Top 500 Robert Greene Quotes (2025 Update)
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151. “On woman Nature did bestow two eyes, Like Hemian’s bright lamps, in matchless beauty shining, Whose beams do soonest captivate the wise And wary heads, made rare by art’s refining.”

— Robert Greene

152. “I’ve always loved black culture; I don’t know any other way to put it. Since I was a kid I loved music and early jazz, Sly and the Family Stone.”

— Robert Greene

153. “The key then to attaining this higher level of intelligence is to make our years of study qualitatively rich. We don’t simply absorb information – we internalize it and make it our own by finding some way to put this knowledge to practical use.”

— Robert Greene

154. “Be a flame of positive emotions and you will never be without a friend.”

— Robert Greene

155. “Great strategists do not act according to preconceived ideas; they respond to the moment, like children. Their minds are always moving, and they are always excited and curious. They quickly forget the past – the present is much too interesting.”

— Robert Greene

156. “Results are important, but the way they are achieved, the process, is equally important.”

— Robert Greene

157. “When the evening began, Fouquet was at the top of the world. By the time it had ended, he was at the bottom. Voltaire, 1694-1778.”

— Robert Greene

158. “The truth is that everything starts from the top. What determines your failure or success is your style of leadership and the chain of command that you design.”

— Robert Greene

159. “Your greatest power in seduction is your ability to turn away, to make others come after you, delaying their satisfaction.”

— Robert Greene

160. “What people lack in life is not more reality but illusion, fantasy, play.”

— Robert Greene

161. “A man said to a Dervish: “Why do I not see you more often?” The Dervish replied, “Because the words ‘Why have you not been to see me?’ are sweeter to my ear than the words ‘Why have you come again?”

— Robert Greene

162. “The road to mastery requires patience. You will have to keep your focus on five or ten years down the road, when you will reap the rewards of your efforts. The process of getting there, however, is full of challenges and pleasures.”

— Robert Greene

163. “Your days are numbered. Will you pass them half awake and halfhearted or will you live with a sense of urgency?”

— Robert Greene

164. “You must avoid at all cost the idea that you can manage learning several skills at a time. You need to develop your powers of concentration, and understand that trying to multitask will be the death of the process.”

— Robert Greene

165. “You must bear in mind that each law is circumstantial. It does depend on the circumstances.”

— Robert Greene

166. “Not to become someone else, but to be more thoroughly yourself.”

— Robert Greene

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

— Robert Greene

168. “Remember: When searching for suckers, always look for the dissatisfied, the unhappy, the insecure. Such people are riddled with weaknesses and have needs that you can fill. Their neediness is the groove in which you place your thumbnail and turn them at will.”

— Robert Greene

169. “What I fear is not the enemy’s strategy but our own mistakes.”

— Robert Greene

170. “Hesitation creates gaps. Boldness obliterates them.”

— Robert Greene

171. “It is your own bad strategies, not the unfair opponent, that are to blame for your failures. You are responsible for the good and bad in your life.”

— Robert Greene

172. “When people choose between talk about the past and talk about the future, a pragmatic person will always opt for the future and forget the past.”

— Robert Greene

173. “Compelling spectacles are not to reach a niche market, it could be for reaching a niche marketing but on a grand scale. This is for grand marketing.”

— Robert Greene

174. “Chance favors only the prepared mind.”

— Robert Greene

175. “A person in love will surrender.”

— Robert Greene

176. “Remember: the greatest danger you face in the world today is that you are replaceable. As you get older, people who are younger, cheaper and more in tune with trends are rising up and threatening your position. Your only salvation is to mine your uniqueness, to combine various skills that set you apart. No one can do what you do. That is your endgame.”

— Robert Greene

177. “The truth is that creative activity is one that involves the entire self – our emotions, our levels of energy, our characters, and our minds.”

— Robert Greene

178. “Being attacked is a sign that you are important enough to be a target.”

— Robert Greene

179. “If you allow yourself to learn who you really are by paying attention to that voice and force within you, then you can become what you were fated to become – an individual, a Master.”

— Robert Greene

180. “Power is essentially amoral and one of the most important skills to acquire is the ability to see circumstances rather than good or evil.”

— Robert Greene

181. “Fools say that they learn by experience. I prefer to profit by others’ experience.”

— Robert Greene

182. “There is too little mystery in the world; too many people say exactly what they feel or want.”

— Robert Greene

183. “Make your masters appear more brilliant than they are and you will attain the heights of power.”

— Robert Greene

184. “Do not swallow the easy moralism of the day, which urges honesty at the expense of desirability.”

— Robert Greene

185. “Seduction is a form of deception, but people want to be led astray, they yearn to be seduced. If they didn’t, seducers would not find so many willing victims. Get rid of any moralizing tendencies, adopt the seducer’s playful philosophy, and you will find the rest of the process easy and natural.”

— Robert Greene

186. “We see people not as they are, but as they appear to us. And these appearances are usually misleading.”

— Robert Greene

187. “Once envy eats away at someone, everything you do only makes it grow, and day by day it festers inside him. Eventually he will attack.”

— Robert Greene

188. “Learn to move fast and adapt or you will be eaten. The best way to avoid this fate is to assume formlessness. No predator alive can attack what it cannot see. OBSERVANCE.”

— Robert Greene

189. “Sometimes any emotion is better than the boredom of security.”

— Robert Greene

190. “Our times might emphasize equality, which we then mistake for the need for everyone to be the same, but what we really mean by this is the equal chance for people to express their differences, to let a thousand flowers bloom.”

— Robert Greene

191. “Excuses satisfy no one and apologies make everyone uncomfortable.”

— Robert Greene

192. “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.”

— Robert Greene

193. “Anger is the most destructive of emotional responses, for it clouds your vision the most.”

— Robert Greene

194. “Image: An Oak Tree. The oak that resists the wind loses its branches one by one, and with nothing left to protect it, the trunk fi nally snaps. The oak that bends lives long er, its trunk grow ing wider, its roots deeper and more tenacious.”

— Robert Greene

195. “Learn to use the knowledge of the past and you will look like a genius, even when you are really just a clever borrower.”

— Robert Greene

196. “The only real impediment to this is yourself and your emotions – boredom, panic, frustration, insecurity. You cannot suppress such emotions – they are normal to the process and are experienced by everyone, including Masters. What you can do is have faith in the process.”

— Robert Greene

197. “So much of power is not what you do but what you do not do – the rash and foolish actions that you refrain from before they get you into trouble. Plan in detail before you act – do not let vague plans lead you into trouble.”

— Robert Greene

198. “You can’t disengage yourself from that game if you are completely unaware of what people out there might be doing, you’re just going to be tripped up, you’re going to find yourself continually at a disadvantage.”

— Robert Greene

199. “Creative Endeavors are by their nature uncertain.”

— Robert Greene

200. “Sadness of any sort is also seductive, particularly if it seems deep-rooted, even spiritual, rather than needy or pathetic – it makes people come to you.”

— Robert Greene