Quotes from Robert Greene

And finally, we can include the rapidly expanding library of biographies now available, revealing human nature in depth and in action.

La gente de tu tipo gravitará hacia ti, se identificará contigo, compartirá tu alegría o tristeza. La atracción debe ser insconsciente, y no han de transmitirla tus palabras sino tu pose, tu actitud.

Cuanto menos intentemos, menos riesgo tendremos de fracasar.

It's a pain that we don't discuss or even understand.

Quien pretende ser bueno en todo momento, está destinado a la perdición en medio del enorme número de quienes no lo son".

Everything that is rare is expensive: the more you are seen, the more you are heard, and the more ordinary you seem. If you are part of a group, step away for a while and you will be talked about more, and even admired more. Practice absence: scarcity will increase your value.

Pick up a bee from kindness, and learn the limitations of kindness.

This book is an attempt to gather together this immense storehouse of knowledge and ideas from different branches (see the bibliography for the key sources), to piece together an accurate and instructive guide to human nature, basing itself on the evidence, not on particular viewpoints or moral judgments. It is a brutally realistic appraisal of our species, dissecting who we are so we can operate with more awareness.

Let us rid death of its strangeness, come to know it, get used to it. Let us have nothing on our minds as often as death. At every moment let us picture it in our imagination in all its aspects. . . . It is uncertain where death awaits us; let us await it everywhere. Premeditation of death is premeditation of freedom. . . . He who has learned how to die has unlearned how to be a slave. Knowing how to die frees us from all subjection and constraint.

Knowing about your rival is critical. Use spies to gather valuable information that will keep you a step ahead. Better still: Play the spy yourself. In polite social encounters, learn to probe. Ask indirect questions to get people to reveal their weaknesses and intentions. There is no occasion that is not an opportunity for artful spying.

Segundo, cultiva un rostro inexpresivo y misterioso, el centro que irradia tu estelaridad. Esto le permitirá a la gente ver en ti lo que quiere, imaginar que puede advertir tu carácter, y aun tu alma. En vez de indicar estados anímicos y emociones, en vez de emocionar o exaltar, la estrella despierta interpretaciones. Una estrella debe sobresalir

You become what you think, your daily thoughts your reality. You create the rich or arid landscape of your brain. If you constrict your thoughts to the same obsessions, to the tiny realm of your smartphone, that is the world that you create for yourself.

Infectors can be recognized by the misfortune they draw on themselves, their turbulent past, their long line of broken relationships, their unstable careers, and the very force of their character, which sweeps you up and makes you lose your reason.

En este mundo no harás nada que valga la pena si no empiezas por desarrollarte y transformarte a ti mismo. ESTRATEGIAS

The best strategy is always to be very strong first in general, then at the decisive point.... There is no higher and simpler law of strategy than that of keeping one's forces concentrated.... In short the first principle is: act with the utmost concentration. On War, Carl von Clausewitz, 1780-1831

The best route is to follow Coltrane and to love learning for its own sake. Anyone who would spend ten years absorbing the techniques and conventions of their field, trying them out, mastering them, exploring and personalizing them, would inevitably find their authentic voice and give birth to something unique and expressive.

Esa distancia interior nos fascina. Las estrellas se burlan de sí mismas, ajustan siempre su imagen, la adaptan a los tiempos. Nada es más risible que una imagen que estuvo de moda hace diez años pero que ya no lo está. Las estrellas deben renovar constantemente su lustre, o enfrentarán

When you no longer surprise anyone, you give others the impression that they have found you out. Turn the tables: be deliberately unpredictable.

But if you attempt to move in the opposite direction, you will notice the opposite dynamic—continual expansion, mental doors opening up in every direction, creative connections and new ideas flooding your brain.

It is the fool who always rushes to take sides. Do not commit to any side or cause but yourself.

It is simple: Human nature is stronger than any individual, than any institution or technological invention. It ends up shaping what we create to reflect itself and its primitive roots. It moves us around like pawns.

No pienses que lo que se te dificulta es humanamente imposible; y si es humanamente posible, considéralo a tu alcance. –MARCO AURELIO A

Most important of all, do not take pity. Do not enmesh yourself in trying to help. The infector will remain unchanged, but you will be unhinged.

Desperate to win the French over to the American cause and understanding their nature quite well, he had transformed himself into what they had wanted to see in him—the American version of the French spirit and way of life. He was appealing to their notorious narcissism.