In our culture we tend to equate thinking and intellectual powers with success and achievement. In many ways, however, it is an emotional quality tha… - Robert Greene

Our levels of desire, patience, persistence, and confidence end up playing a much larger role in success than sheer reasoning powers.

Hide your intentions not by closing up (with the risk of appearing secretive, and making people suspicious) but by talking endlessly about your desires and goals-just not the real ones.

Think of the mind as a river: the faster it flows, the better it keeps up with the present and responds to change. The faster it flows, also the more it refreshes itself and the greater its energy. Obsessional thoughts, past experiences (whether traumas or
successes), and preconceived notions are like boulders or mud in this river, settling and hardening
there and damming it up. The river stops moving; stagnation sets in. You must wage constant war on this tendency in the mind.

As Gracián said, “The truth is generally seen, rarely heard.