Robert Greene

The conventional mind is passive - it consumes information and regurgitates it in familiar forms. The dimensional mind is active, transforming everything it digests into something new and original, creating instead of consuming.

To succeed in the game of power, you have to master your emotions. But even if you succeed in gaining such self-control, you can never control the temperamental dispositions of those around you. And this presents a great danger.

Our natural tendency is to project onto other people our own belief and value systems, in ways in which we are not even aware.

It is in fact the height of selfishness to merely consume what others create and to retreat into a shell of limited goals and immediate pleasures.

If we experience any failures or setbacks, we do not forget them because they offend our self-esteem. Instead we reflect on them deeply, trying to figure out what went wrong and discern whether there are any patterns to our mistakes.

The passive ironic attitude is not cool or romantic, but pathetic and destructive.

Nothing is stable in the realm of power, and even closest of friends can be transformed into the worst of enemies.

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.

Keep your friends for friendship, but work with the skilled and competent

Few are born bold. Even Napoleon had to cultivate the habit on the battlefield, where he knew it was a matter of life and death. In social settings he was awkward and timid, but he overcame this and practice boldness in every part of his life because he saw its tremendous power, how it could literally enlarge a man(even one who, like Napoleon, was in fact conspicuously small).

Many a serious thinker has been produced in prisons, where we have nothing to do but think.

When our emotions are engaged, we often have trouble seeing things as they are.

People are more complicated than the masks they wear in society.