Top 500 Robert Greene Quotes (2025 Update)
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401. “Albert Einstein was an avid violinist. He believed that working with his hands in this way and playing music helped his thinking process as well. In.”

— Robert Greene

402. “If everything in a dream were realistic, it would have no power over us; if everything were unreal, we would feel less involved in its pleasures and fears. Its fusion of the two is what makes it haunting.”

— Robert Greene

403. “Power goes to those who end the revolution. Not the one who starts it.”

— Robert Greene

404. “Hence politeness is to human nature what warmth is to wax.”

— Robert Greene

405. “But improvisation will only bring you as far as the next crisis, and is never a substitute for thinking several steps ahead and planning to the end.”

— Robert Greene

406. “In social situations we all wear masks, and keep our defenses up. It is embarrassing, after all, to reveal one’s true feelings. As a seducer you must find a way to lower these resistances.”

— Robert Greene

407. “Sometimes this fear of speculation masquerades as skepticism. We see this in people who delight in shooting down any theory or explanation before it gets anywhere. They are trying to pass off skepticism as a sign of high intelligence, but in fact they are taking the easy route – it is quite simple to find arguments against any idea and knock it down from the sidelines.”

— Robert Greene

408. “Events in life mean nothing if you do not reflect on them in a deep way, and ideas from books are pointless if they have no application to life as you live it.”

— Robert Greene

409. “If it is money, you will choose a place for your apprenticeship that offers the biggest paycheck. Inevitably, in such a place you will feel greater pressures to prove yourself worthy of such pay, often before you are really ready.”

— Robert Greene

410. “Never show anger, ill temper, or vengefulness, all disruptive emotions that will make people defensive. In the politics of large groups, welcome adversity as a chance to show the charming qualities of magnanimity and poise. Let others get flustered and upset – the contrast will redound to your favor. Never whine, never complain, never try to justify yourself.”

— Robert Greene

411. “The spider has no need to chase for food, or even to move. It quietly sits in the corner, waiting for its victims to come to it on their own, and ensnare themselves in the web.”

— Robert Greene

412. “Preserve the unspoken option of being able to leave at any moment and reclaim your freedom if the side you are allied with starts to collapse.”

— Robert Greene

413. “To understand the peculiar power of the Coquette, you must first understand a critical property of love and desire: the more obviously you pursue a person, the more likely you are to chase them away.”

— Robert Greene

414. “Second, never imagine that because the master loves you, you can do anything you want. Entire books could be written about favorites who fell out of favor by taking their status for granted, for daring to outshine.”

— Robert Greene

415. “If you are trying to destroy an enemy who has hurt you, far better to keep him off-guard by feigning friendliness than showing your anger.”

— Robert Greene

416. “Seduction requires an openness to the other person, a willingness to bend and adapt. Excessive pride, without anything to justify it, is highly anti-seductive.”

— Robert Greene

417. “The men who have changed the universe have never gotten there by working on leaders, but rather by moving the masses. Working on leaders is the method of intrigue and only leads to secondary results. Working on the masses, however, is the stroke of genius that changes the face of the world. NAPOLEON BONAPARTE, 1769-1821.”

— Robert Greene

418. “As an explorer Columbus was mediocre at best. He knew less about the sea than did the average sailor on his ships, could never determine the latitude and longitude of his discoveries, mistook islands for vast continents, and treated his crew badly. But in one area he was a genius: He knew how to sell himself.”

— Robert Greene

419. “The perfect victim is the person who stirs you in a way that cannot be explained in words, whose effect on you has nothing to do with superficialities. He or she often has a quality that you yourself lack, and may even secretly envy.”

— Robert Greene

420. “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.”

— Robert Greene

421. “Think of yourself as your own Zen Master. Such masters would beat their pupils and deliberately lead them to points of maximum doubt and inner tension, knowing such moments precede enlightenment.”

— Robert Greene

422. “So I’d gotten rid of that negativity and I’d show, “Well, here’s something done right. Here’s the mistake, but here’s how to fix the mistake.”

— Robert Greene

423. “Arrange an occasional “chance” encounter, as if you and your target were destined to become acquainted – nothing is more seductive than a sense of destiny. Lull the target into feeling secure, then strike.”

— Robert Greene

424. “Never neglect the way you arrange things visually. Factors like color, for example, have enormous symbolic resonance.”

— Robert Greene

425. “The problem is, when things go verbal, you drop out the detail.”

— Robert Greene

426. “First, you must see your attempt at attaining mastery as something extremely necessary and positive.”

— Robert Greene

427. “Inter action with boldness.”

— Robert Greene

428. “Although time is the critical factor in attaining Mastery and this intuitive feel, the time we are talking about is not neutral or simply quantitative. An hour of Einstein’s thinking at the age of sixteen does not equal an hour spent by an average high school student working on a problem in physics. It is not a matter of studying a subject for twenty years, and then emerging as a Master. The time that leads to mastery is dependent on the intensity of our focus.”

— Robert Greene

429. “Our levels of desire, patience, persistence, and confidence end up playing a much larger role in success than sheer reasoning powers. Feeling motivated and energized, we can overcome almost anything. Feeling bored and restless, our minds shut.”

— Robert Greene

430. “Never criticize people overtly – that will make them insecure, and resistant to change. Plant ideas, insinuate suggestions. Charmed by your diplomatic skills, people will not notice your growing power.”

— Robert Greene

431. “Learning an alien culture from so deeply inside it, he could no longer accept the superiority of one particular belief or value system. To.”

— Robert Greene

432. “This means that you move toward challenges that will toughen and improve you, where you will get the most objective feedback on your performance and progress. You do not choose apprenticeships that seem easy and comfortable.”

— Robert Greene

433. “Leave martyrdom alone: The pendulum will swing back your way eventually, and you should stay alive to see it.”

— Robert Greene

434. “So after that I had a new rule. If I’m hired by the plant engineer, I only go over his head if I’m in project failure mode. If the project is going to fail, then I’ll go over his head. But as long as the project is going to come out, I never go over his head. Now, that’s a rule I still follow today.”

— Robert Greene

435. “Everything in daily life is hurried and improvised, and you need to offer something different. By taking your time and respecting the seductive process you will not only break down your victim’s resistance, you will make them fall in love.”

— Robert Greene

436. “The world is ruled by necessity: People change their behavior only if they have to. They will feel urgency only if their lives depend on it.”

— Robert Greene

437. “When I left him, I reasoned thus with myself: I am wiser than this man, for neither of us appears to know anything great and good; but he fancies he knows something, although he knows nothing; whereas I, as I do not know anything, so I do not fancy I do. In this trifling particular, then, I appear to be wiser than he, because I do not fancy I know what I do not know. – Socrates.”

— Robert Greene

438. “If you see yourself as an object, then others will too. An ethereal, dreamlike air will heighten the effect.”

— Robert Greene

439. “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.”

— Robert Greene

440. “One thing I designed, I’ve done a lot of work on improving kosher slaughter. They need to make a head holding device that would go on the end of the conveyer. A normal kosher head holding device, the thing is like a cradle that lifts up the head. If I have it on the end of a conveyer, how do I make this work?”

— Robert Greene

441. “So rid yourself of your nasty habit of avoiding conflict, which is in any case unnatural. You are most often nice not out of your own inner goodness but out of fear of displeasing, out of insecurity. Go beyond that fear and you suddenly have options – the freedom to create pain, then magically dissolve it. Your seductive powers will increase tenfold.”

— Robert Greene

442. “We are continually judging other people. We want others to think and act a certain way. Usually, the way we think and act. Because this is impossible, we continually get upset. Instead, we should see other people as phenomena, as neutral as comets or planets. They come in all varieties, which makes like rich and interesting.”

— Robert Greene

443. “We feel, perhaps unconsciously, that learning from Masters and submitting to their authority is somehow an indictment of our own natural ability, Even if we have teachers in our lives, we tend not to pay full attention to their advice, often preferring to do things our own way. In fact, we come to believe that being critical of Masters or teachers is somehow a sign of our intelligence, and that being a submissive pupil is a sign of weakness.”

— Robert Greene

444. “You will know when your apprenticeship is over by the feeling that you have nothing left to learn in this environment.”

— Robert Greene

445. “Remember: The powerful responses to niggling, petty annoyances and irritations are contempt and disdain. Never show that something has affected you, or that you are offended – that only shows you have acknowledged a problem. Contempt is a dish that is best served cold and without affectation.”

— Robert Greene

446. “The mind must not wander from goal to goal, or be distracted by success from its sense of purpose and proportion. What is concentrated, coherent, and connected to its past has power. What is dissipated, divided, and distended rots and falls to the ground. The bigger it bloats, the harder it falls.”

— Robert Greene

447. “Seduction implies opening yourself up, even if only for the purposes of deception; being unable to give by spending money usually means being unable to give in general. Stamp ungenerosity out. It is an impediment to power and a gross sin in seduction.”

— Robert Greene

448. “The leader who tries to change the group’s spirit directly – yelling, demanding, disciplining – actually plays into the teenage dynamic and reinforces the desire to rebel.”

— Robert Greene

449. “Through our work and through getting what we need on our own, without depending on others, we can stand tall and realize our potential as humans.”

— Robert Greene

450. “To understand the peculiar power of the Coquette, you must first understand a critical property of love and desire: the more obviously you pursue a person, the more likely you are to chase them away. Too much attention can be interesting for a while, but it soon grows cloying and finally becomes claustrophobic and frightening. It signals weakness and neediness, an unseductive combination.”

— Robert Greene