Daniele Bolelli > Quotes

“We need new rituals to awaken us to the fact that we are not separate from the land, water, and sky. We need ceremonies putting us back in touch, and urging us to conserve the resources that give life to everything in existence. We need to once again think as part of something greater, to view reality from a place higher than the narrow confines of a shortsighted ego. Empathy toward other living things should be one of the very first lessons instilled by all religions.”
― Daniele Bolelli, Create Your Own Religion: A How-To Book Without Instructions

“No matter how good the justification, I still see all the identities that divide human beings along racial or national lines as prisons. I'm not about to give artificial categories and man-made borders the right to limit my ties with other human beings and dictate what values I should or should not embrace.”
― Daniele Bolelli, Create Your Own Religion: A How-To Book Without Instructions

“in order to become a master of the unorthodox, you need to know the orthodox very well.”
― Daniele Bolelli, Not Afraid: On Fear, Heartbreak, Raising a Baby Girl, and Cage Fighting

“Unfortunately, dogmatic, unchanging rules are drunken elephants in the house of crystal that is life.”
― Daniele Bolelli, Create Your Own Religion: A How-To Book Without Instructions

“But” is a three-letter stroke of genius. It keeps things in perspective. It prevents me from turning too rigid and self-righteous. It reminds me that hardly anything in life is black or white.”
― Daniele Bolelli, Create Your Own Religion: A How-To Book Without Instructions

“The body is not a product. It is an experience.”
― Daniele Bolelli, On the Warrior's Path: Philosophy, Fighting, and Martial Arts Mythology

“it's possible to go through our time on this ball floating in space without realizing that Fear has been pulling our strings all along. Our inner tyrant has made for us most of our choices—even those we were not aware of making. The fucked-up part about it is that Fear makes it easy for us to go along with this. It doesn't hurt us in an obvious way. It numbs us before injecting us with its poison—a slow form of euthanasia that takes a few decades to come to its conclusion. In”
― Daniele Bolelli, Not Afraid: On Fear, Heartbreak, Raising a Baby Girl, and Cage Fighting

“Openness without strength is useless; strength without openness is oppression.”
― Daniele Bolelli, Create Your Own Religion: A How-To Book Without Instructions

“the enemy that's going to paralyze you with fear is your own sense of self-importance and your excessive ego. The thought of not living up to the image of yourself that you want everyone to see is a source of tremendous anxiety. At”
― Daniele Bolelli, Not Afraid: On Fear, Heartbreak, Raising a Baby Girl, and Cage Fighting

“Internal martial arts such as Tai Chi Chuan, Pa Kua, Hsing-i, and Aikido speak the language of the psychedelic body. What is more psychedelic, in fact, than the ability to feel how an opponent will attack before a single gesture is made?”
― Daniele Bolelli, On the Warrior's Path: Philosophy, Fighting, and Martial Arts Mythology

“I worship Life—all of life. The life that burns without shame. The life that dances, smiling, just one step away from the abyss. The life that sips margarita on the beach, surrounded by seagulls. The life that cries tears of blood when it gives everything it can give, but everything is not enough. The life in whose veins flow lightning. The life whose depth hurts. The life moved by the autumn rain and by the summer heat. The life that doesn't wait to continue after the commercial break. The life that sticks its tongue out at Duty. The life that runs in the woods chasing its meal. The life that reveals itself only when you are ready to leave it on the battlefield. Most of all, I worship the life that refuses to regret even one of the days it wasted.”
― Daniele Bolelli, Create Your Own Religion: A How-To Book Without Instructions

“What is bizarre in all of this is that many of the religions that try to squash independent inquiry today were founded by supposed heretics and dangerous outlaws: Jesus was crucified for blasphemy, and Muhammad was chased out of Mecca by assassins. Think of the irony. These men were all about questioning tradition and established forms of authority, which is exactly what the fundamentalists claiming to follow them hate. All religions were born because someone departed from an existing tradition and created their own. But instead of honoring their example, most of their followers turn their insights into one more dried-up dogma used to repress individual freedom.”
― Daniele Bolelli, Create Your Own Religion: A How-To Book Without Instructions

“Those who have never approached their bodies as temples have no idea of what they are missing. The frog at the bottom of the well sees only a fraction of light and believes it to be the whole sky.”
― Daniele Bolelli, On the Warrior's Path: Philosophy, Fighting, and Martial Arts Mythology

“Victory or defeat are largely out of my control, but putting up a good fight… putting up the kind of fight that makes the earth shake and the gods blush… this I can do.”
― Daniele Bolelli

“What people love is the idea of freedom. They love to think that they are not slaves. They go to great lengths to convince themselves they are independent, and that no one can boss them around. But reality tells a different story. Most people badly want some parent figure—whether that's a teacher, president, gang leader, pope, guru, God, or Santa Claus—to whom they can delegate their power of choice, for they would much rather trust anyone other than themselves. Having to figure things out on their own and take responsibility for their lives is too scary of a prospect. Following a path is much easier than creating one. This accounts for the popularity of dogma; and this is why, despite all the rhetoric suggesting otherwise, real freedom terrifies people. What they crave is not freedom but authority figures to give them orders. If I can go on record with another runner-up for the most undemocratic sentence of all times . . . most people seem to be born to obey commands. They probably resent the commands, often complain about them, and occasionally secretly break them only to feel guilty later, but the truth is they would be totally lost without them. If you try to take away their chains, they'll scream and shout because their security, their very identity, is in their chains. Give them real freedom and they'll run back to their dogmas crying “please mama hold me tight.” Dogma is what reassures them and lulls them to sleep at night. “No, dear child—dogma whispers softly in their ears—you don't need to venture alone in that big, scary world. Stay by my side instead, and I will always take care of you. I promise you will never have to make difficult choices all by yourself. I will map out the path for you, and all you'll have to do is follow. You will never be lost again.” Forget freedom as a family value. Real freedom is scary. Real freedom is for people with broad shoulders and big hearts.”
― Daniele Bolelli, Create Your Own Religion: A How-To Book Without Instructions

“I am trying to become more than I have been up until now. I don't want to accept my existing limitations as an immutable sentence, or some sort of inevitable destiny. I am tired of being afraid. I am tired of being intimidated by conflict. I am tired of shrinking in the face of hardship. And when a horde of demons will burst out of hell screaming my name, they will not be impressed with how well read I am, or with the fact that I am nice, sweet, and have good manners. The only thing that will matter is whether I can take everything they dish out and have any strength left to laugh in their face. This”
― Daniele Bolelli, Not Afraid: On Fear, Heartbreak, Raising a Baby Girl, and Cage Fighting

“Werner Herzog: “My steps are resolute. And now the Earth shakes. When I walk, a buffalo walks. When I rest, a mountain rests.” This is echoed by Zen master Dōgen, “If you doubt mountains walking you don’t know your own walking.”
― Daniele Bolelli, On the Warrior's Path: Philosophy, Fighting, and Martial Arts Mythology

“This notion of eternal punishment strikes me as one of the most perverse ideas ever devised. Monotheistic religions describe their God as merciful and compassionate, and in the same breath tell us that this merciful and compassionate God will sentence people to eternal torture if they don't believe in his existence, despite a complete lack of objective evidence. Is it just me, or are we looking at a bit of a contradiction?”
― Daniele Bolelli, Create Your Own Religion: A How-To Book Without Instructions

“This is a battle between the heaviness of tradition and the daring to create, between the conforming crowd and the individual shaping his/her own destiny. Most, but not all, forms of organized religions stand firmly on the conformity side of the battle line. They don't want you to think for yourself, or they would go out of business. Their clergy is always threatened by direct individual experience because it makes them obsolete and takes away their source of authority. Dogma is safe only when individuals give away their power to religious institutions, stop questioning the world around them, and gladly accept pre-packaged answers. Thomas Paine saw this clearly when he wrote: I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish church, by the Roman church, by the Greek church, by the Turkish church, by the Protestant church, nor by any church that I know of. My own mind is my own church. All national institutions of churches . . . appear to me no other than human inventions set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit.9”
― Daniele Bolelli, Create Your Own Religion: A How-To Book Without Instructions

“You are like a cross between Eminem and the Dalai Lama. You can be really nerdy, and all deep and shit, but you are also raw as hell. Eminem without the bitterness. A Dalai Lama you can get drunk with.” Part”
― Daniele Bolelli, Not Afraid: On Fear, Heartbreak, Raising a Baby Girl, and Cage Fighting

“nothing good will ever come from people who are more familiar with the dust of the library than with the light of the sun.”
― Daniele Bolelli, Create Your Own Religion: A How-To Book Without Instructions