782 Quotes by Robert Greene

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?

Without a worthy opponent a man or group cannot grow stronger.

To be emperor of China was to be alone, surrounded by a pack of enemies – it was the least powerful, least secure position in the realm.

Confidence is important, but if it is not based on a realistic appraisal of who you are, it is mere grandiosity and smugness.

Life has more meaning in the face of Death.

The most important of these skills, and power’s crucial foundation, is the ability to master your emotions. An emotional response to a situation is the single greatest barrier to power, a mistake that will cost you a lot more than any temporary satisfaction you might gain by expressing your feelings. Emotions cloud reason, and if you cannot see the situation clearly, you cannot prepare for and respond to it with any degree of control.

Practical knowledge is the ultimate commodity, and is what will pay you dividends for decades to come – far more than the paltry increase in pay you might receive at some seemingly lucrative position that offers fewer learning opportunities.

On July 2, 1960, a few weeks before that year’s Democratic National Convention, former President Harry Truman publicly stated that John F Kennedy – who had won enough delegates to be chosen his party’s candidate for the presidency – was too young and inexperienced for the job.

Love never dies of starvation,” she wrote, “but often of indigestion.