Student Quotes

“And if she liked and trusted the person who asked, she would add that yes, it was kind of a lot to deal with: her outward affect was bright and capable, and that was no illusion, but equally real was the yawning pit of exhaustion inside her. She just felt so tired sometimes. And because of everything her parents asked of her, she was ashamed of being tired. She could not, would not let the pit swallow her up, as much as she sometimes wanted it to.”
― Lev Grossman, The Magician's Land

“Adversity quickens the mind, awakens the spirit and strength the soul.”
― Lailah Gifty Akita, Pearls of Wisdom: Great mind

“The student has his Rome, his whole glowing Italy, within the four walls of his library. He has in his books the ruins of an antique world and the glories of a modern one.”
― Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Hyperion

“In my illustrious career as a university student,
I turned in over 100 papers so that one day,
in the end, I got 1 paper in return.”
― J.R. Rim, Write like no one is reading 2

“The obstacles were intended to be a distraction from the goal.
You must keep a persistence focus to realise the goal.”
― Lailah Gifty Akita, Pearls of Wisdom: Great mind

“Choosing the right career is the most difficult task for a person who is multi-talented and versatile. Because its hard to decide what field to go into, when you are good at too many things.”
― Saad Salman

“It is the possibility of the dream, which quickens my spirit to take action.”
― Lailah Gifty Akita, Pearls of Wisdom: Great mind

“The pleasure of reading is the greatest solitude.”
― Lailah Gifty Akita, Think Great: Be Great!

“For the sincere student, it mustn't be enough to simply understand Jiu Jitsu. We must seek to understand ourselves.”
― Chris Matakas, My Mastery: Continued Education Through Jiu Jitsu

“Jiu Jitsu gives each of us something that no other sport can. We have the opportunity to become truly great regardless of what circumstance fate has handed us. We have complete freedom and responsibility to achieve whatever level of mastery we wish.”
― Chris Matakas, My Mastery: Continued Education Through Jiu Jitsu

“Do not seek victory, for victory in itself will not serve you. Seek to understand what made the victory possible.”
― Chris Matakas, My Mastery: Continued Education Through Jiu Jitsu

“We seek to understand Jiu Jitsu as a vehicle to understand ourselves. We have different explicit goals, from getting in shape, learning self-defense or competition, but tacitly we all seek mastery of ourselves.”
― Chris Matakas, My Mastery: Continued Education Through Jiu Jitsu

“If Jiu Jitsu does not make you a better father, son, mother, daughter, wife or husband, you are missing the point. If Jiu Jitsu does not leave you viewing strangers in a kinder light, you are missing the point. If you are not better equipped to deal with the vicissitudes of life due to your training, then you are not really training.”
― Chris Matakas, My Mastery: Continued Education Through Jiu Jitsu

“Jiu Jitsu is meant to serve us, not the other way around. It is meant to make you more of whatever it is you already are. It is meant to separate the wheat from the chaff. It is meant to bring to conscious attention all that once went unseen. It is meant to make you more loving. It is meant to make you more wise, but less certain. It is meant to make us humble, yet supremely confident. It is meant to remind us of our frailty while simultaneously making us feel invincible.”
― Chris Matakas, My Mastery: Continued Education Through Jiu Jitsu

“We must keep on learning for self-development.”
― Lailah Gifty Akita, Pearls of Wisdom: Great mind

“I believe that which you study is only matched in importance by the sincerity with which you approach it.”
― Chris Matakas, My Mastery: Continued Education Through Jiu Jitsu

“There is no concrete way to play Jiu Jitsu, and this is why so many different types of people find joy in it.”
― Chris Matakas, My Mastery: Continued Education Through Jiu Jitsu

“The infinitude of Jiu Jitsu allows for the infinitude of the types of practitioners. There exists a game for each and every one of us which is specifically possible within the confines of our particular skill set.”
― Chris Matakas, My Mastery: Continued Education Through Jiu Jitsu

“An arm bar in a vacuum is worthless. It is the realization of the truths which constitute that arm bar that is the real treasure we seek.”
― Chris Matakas, My Mastery: Continued Education Through Jiu Jitsu

“I have seen far by seeing through the lens of Jiu Jitsu. I have exchanged a great deal of physical health for these insights, and these were trades worth making. My efforts were worth the return. I have sacrificed much in the name of this craft. Not for trophies or belts or prestige. For these fall away like dust. I pursued this art so fervently because it was not actually Jiu Jitsu I pursued. It was myself.”
― Chris Matakas, My Mastery: Continued Education Through Jiu Jitsu

“Thoreau went to the woods. I went to the mats.”
― Chris Matakas, My Mastery: Continued Education Through Jiu Jitsu

“I wanted to get to the most essential aspect of my being, and look around for a while. I wanted to explore what I am in my most basic self. I wanted to chip away at all of the nonsense I have acquired through my twenty-nine years on this earth. I wanted to find truth. Thoreau went to the woods. I went to the mats. Jiu Jitsu has peeled the veil of daily life, and has shown me what lies beyond the curtain. We willingly accept the chains that circumstance forces upon us, and we grow to find comfort in them. We attach various fetters of day-to-day living to our being, and we do so with a smile. We accept these constraints for they come in the way of comfort. We accept conformity for it appears the path of least resistance. We strive toward the middle, and we run from ourselves.”
― Chris Matakas, My Mastery: Continued Education Through Jiu Jitsu

“Jiu Jitsu has shown me that we are not confined to the lot which we inherit. We are not bound to these fetters eternally. They are temporal. We can transcend them should we sincerely choose to. Sincere effort is in fact the rarest virtue among man.”
― Chris Matakas, My Mastery: Continued Education Through Jiu Jitsu

“We call it training. Not because we are training for Jiu Jitsu. We are training for life.”
― Chris Matakas, My Mastery: Continued Education Through Jiu Jitsu

“Day by day, there exists the possibility for the dream to come true.”
― Lailah Gifty Akita, Pearls of Wisdom: Great mind

“Education is acquisition of intellectual knowledge to be what we ought to be.”
― Lailah Gifty Akita, Think Great: Be Great!

“Mentoring is passion for skills and knowledge-transfer to young people”
― Lailah Gifty Akita, Think Great: Be Great!

“We should keep learning so long as we have grace and breathe.”
― Lailah Gifty Akita, Pearls of Wisdom: Great mind

“Every mistake is a new learning adventure.”
― Lailah Gifty Akita, Pearls of Wisdom: Great mind

“We're all born with curiosity, but at some point, school usually manages to knock that out of us.”
― Max Tegmark, Our Mathematical Universe: My Quest for the Ultimate Nature of Reality