Quotes from Robert Greene

PSYCHOLOGY OF LOVE, TRANSLATED BY JOAN RIVIÈRE

Charmers. First, they don't talk much about themselves, which heightens their mystery and disguises their limitations. Second, they seem to be interested in us, and their interest is so delightfully focused that we relax and open up to them. Finally Charmers are pleasant to be around. They have none of most people's ugly qualities—nagging, complaining, self-assertion. They seem to know what pleases.

We have a continual desire to communicate our feelings and yet at the same time the need to conceal them for proper social functioning.

Lord, protect me from my friends; I can take care of my enemies. Voltaire, 1694-1778

Always try to lower the other side's sense of urgency. Make your enemies think they have all the time in the world; when you suddenly appear at their border, they are in a slumbering state, and you will easily overrun them. While you are sharpening your fighting spirit, always do what you can to blunt theirs. PART

When you have success, be extra wary. When you are angry, take no action. When you are fearful, know you are going to exaggerate the dangers you face. War demands the utmost in realism, seeing things as they are. The more you can limit or compensate for your emotional responses, the closer you will come to this ideal.

According to Machiavelli, human beings naturally tend to think in terms of patterns. They like to see events conforming to their expectations by fitting into a pattern or scheme, for schemes, whatever their actual content, comfort us by suggesting that the chaos of life is predictable.

This mental habit offers excellent ground for deception, using a strategy that Machiavelli calls "acclimatization"—deliberately creating some pattern to make your enemies believe that your next action will follow true to form. Having lulled them into complacency, you now have room to work against their expectations, break the pattern, and take them by surprise.

Authority: One who is good at combating the enemy fools it with inscrutable moves, confuses it with false intelligence, makes it relax by concealing one's strength, . . . deafens its ears by jumbling one's orders and signals, blinds its eyes by converting one's banners and insignias, . . . confounds its battle plan by providing distorted facts. —Tou Bi Fu Tan, A Scholar's Dilettante Remarks on War (16th century A.D.)

Too much attention early on will actually just suggest insecurity, and raise doubts as to your motives. Worst of all, it gives your targets no room for imagination.

Establishing your differences with the mentor is an important part of your self-development, whether he is of the good or bad parent type.

Inter action with boldness

to the end, no matter what it is you are considering. Often enough, God gives a man a glimpse of happiness, and then utterly ruins him. THE HISTORIES, HERODOTUS, FIFTH CENTURY B.C. Indians

Read more books than those who have a formal education, developing this into a lifelong habit.

The only way to break out of a negative dynamic is to confront it. Repressing your anger, avoiding the person threatening you, always looking to conciliate—these common strategies spell ruin. Avoidance of conflict becomes a habit, and you lose the taste for battle. Feeling guilty is pointless; it is not your fault you have enemies.

I never read any treatises on strategy. . . . When we fight, we do not take any books with us. MAO TSE-TUNG, 1893–1976

Love never dies of starvation," she wrote, "but often of indigestion.

Years later, a Japanese visitor tried to apologize to Mao for his country's invasion of China. Mao interrupted, "Should I not thank you instead?" Without a worthy opponent, he explained, a man or group cannot grow stronger. Mao's

You see, you keep learning. People are always looking for a single magic turning point. There isn't one. It's much more of a gradual getting better and better and better and better.

Your Life's Task does not always appear to you through some grand or promising inclination. […] Do not envy those who seem to be naturally gifted; it is often a curse, as such types rarely learn the value of diligence and focus, and they pay for this later in life.

Anger is the most destructive of emotional responses, for it clouds your vision the most. It

It has an edge because it is so different. Soon imitators pop up everywhere. It becomes a fashion, something to conform to, even if the comformity appears to be rebellious and edgy. This can drag on for ten, twenty years; it eventually becomes a cliche, ppure style without any real emotion or need.

If we keep practicing, we gain fluency; basic skills are mastered, allowing us to take on newer and more exciting challenges.

People who are outwardly distant or shy are often better targets than extroverts. They are dying to be drawn out, and still waters run deep.