned in our time here. If I reach enlightenment after meditating in a cave for 10 years, but do not pass on this teaching and it dies with me, this was a wasted life. I believe we are here to help one another, and each of us has a unique wisdom that we should do our best to convey to others.

~ Chris Matakas

The most fulfilled among us are those who serve others.

~ Chris Matakas

I believe the devil exists in those little, seemingly unnoticeable moments when we choose to value our own insecurities over the service of others.

~ Chris Matakas

I have found the more worthwhile something is, the more of your life is required to achieve it.

~ Chris Matakas

The highest aim was never to master Jiu Jitsu, it was to master myself.

~ Chris Matakas

If we do not master ourselves, we will be a slave to ourselves.

~ Chris Matakas

True mastery, it turns out, is not found in accumulating each and every tool under the sun. True mastery is learning that there are really only a handful of tools, and it is the proper application with correct timing and setting that makes them so useful.

~ Chris Matakas

Mastery does not exist.

~ Chris Matakas

If you are fortunate enough to have a particular activity with which you find greatest joy and technical success, it is your responsibility as a growing human being to continue that study. Whatever your endeavor, if you can expand upon the knowledge in your strongest subject, that new found understanding of all things will trickle down to every other area of your life.

~ Chris Matakas

Mastery, to whatever degree your circumstance allows, is determined by a handful of choices repeated daily.

~ Chris Matakas

Mastery lies on an infinite continuum, and as a result we will never reach the end. We can, however, see to it that we are as far along that continuum as our circumstance allows.

~ Chris Matakas

The best yardstick for our progress is not other people, but ourselves. Am I better than I was yesterday? This is the only question worth asking. As long as you go to bed at night a better practitioner than the one who woke up that morning, you have succeeded. Your worth should have nothing to do with how your progress stacks up relative to another.

~ Chris Matakas

We must remember that regardless of our differences in rank we are all equal as human beings. You can always tell how caring and compassionate others are in their actions towards those below them. Of course you are going to treat your black belt professor kindly, but how do you treat the white belt taking their first class? In spite of the division in belt rank there must be no division as people.

~ Chris Matakas

Consistently failing is nothing more than an indication that you are progressing. The more we fail the farther we will see. Failure is not an option, it is the only option. A master is a master because he has had the courage to fail and the wisdom to learn from it.

~ Chris Matakas

Your progress as a Jiu Jitsu practitioner is a direct reflection of the standards you have for yourself.

~ Chris Matakas

Empathy is a breaking down of the false constructs of division between the observer and the observed.

~ Chris Matakas

The secular world often finds its constituents disenfranchised and solitary as it has spent a great deal of time debating the religious community while failing to build a true community of its own.

~ Chris Matakas

All these men recognized what they themselves valued, and lived according to these values regardless of their relationship to the values of their community. Each lived according to what brought them happiness and peace rather than commonplace prescriptions of the multitudes.

~ Chris Matakas

We are only different because there exists something to be different from, and it is this difference that bonds us.

~ Chris Matakas

Jesus was not a carpenter forever.

~ Chris Matakas

Anyone who has ever achieved anything has been a steward of his potential.

~ Chris Matakas

An intelligent consistency is the foundation of genius.

~ Chris Matakas

There are no trophies for the real victories in life.

~ Chris Matakas

I have never been as alive or awake as I have been through Jiu Jitsu.

~ Chris Matakas

Who you are as a person far outweighs what you do in an athletic arena.

~ Chris Matakas

Life is a constant build up and release of tension. If we go too far in either direction bad things happen.

~ Chris Matakas

We can lose the roll, we can lose position, but we can constantly strive to win the moment.

~ Chris Matakas

The more closely two organisms depend upon each other the harder it becomes to tell where one organism ends and the other begins.

~ Chris Matakas

Anyone can be tough for a season. It takes a special kind of human to rise to life's challenges for a lifetime.

~ Chris Matakas

It is a shock to many college graduates that their segway into the real world is one of obligation, profound debt, and countless sacrifices of the soul.

~ Chris Matakas

Our most valuable victories are those which go without praise.

~ Chris Matakas