Top 500 Robert Greene Quotes (2025 Update)
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201. “As Abraham Lincoln said, “I don’t like that man. I must get to know him better.”

— Robert Greene

202. “You may have brilliant ideas, the kind that could revolutionize the world, but unless you can express them effectively, they will have no force, no power to enter people’s minds in a deep and lasting way.”

— Robert Greene

203. “At certain points in history it may be fashionable to be different and rebellious, but if a lot of people are playing that role, there is nothing different or rebellious about it.”

— Robert Greene

204. “Feeling bored and restless, our minds shut off and we become increasingly passive.”

— Robert Greene

205. “In knowing yourself, you accept your limits. You are simply one person among many in the world, and not naturally superior to anyone.”

— Robert Greene

206. “What people say about themselves does not matter; people will say anything. Look at what they have done; deeds do not lie. You must also apply this logic to yourself. In looking back at a defeat, you must identify the things you could have done differently.”

— Robert Greene

207. “I got very good on the telephone tricks too. Like calling up a company and find out that the plant was going to building a new addition and getting hold of the engineering office and getting the secretary to give me the direct extension.”

— Robert Greene

208. “Too much attention early on will actually just suggest insecurity, and raise doubts as to your motives. Worst of all, it gives your targets no room for imagination. Take a step back; let the thoughts you are provoking come to them as if they were their own. This is doubly important if you are dealing with someone who has a deep effect on you.”

— Robert Greene

209. “Work at what connects to you emotionally and ideas will come to you.”

— Robert Greene

210. “People with a lot of time on their hands are extremely susceptible to seduction. They have mental space for you to fill.”

— Robert Greene

211. “Hip-hop, you can’t really do that when you’re in your 50s.”

— Robert Greene

212. “Seducers are never self-absorbed. Their gaze is directed outward, not inward. When they meet someone their first move is to get inside that person’s skin, to see the world through their eyes.”

— Robert Greene

213. “Many men are intimidated by beauty and prefer to worship it from afar; others are drawn in, but not for the purpose of conversation. The Beauty suffers from isolation.”

— Robert Greene

214. “A seduction should never settle into a comfortable routine. The middle and later chapters will instruct you in the art of alternating hope and despair, pleasure and pain, until your victims weaken and succumb.”

— Robert Greene

215. “Remember: You have only so much energy and so much time. Every moment wasted on the affairs of others subtracts from your strength. You may be afraid that people will condemn you as heartless, but in the end, maintaining your independence and self-reliance will gain you more respect and place you in a position of power from which you can choose to help others on your own initiative.”

— Robert Greene

216. “Try to persuade a person by appealing to their consciousness, by saying outright what you want, by showing all your cards, and what hope do you have? You are just one more irritation to be tuned out.”

— Robert Greene

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

— Robert Greene

218. “You want to retain the elasticity of spirit you had as a child, interested in everything, while retaining the hard-nosed need to verify and scrutinize for yourself all ideas and beliefs.”

— Robert Greene

219. “People’s need for validation and recognition, their need to feel important, is the best kind of weakness to exploit. First, it is almost universal; second, exploiting it is so very easy. All you have to do is find ways to make people feel better about their taste, their social standing, their intelligence.”

— Robert Greene

220. “Learn to question yourself: Why this anger or resentment? Where does this incessant need for attention come from? Under such scrutiny, your emotions will lose their hold on you. You will begin to think for yourself instead of reacting to what others give you.”

— Robert Greene

221. “The only way to break out of a negative dynamic is to confront it. Repressing your anger, avoiding the person threatening you, always looking to conciliate – these common strategies spell ruin. Avoidance of conflict becomes a habit, and you lose the taste for battle. Feeling guilty is pointless; it is not your fault you have enemies.”

— Robert Greene

222. “Space we can recover, time never. Napoleon Bonaparte, 1769-1821.”

— Robert Greene

223. “When you have success, be extra wary. When you are angry, take no action. When you are fearful, know you are going to exaggerate the dangers you face.”

— Robert Greene

224. “You choose to let things bother you. You can just as easily choose not to notice the irritating offender, to consider the matter trivial and unworthy of your interest. That is the powerful move. What you do not react to cannot drag you down in a futile engagement. Your pride is not involved. The best lesson you can teach an irritating gnat is to consign it to oblivion by ignoring it.”

— Robert Greene

225. “Time is the greatest weapon you have. Patiently keep in mind a long-term goal and neither person nor army can resist you. And charm is the best way of playing for time, of widening your options in any situation. Through charm you can seduce your enemy into backing off, giving you the psychological space to plot an effective counterstrategy.”

— Robert Greene

226. “Instead of spending your time dreaming of your plan’s happy ending, you must work on calculating every possible permutation and pitfall that might emerge in it.”

— Robert Greene

227. “Hip-hop has a feeling element, it’s not just about knowing music. It’s not like classical music or jazz where you can go on raw energy.”

— Robert Greene

228. “Without a worthy opponent a man or group cannot grow stronger.”

— Robert Greene

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

— Robert Greene

230. “Everything that is rare is expensive: the more you are seen, the more you are heard, and the more ordinary you seem. If you are part of a group, step away for a while and you will be talked about more, and even admired more. Practice absence: scarcity will increase your value.”

— Robert Greene

231. “By acknowledging a petty problem you give it existence and credibility. The more attention you pay an enemy, the stronger you make him; and a small mistake is often made worse and more visible when you try to fix it. It is sometimes best to leave things alone. If there is something you want but cannot have, show contempt for it. The less interest you reveal, the more superior you seem.”

— Robert Greene

232. “As a warrior in life, you must turn this dynamic around: make the thought of death something not to escape but to embrace. Your days are numbered. Will you pass them half awake and halfhearted or will you live with a sense of urgency?”

— Robert Greene

233. “Because you think you have options, you never involve yourself deeply enough in one thing to do it thoroughly, and you never quite get what you want. Sometimes you need to run your ships aground, burn them, and leave yourself just one option: succeed or go down. Make the burning of your ships as real as possible – get rid of your safety net. Sometimes you have to become a little desperate to get anywhere.”

— Robert Greene

234. “Half of your mastery of power comes from what you do NOT do, what you do not ALLOW yourself to get dragged into.”

— Robert Greene

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

— Robert Greene

236. “For Pericles it would be nous, the ancient Greek word for “mind” or “intelligence.” Nous is a force that permeates the universe, creating meaning and order. The human mind is naturally attracted to this order; this is the source of our intelligence. For.”

— Robert Greene

237. “Acted like a king to be treated like one.”

— Robert Greene

238. “Religion is the great balm of existence because it takes us outside ourselves, connects us to something larger.”

— Robert Greene

239. “Years later, a Japanese visitor tried to apologize to Mao for his country’s invasion of China. Mao interrupted, “Should I not thank you instead?” Without a worthy opponent, he explained, a man or group cannot grow stronger. Mao’s.”

— Robert Greene

240. “Boldness... is outer directed... and makes others feel more at ease because it’s less self-conscious.”

— Robert Greene

241. “If you lose contact with this inner calling, you can have some success in life, but eventually your lack of true desire catches up with you. Your work becomes mechanical. You come to live for leisure and immediate pleasures. In this way you become increasingly passive, and never move past the first phase. You may grow frustrated and depressed, never realizing that the source of it is your alienation from your own creative potential.”

— Robert Greene

242. “It is estimated that over 65 percent of all human communication is nonverbal but that people pick up and internalize only about 5 percent of this information.”

— Robert Greene

243. “If you are not in danger,” says Sun-tzu, “do not fight.”

— Robert Greene

244. “Never appear overly greedy for attention, then, for it signals insecurity, and insecurity drives power away. Understand that there are times when it is not in your interest to be the center of attention. When in the presence of a king or queen, for instance, or the equivalent thereof, bow and retreat to the shadows; never compete.”

— Robert Greene

245. “Once envy reveals itself for what it is, the only solution is often to flee the presence of the enviers, leaving them to stew in a hell of their own creation.”

— Robert Greene

246. “What you know must translate into action, and action must translate into knowledge. In this way strategy becomes a lifelong challenge and the source of constant pleasure in surmounting difficulties and solving problems.”

— Robert Greene

247. “One can have no smaller or greater mastery than mastery of oneself. – LEONARDO DA VINCI In.”

— Robert Greene

248. “Strategic warriors operate much differently. They think ahead toward their long-term goals, decide which fights to avoid and which are inevitable, know how to control and channel their emotions. When forced to fight, they do so with indirection and subtle maneuver, making their manipulations hard to trace. In this way they can maintain the peaceful exterior so cherished in these political times.”

— Robert Greene

249. “On the internet, it is easy to find studies that support both sides of an argument. In general, you should never accept the validity of people’s ideas because they have supplied “evidence.” Instead, examine the evidence yourself in the cold light of day, with as much skepticism as you can muster. Your first impulse should always be to find the evidence that disconfirms your most cherished beliefs and those of others. That is true science.”

— Robert Greene

250. “If we keep practicing, we gain fluency; basic skills are mastered, allowing us to take on newer and more exciting challenges.”

— Robert Greene