Robert Greene
An elusive, enigmatic aura will make people want to know more, drawing them into your circle. Create such a power by hinting at something contradictory within you.Collection: Power
I know My God commands, whose power no power resists.Collection: God
Power is the measure of the degree of control you have over circumstances in your life and the actions of the people around you. It is a skill that is developed by a deep understanding of human nature, of what truly motivates people, and of the manipulations necessary for advancement and protection.Collection: Nature
Reputation is the cornerstone of power. Through reputation alone you can intimidate and win; once it slips, however, you are vulnerable, and will be attacked on all sides. Make your reputation unassailable.Collection: Power
We humans are self-absorbed by nature, and spend most of our time focusing inwardly on our emotions, on our wounds, on our fantasies.Collection: Nature
As social animals, we are extremely susceptible to the moods of other people. This gives us the power to subtly infuse into people the appropriate mood for influencing them.Collection: Power
Be extra careful in the work environment with those who like to maintain their position through charm and being political, rather than getting things done. They are very prone to envying and hating those who work hard and get results. They will slander and sabotage you without any warning.Collection: Work
What matters in the Sun-tzu universe are not positions of strength and power, but situations in which you have options, full of potential force.Collection: Strength
Consciously or unconsciously most of us adhere to what is expected of our role because we realize our social success depends on this. Some may refuse to play this game, but in the end they are marginalized and forced to play the outsider role, with limited options and decreasing freedom as they get older.Collection: Freedom
As social animals we humans are very sensitive to our rank and position within any group. We can measure our status by the attention and respect we receive.Collection: Respect
The wisest hustler can suddenly fall for the worst tramp and lose all of his money on her. The hustler is aware of his own weaknesses and openings to con. This awareness is his edge.Collection: Money
Your life must be a progression towards ownership - first mentally of your independence, and then physically of your work, owning what you produce.Collection: Independence
Ambition has become a dirty word, and I believe it is a great evolutionary force for the positive. If people fail or go astray in their ambition I can live with it but not with people lowering their expectations, wasting time, slacking off and glorifying failure and stupidity.Collection: Positive
Let me spell it out: with the psychotic boss, nothing you do is ever quite right. They set traps, asking you to do things, and no matter how hard you think of accomplishing it in their way, it is wrong and you are to blame. This tends to instill a lot of fear in you.Collection: Fear
To not follow your passion in life is a recipe for failure and unhappiness.Collection: Failure
Always make those above you feel comfortably superior. In your desire to please or impress them, do not go too far in displaying your talents or you might accomplish the opposite - inspire fear and insecurity.Collection: Fear
If you change and adapt your persona, you are seen as inauthentic; if you stay the angry young man, you fade from attention or seem tiresome.Collection: Change
Many people have an intense feeling about what they're best at. Too often, they're driven away from it by other people.Collection: Best
Always remember that your calmness under fire is your best defense in any argument or discussion.Collection: Best
When I was researching my book 'The 33 Strategies of War', I studied Napoleon extensively and I found myself wanting to ask Napoleon questions about things he did, and if was I interpreting his actions correctly.Collection: War
Ethics and power are separate.Collection: Power
Stupidity and human incompetence are the great evils, not ambition and glory.Collection: Great
Never waste valuable time, or mental peace of mind, on the affairs of others—that is too high a price to pay.Collection: Mind
You must always be prepared to place a bet on yourself, on your future, by heading in a direction that others seem to fear.Collection: Your Future
Understand: you are one of a kind. Your character traits are a kind of chemical mix that will never be repeated in history. There are ideas unique to you, a specific rhythm and perspective that are your strengths, not your weaknesses. You must not be afraid of your uniqueness and you must care less and less what people think of you.Collection: Character
Understand: people will constantly attack you in life. One of their main weapons will be to instill in you doubts about yourself – your worth, your abilities, your potential. They will often disguise this as their objective opinion, but invariably it has a political purpose – they want to keep you down.Collection: People
True genius, in strategy or anywhere, lies in self-control, self-mastery, presence of mind, fluidity of thought.Collection: Lying
No moment is wasted if you pay attention and learn the lessons contained in every experience.Collection: Lessons
The future belongs to those who learn more skills and combine them in creative ways.Collection: Skills
The world wants to assign you a role in life. And once you accept that role you are doomed.Collection: Roles
Hasty climbers have sudden falls.Collection: Patience
I believe that everything happens for a reason, and what seems bad at first might in fact be something of a blessing.Collection: Believe
Win through your actions, never through argument.Collection: Winning
Mastery is not a function of genius or talent. It is a function of time and intense focus applied to a particular field of knowledge.Collection: Focus
The moment people feel they know what to expect from you, your spell on them is broken.Collection: People
Become who you are by learning who you are.Collection: Who You Are
Think of it this way: There are two kinds of failure. The first comes from never trying out your ideas because you are afraid, or because you are waiting for the perfect time. This kind of failure you can never learn from, and such timidity will destroy you. The second kind comes from a bold and venturesome spirit. If you fail in this way, the hit that you take to your reputation is greatly outweighed by what you learn. Repeated failure will toughen your spirit and show you with absolute clarity how things must be done.Collection: Thinking
You have the power to think differently about who you are. You have the ability to turn off the critical voice inside of you. That's not you. That's coming from the culture. That's coming from the outside of you. You've internalized the voice of your parents, your teachers, your friends.Collection: Teacher
Never whine, never complain, never try to justify yourself.Collection: Trying
Keep your friends for friendship, but work with the skilled and competentCollection: Success
People around you, constantly under the pull of their emotions, change their ideas by the day or by the hour, depending on their mood. You must never assume that what people say or do in a particular moment is a statement of their permanent desires.Collection: Ideas
A lot of, a big problems that people have nowadays is that they can't stand moments of no stimulation in their life so they're constantly lurking, looking for entertainment, video games.Collection: Games
Those qualities that separate us are often ridiculed by others or criticized by teachers. Because of these judgments, we might see our strengths as disabilities and try to work around them in order to fit in. But anything that is peculiar to our makeup is precisely what we must pay the deepest attention to and lean on in our rise to mastery.Collection: Teacher
Everything is judged by its appearance; what is unseen counts for nothing. Never let yourself get lost in the crowd, then, or buried in oblivion. Stand out. Be conspicuous, at all cost. Make yourself a magnet of attention by appearing larger, more colorful, more mysterious than the bland and timid masses.Collection: Unseen
You can die from someone else's misery — emotional states are as infectious as diseases. You may feel you are helping the drowning man but you are precipitating your own disaster. The unfortunate sometimes draw misfortune on themselves; they will also draw it on you. Associate with the happy and fortunate instead.Collection: Men
Never assume that the person you are dealing with is weaker or less important than you are. Some people are slow to take offense, which may make you misjudge the thickness of their skin, and fail to worry about insulting them. But should you offend their honor and their pride, they will overwhelm you with a violence that seems sudden and extreme given their slowness to anger. If you want to turn people down, it is best to do so politely and respectfully, even if you feel their request is impudent or their offer ridiculous.Collection: Pride
Mistakes and failures are precisely your means of education. They tell you about your own inadequacies.Collection: Mistake
Along the way, a lot of filmmakers get rid of things that are messy or don't fit in some ways. To me, I want to work with serendipity and things we happened upon. That's our job, that's what the form demands.Collection: Jobs
The wrong way to look at your university life is to say it's like job training, unless you're going into something very specific.Collection: Jobs
It's okay to be kind of looking for what you want and trying out all kinds of different ideas and different course work, etc.Collection: Different Ideas