"Mastery -- the feeling that we have a great command of reality, other people and ourselves." ~~ Robert Greene (Book: Mastery)
"People get the mind and quality of brain that they deserve through their actions in life." ~~ Robert Greene (Book: Mastery)
"Our levels of desire, patience, persistence and confidence end up playing a much larger role in success than sheer reasoning power." ~~ Robert Greene (Book: Mastery)
"If you lose contact with inner calling, you can have some success in life, but eventually your true desire catches up with you. You may grow frustrated and depressed never realizing that the source of it is your alienation from your own creative potential." ~~ Robert Greene (Book: Mastery)
"The first move toward Mastery is always inward --- learning who you really are and reconnecting with that innate force. Knowing it with clarity, you will find your way to the proper career path and everything else will fall into place. It is never too late to start this process." ~~ Robert Greene (Book: Mastery)
"We spend a substantial part of our waking life at work. If we experience this time as something to get through on the way to real pleasure, then our hours at work represent a tragic waste of the short time we have to live." ~~ Robert Greene (Book: Mastery)
"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 (Book: Mastery)
"If it is money and comfort that dominate our decision, we are most often acting out of anxiety and the need to please our parents. They may steer us toward something lucrative out of care and concern, but lurking underneath this can be something else -- perhaps a bit of envy that we have more freedom than they had when they were young" ~~ Robert Greene (Book: Mastery)
"Do not dream or make grand plans for the future, but instead concentrate on becoming proficient at simple and immediate skills." ~~ Robert Greene (Book: Mastery)
"You are not tied to a particular position; your loyalty is not to a career or a company. You are committed to your Life's Task, to giving it full expression. It is up to you to find it and guide it correctly. It is not up to others to protect or help you. You are on your now." ~~ Robert Greene (Book: Mastery)
"Do not envy those who seem to be naturally gifted; it is often a curse, as such types rarely learn the value of diligence and focus." ~~ Robert Greene (Book: Mastery)
"You must choose places of work and positions that offer the greatest possibilities for learning." ~~ Robert Greene (Book: Mastery)
"Beginning with a one skill that you can master and that serves as a foundation for acquiring others." ~~ Robert Greene (Book: Mastery)
"People who do not practice and learn new skills never gain a proper sense of proportion or self-criticism." ~~ Robert Greene (Book: Mastery)
"You cannot make anything worthwhile in this world unless you have first developed and transformed yourself." ~~ Robert Greene (Book: Mastery)
"It is a simple law of human physiology that your thoughts will tend to revolve around what you value most." ~~ Robert Greene (Book: Mastery)
"You want to learn as many skills as possible; following the direction that circumstances lead to, but only if they are related to your deepest interests." ~~ Robert Greene (Book: Mastery)
"Mistakes and failures are precisely your means of education. They tell you about your own inadequacies. It is hard to find out such things from people as they are often political with their praise and criticism." ~~ Robert Greene (Book: Mastery)
"All that should concern you in the early stages of your career is acquiring practical knowledge in the most efficient manner possible. For this purpose, during the Apprenticeship Phase you will need mentors whose authority you recognize and to whom you submit." ~~ Robert Greene (Book: Mastery)
"The mentor is like the philosopher's stone -- through direct interaction with someone of experience, you are able to quickly and efficiently heat up and animate this knowledge, turning it into something like gold." ~~ Robert Greene (Book: Mastery)
"The self-help books designed to set us straight tend to be soft and flattering, telling us what we want to hear --- that we are basically good and can get whatever we want by following a few simple steps. It seems abusive or damaging to people's self-esteem to offer them a stern, realistic criticism, to set them tasks that will make them aware of how far they have to go. In fact, this indulgence and fear of hurting people's feelings is far more abusive in the long run." ~~ Robert Greene (Book: Mastery)
"We all have a dark side, a tendency to manipulate and aggressive desires. The most dangerous types are those who refuse their desires or deny the existence of them, often acting them out in the most underhanded ways." ~~ Robert Greene (Book: Mastery)
"You need to train yourself to pay less attention to the words that people say and greater attention to their tone of voice, the look in their eye, their body language -- all signals that might reveal a nervousness or excitement, that is not expressed verbally." ~~ Robert Greene (Book: Mastery)
"It is useless to fight against people's rigid ways or to argue against their irrational concepts. You will only waste time and make yourself rigid in the process. The best strategy us to simple accept rigidity in others, outwardly displaying deference to their need for order. On your own, however, you must work to maintain your open spirit, letting go of bad habits and deliberately cultivating new ideas." ~~ Robert Greene (Book: Mastery)
"In general, be wary of people who want to collaborate -- they are often trying to find someone who will do the heavier lighting for them." ~~ Robert Greene (Book: Mastery)
"The natural tendency with fools is to lower yourself to their level. They annoy you, get under their skin, and draw you into a battle. In the process, you feel petty and confused. If they (fools) are causing you trouble, you must neutralize the harm they do by keeping a steady eye on your goals and what is important and ignoring them if you can." ~~ Robert Greene (Book: Mastery)
"You must engrave deeply in your mind and never forget: your emotional commitment to what you are doing will be translated directly into your work. If you go at your work with half a heart it will show in the lackluster results and in the laggard way in which you reach the end." ~~ Robert Greene (Book: Mastery)
"Your project or the problem you are solving should always be connected to something larger -- a bigger question, an overarching idea, an inspiring goal. Whenever you work begins to feel stale, you must return to the larger purpose and goal that impelled you in the first place." ~~ Robert Greene (Book: Mastery)
"You assume that the parts of any whole interact with one another and cannot be completely separated. In your mind, you get as close to the complicated truth and reality of your object of study as possible." ~~ Robert Greene (Book: Mastery)
"It is not a matter of studying 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 (Book: Mastery)
"We must learn how to quiet the anxiety we feel whenever we are confronted with anything that seems complex and chaotic." ~~ Robert Greene (Book: Mastery)
"If there's any instrument you must fall in love with and fetishize, it is the human brain -- the most miraculous, awe-inspiring, information processing tool devised in the known universe, with a complexity we can't even behind to fathom, and with dimensional powers that far outstrip any piece of technology in sophistication and usefulness." ~~ Robert Greene (Book: Mastery)
"Anything that is peculiar to our makeup is precisely what we must pay the deepest attention to and leans on in our rise to mastery. Mastery is like swimming -- it is too difficult to move forward when we are creating our own resistance or swimming against the current. Know your strengths and move with them." ~~ Robert Greene (Book: Mastery)
"Most people don't have the patience to absorb their minds in the fine points and minutiae that are intrinsically part of their work. They are in a hurry to create effects and make a splash; they think in large brush strokes. Their work inevitably reveals their lack of attention to detail -- it doesn't connect deeply with the public and it feels flimsy. If it gets attention, the attention is momentary." ~~ Robert Greene (Book: Mastery)
Hope you enjoyed reading this collection of quotes.
