Robert Greene Quotes

You do not belong to you. You belong to the Universe.

Your significance will remain forever obscure to you, but you may assume that you are fulfilling your job if you apply yourself to converting your experiences to the advantage of others.

The time that leads to mastery is dependent on the intensity of our focus.

The pain is kind of challenge your mind presents - will you learn how to focus and move past boredom, or like a child will you succumb to the need for immediate pleasure and distraction?

The brain is designed to learn through constant repetition and active, hands-on involvement. Through such practice and persistence, any skill can be mastered.

The problem is that we humans are deep conformists.

What if we could find out what causes us to lie about who we are, or to inadvertently push people away?

Learn to measure the people you deal with by the depth of their soul, and if possible associate as much as you can with those of the expansive variety.

In life you must be a warrior, and war requires realism.

While others may find beauty in endless dreams, warriors find it in reality, in awareness of limits, in making the most of what they have.

Do not accept the roles that society foists on you.

Re-create yourself by forging a new identity, one that commands attention and never bores the audience.

Be the master of your own image rather than letting others define it for you.

Incorporate dramatic devices into your public gestures and actions—your power will be enhanced and your character will seem larger than life.

Without enemies around us, we grow lazy. An enemy at our heels sharpens our wits, keeping us focused and alert. It is sometimes better, then, to use enemies as enemies rather than transforming them into friends or allies.

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. But there is another element, an X factor that Masters inevitably possess, that seems mystical but that is accessible to us all. Whatever field of activity we are involved in, there is generally an accepted path to the top. It is a path that others followed, and because we are conformist creatures, most of us opt for this conventional route. But Masters have a strong inner guiding system and a high level of self-awareness. What has suited others in the past does not suit them, and they know that trying to fit into a conventional mold would only lead to a dampening of spirit, the reality they seek eluding them.

And so inevitably, these Masters, as they progress on their career paths, make a choice at a key moment in their lives: they decide to forge their own route, one that others will see as unconventional, but that suits their own spirit and rhythms and leads them closer to discovering the hidden truths of their objects of study. This key choice takes self-confidence and self-awarenes–the X factor that is necessary for attaining mastery...

who can you trust?

it is a curse to have everything go right on your first attempt.

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

Being ourselves and just saying what we think can land us in all kinds of trouble. We come to realize that the work world is riddled with political games that nobody has prepared us for.