To Sun-tzu and the ancient Chinese, doing something extraordinary had little effect without a setup of something ordinary. You had to mix the two - to fix your opponent's expectations with some banal, ordinary maneuver, a comfortable pattern that they would then expect you to follow.

Robert Greene

Your You Would

The wisest hustler can suddenly fall for the worst tramp and lose all of his money on her. The hustler is aware of his own weaknesses and openings to con. This awareness is his edge.

Robert Greene

War Money Worst

Be extra careful in the work environment with those who like to maintain their position through charm and being political, rather than getting things done. They are very prone to envying and hating those who work hard and get results. They will slander and sabotage you without any warning.

Robert Greene

Work War Men

I know My God commands, whose power no power resists.

Robert Greene

Power God Whose

A hustler has to deal with danger and risk. It's part of the game. You cannot control it all, nor would you want to. Chaos, unknown factors are not something to be anxious about.

Robert Greene

Art Anger You

Create a ladder of values and priorities in your life, reminding yourself of what really matters to you.

Robert Greene

Life Yourself Yours

Evil or manipulative people don't need a book, they just do it anyway.

Robert Greene

Way Us T

Everyone assumes I practise all of my own laws but I don't. I think anybody who did would be a horrible ugly person to be around.

Robert Greene

Would Who Very

Weak character will neutralize all of the other possible good qualities a person might possess.

Robert Greene

Good Will Weak

An elusive, enigmatic aura will make people want to know more, drawing them into your circle. Create such a power by hinting at something contradictory within you.

Robert Greene

Power Your You

Most of us enter adult life with great ambitions for how we will start our own ventures, but the harshness of life wears us down. We settle into some job and slowly give in to the illusion that our bosses care about us and our future, that they spend time thinking of our welfare.

Robert Greene

Time Life Great

I'm not who people expect me to be. I'm not Henry Kissinger.

Robert Greene

Who T Singer

Power works best when it is indirect - never coercing people; instead, getting them to voluntarily align with your interests.

Robert Greene

Work Power Your

Ethics and power are separate.

Robert Greene

Power T Separate

To not follow your passion in life is a recipe for failure and unhappiness.

Robert Greene

Life Happiness Failure

Every couple of years when your book comes out then you have to go into these fights with the publisher and the publicist and then maybe I bring sort of my knowledge of power into play.

Robert Greene

Power Knowledge Your

When I say 'Crush your enemy', I don't literally mean it.

Robert Greene

Your You Us

Always remember that your calmness under fire is your best defense in any argument or discussion.

Robert Greene

Men Your You

When you get angry, your options narrow.

Robert Greene

Your You T

What matters in the Sun-tzu universe are not positions of strength and power, but situations in which you have options, full of potential force.

Robert Greene

Strength Power You

The things that transfixed you as a child, that you found most exciting was not a passing fancy, but a message about what you're supposed to do.

Robert Greene

Age You Up

Understand: as children and young adults, we are taught to conform to certain codes of behavior and ways of doing things. We learn that being different comes with a social price.

Robert Greene

I'd done a lot of research in Hollywood and in academia. I love research and so I wanted to kind of ground the book in history, in things that I read that were universal and timeless and then kind of let my own experiences sort of filter through all of this history.

Robert Greene

The Nihilistic Troll might pretend to be acting in the service of some cause or leader, but don't be fooled. The cause and their supposedly strong convictions are simply a way to justify and provide cover for their abusive behavior.

Robert Greene

Even as a child, Muhammad Ali got perverse pleasure out of being different. He liked the attention it got him, but most of all he just liked being himself: odd and independent.

Robert Greene

When I was researching my book 'The 33 Strategies of War', I studied Napoleon extensively and I found myself wanting to ask Napoleon questions about things he did, and if was I interpreting his actions correctly.

Robert Greene

Emotions are continually affecting our thought processes and decisions, below the level of our awareness. And the most common emotion of them all is the desire for pleasure and the avoidance of pain.

Robert Greene

To Sun-tzu and the ancient Chinese, doing something extraordinary had little effect without a setup of something ordinary. You had to mix the two - to fix your opponent's expectations with some banal, ordinary maneuver, a comfortable pattern that they would then expect you to follow.

Robert Greene

In the world today many people rightfully feel entitled to have success and the good things in life, but they usually understand it will require sacrifice and hard work.

Robert Greene

With colleagues in the work environment, we fail to see the source of their envy or the reason for their manipulations; our attempts at influencing them are based on the assumptions that they want the same things as ourselves.

Robert Greene

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. I'm older - I'm in my early 50s - so you'll have to excuse me. That was always very exciting to me to connect to the culture on that level.

Robert Greene

The great thing about America is that you can come from the worst circumstances and become something remarkable.

Robert Greene

Over the years I've met quite a few big rappers. Then it exploded with 50 Cent, and I did a book with him. It's always a strange meeting of two worlds, it's very exciting.

Robert Greene

Pool, it became clear to me, is all about angles. First, there are simple angles, as you must hit the cue ball to either side when you are not straight on.

Robert Greene

I was a little worried that young people would think the only game was being political and manipulative when really the bigger game is being so good at what you do that nobody can argue with your results.

Robert Greene

I find with most of my readers are kind of like me, sort of people who were a little bit naive in life and then learned the hard way that this is what's going on, the political games and most of my readers write to me telling me that the book helped them open their eyes to what other people are doing to them.

Robert Greene

Humans cannot avoid trying to influence others. Everything we say or do is examined and interpreted by others for clues as to our intentions.

Robert Greene

Often people become our friend or follower with an undercurrent of resentment in our having more success than they have. They secretly desire the opportunity to take us down a notch; they have a nose for any misstep on our part they can exploit.

Robert Greene

We are often attracted to the wrong things, whether it be money, fame, or approval.

Robert Greene

Your energy, your spirit are important considerations. Feeling petty and frustrated can have reverberating consequences for your ability to think strategically and reach your goals.

Robert Greene

What happens if you stick at something long enough, and study it for so long, you have a different kind of intelligence. It's not an intellectual thing. It's almost like an animal intelligence. I call it our form of instinct, almost how a lion knows exactly where its prey is.

Robert Greene

Few are drawn to the person whom others avoid and neglect; people gather around those who have already attracted interest.

Robert Greene

Smooth functioning of social life has always depended on the recognition of certain basic limits to behavior. We cannot simply say or do anything we wish, or offend people, without paying consequences - isolation, ostracism, etc.

Robert Greene

As social animals, we are extremely susceptible to the moods of other people. This gives us the power to subtly infuse into people the appropriate mood for influencing them.

Robert Greene

Waste brings woe, and sorrow hates despair.

Robert Greene

I don't follow all the 48 laws. Like, I've never crushed anyone totally.

Robert Greene

A master performer like Bill Clinton never lost sight of the fact that as president he had to project confidence and power, but if he was speaking to a group of autoworkers he would adjust his accent and his words to fit the audience, and do the same for a group of executives.

Robert Greene

For as one star another far exceeds, So souls in heaven are placed by their deeds.

Robert Greene

Though men determine, the gods doo dispose: and oft times many things fall out betweene the cup and the lip.

Robert Greene

I went to an extreme for literary purposes because I felt all the self-help books out there were so gooey and Pollyanna-ish and nauseating. It was making me angry.

Robert Greene

Plumbers can be masters, the guy who did my patio is a master, some people are masters at raising really great children.

Robert Greene