Quotes from Robert Greene

If everything in a dream were realistic, it would have no power over us; if everything were unreal, we would feel less involved in its pleasures and fears. Its fusion of the two is what makes it haunting.

When the snipe and the mussel struggle, the fisherman gets the benefit. Ancient Chinese saying

The only means to gain one's ends with people are force and cunning. Love also, they say; but that is to wait for sunshine, and life needs every moment. JOHANN VON GOETHE, 1749-1832

Absence diminishes minor passions and inflames great ones, as the wind douses a candle and fans a fire. La Rochefoucauld, 1613-1680 OBSERVANCE

The Athenians were one of the most eminently practical people in history, and they made the most practical argument they could with the Melians: When you are weaker, there is nothing to be gained by fighting a useless fight. No one comes to help the weak—by doing so they would only put themselves in jeopardy. The weak are alone and must submit. Fighting gives you nothing to gain but martyrdom, and in the process a lot of people who do not believe in your cause will die.

Men do not understand how women think, and vice versa; each tries to make the other act more like a member of their own sex.

Power is essentially amoral and one of the most important skills to acquire is the ability to see circumstances rather than good or evil. Power is a game—this cannot be repeated too often—and in games you do not judge your opponents by their intentions but by the effect of their actions.

Selfishness is one of the qualities apt to inspire love. —NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE

Your days are numbered. Will you pass them half awake and halfhearted or will you live with a sense of urgency?

You are like a hunter: your knowledge of every detail of the forest and of the ecosystem as a whole will give you many more options for survival and success.

There are very few men—and they are the exceptions—who are able to think and feel beyond the present moment.   CARL VON CLAUSEWITZ, 1780-1831

skill and competence are far more important than friendly feelings.

little about your work, tease and titillate with alluring, even contradictory comments, then stand back and let others try to make sense of it all.

The key to staying unintimidated is to convince yourself that the person you're facing is a mere mortal, no different from you-- which is in fact the truth. See the person, not the myth. Imagine him or her as a child, as someone riddled with insecurities. Cutting the other person down to size will help your keep your mental balance.

Intellect is a magnitude of intensity, not a magnitude of extensity.

At certain points in history it may be fashionable to be different and rebellious, but if a lot of people are playing that role, there is nothing different or rebellious about it.

Creative Endeavors are by their nature uncertain.

Forgetting our objectives. —During the journey we commonly forget its goal. Almost every profession is chosen and commenced as a means to an end but continued as an end in itself. Forgetting our objectives is the most frequent of all acts of stupidity. FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE, 1844

Do not think that what is hard for you to master is humanly impossible; and if it is humanly possible, consider it to be within your reach. —MARCUS AURELIUS

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

The mind must not wander from goal to goal, or be distracted by success from its sense of purpose and proportion.

In the end, the money and success that truly last come not to those who focus on such things as goals, but rather to those who focus on mastery and fulfilling their Life's Task.

we tend to think of our behavior as largely conscious and willed. To imagine that we are not always in control of what we do is a frightening thought, but in fact it is the reality.

Life has more meaning in the face of Death.