Quotes from Robert Greene

People cannot stay motivated if their material needs go unmet. If they feel exploited in any way, their natural selfishness will come to the surface and they will begin to peel off from the group.

Work every day on improving those skills that mesh with your unique spirit and purpose

Normally, if we pay attention to people's behavior, we are in a rush to fit their actions into categories and to hurry to conclusions, so we settle for the judgment that suits our own preconceptions. Or we accept their self-serving explanations. The Laws will rid you of this habit by making it clear how easy it is to misread people and how deceptive first impressions can be.

Occasional mistakes are inevitable—the world is just too unpredictable. People of power, however, are undone not by the mistakes they make, but by the way they deal with them.

Right from the beginning, your troops must see you leading from the front, sharing their dangers and sacrifices—taking the cause as seriously as they do. Instead of trying to push them from behind, make them run to keep up with you.

An understanding of people's hidden motives is the single greatest piece of knowledge you can have in acquiring power.

Remake yourself into a character of power. Working on yourself like clay should be one of your greatest and most pleasurable life tasks. It makes you in essence an artist—an artist creating yourself.

words have that insidious ability to be interpreted according to the other person's mood and insecurities.

Power requires self-discipline.

Preferiría ser mendiga y soltera, que reina y casada. REINA ISABEL I, 1533-1603

el azar sólo favorece a la mente preparada".

The human mind naturally freezes the relentless passage of time by presenting us with static images of people, our culture, and our own self-identity. But if we were truly sensitive to evolution, we would realize these are only passing shadows in a world of ceaseless flux.

You will see the signs of this shadow leaking out in everyday life. If people take an action that seems out of character, you will take note: what often appears out of character is actually more of their true character.

Leonardo ansiaba aprender todas esas habilidades, pero pronto descubrió algo en sí mismo: no podía hacer sencillamente lo que se le encargara; debía convertirlo en algo propio, inventar en vez de imitar al maestro.

He increasingly spoke of himself in the third person, as if he had become an impersonal revolutionary force, and as such he was infallible. If he happened to mispronounce a word in a speech, every subsequent speaker from then on would have to pronounce it that way. "If I'd said it right," confessed one of his top lieutenants, "Stalin would have felt I was correcting him." And that could prove suicidal.

frente a los agresivos, retírate, déjalos conseguir sus pequeñas victorias.

Every minute of every day we are aging; every encounter with others alters and shapes our ideas; we are a continuous work in progress, never quite the same. As Heraclitus once said, "You cannot step into the same river twice; it is not the same river, and you are not the same person.

If people are essentially lazy or foolish, they leave clues to this in the smallest of details that you can pick up well before their behavior harms you.

No power is made available by ignoring images and symbols. There is no possible reversal to this law.

Related to mastering your emotions is the ability to distance yourself from the present moment and think objectively about the past and future.

Nunca critiques abiertamente a la gente; esto la hará sentirse insegura, y se resistirá al cambio. Siembra ideas, insinúa sugerencias.

Treating everyone equally means ignoring their differences, elevating the less skillful and suppressing those who excel.

On the other hand, an attack on another man's reputation is a potent weapon, particularly when you have less power than he does.

Envy occurs most commonly and painfully among friends. We assume that something in the course of the relationship caused the friend to turn against us. Sometimes all we experience is the betrayal, the sabotage, the ugly criticisms they throw at us, and we never understand the underlying envy that inspired these actions. What we need to grasp is something paradoxical: people who feel envy in the first place are often motivated to become our friends.