Quotes from Robert Greene

be aware of the Emotional Pitfalls—complacency, boredom, grandiosity, and the like—that continually threaten to derail or block our progress.

Intense desire has a distracting power on a woman, just as the Siren's physical presence does on a man.

Recognize Your Aggressive Impulses

Feeling motivated and energized, we can overcome almost anything. Feeling bored and restless, our minds shut off and we become increasingly passive.

Blending in is the perfect smoke screen for spying. The better you do it, the better you can conceal your intentions.

Albert Einstein called the intuitive or metaphoric mind a sacred gift. He added that the rational mind was a faithful servant. It is paradoxical that in the context of modern life we have begun to worship the servant and defile the divine. —Bob Samples, The Metaphoric Mind

If you come across any special trait of meanness or stupidity you must be careful not to let it annoy or distress you, but to look upon it merely as an addition to your knowledge-a new fact to be considered in studying the character of humanity. Your attitude towards it will be that of the mineralogist who stumbles upon a very characteristic specimen of a mineral. --Arthur Schopenhauer

You often do not know your friends as well as you imagine. Friends often agree on things in order to avoid an argument. They cover up their unpleasant qualities so as not offend each other. They laugh extra hard at each others jokes. Since honesty rarely strengthens friendship, you may never know how a friend truly feels. Friends will say they love your poetry, adore your music, envy your taste in clothes - maybe they mean, often they do not.

Anything that is alive is in a continual state of change and movement. The moment that you rest, thinking that you have attained the level you desire, a part of your mind enters decay

Anger is the most destructive of emotional responses, for it clouds your vision the most. It also has a ripple effect that invariably makes situations less controllable and heightens your enemy's resolve.

The ability to measure people and to know who you're dealing with is the most important skill of all in gathering and conserving power. Without it you are blind:

Aggression is a tendency that is latent in every single human individual.

One of Cosimo's favorite expressions was, Envy is weed that should not be watered.

In dealing with your career and its inevitable changes, you must think in the following way: You are not tied to a particular position; your loyalty is not to a career or a company. You are committed to your Life's Task, to giving it full expression.

this often neutralizes their behavior—they expected, even wanted you to react with force and so they are caught off-guard and confounded by your lack of resistance.

Reading and thinking about [new ideas] won't work. You must put them into effect.

Even while you know you are practicing a kind of deception on yourself, act like a king. You are likely to be treated as one.

Daily Law: Look for signs of your own aggressive impulses in past actions—how they led to friction or success.

This is the essence of the surrender tactic: Inwardly you stay firm, but outwardly you bend.

Everyone holds his fortune in his own hands, like a sculptor the raw material he will fashion into a figure. But it's the same with that type of artistic activity as with all others: We are merely born with the capability to do it. The skill to mold the material into what we want must be learned and attentively cultivated.

No good can ever come from deviating from the path that you were meant to follow

In the battle of the intelligent against the brutal and the aggressive, the surrender tactic is the supreme weapon.

The Laws of Human Nature, 16: See the Hostility Behind the Friendly Façade—The Law of Aggression

You do not hold on to past ways of doing things, because that will ensure you will fall behind and suffer for it. You are flexible and always looking to adapt.