51 Extraordinary Quotes from Mastery by Robert Greene
Robert Greene is an extraordinary writer. His books are unique and original;they contain ideas that you cannot easily find into other self-help books.Mastery is no exception.
If you want to master a skill or follow your passion,the best encouragement you can get is from reading this book.And,that's not all,you will also learn how to improve your social skills.
Here are the quotes that I like:
''Feeling motivated and energized, we can overcome almost anything. Feeling bored and restless, our minds shut off and we become increasingly passive.''
― Robert Greene, Mastery
''You may grow frustrated and depressed, never realizing that the source of it is your alienation from your own creative potential.''
― Robert Greene, Mastery
''Anything that is alive is in a continual state of change and movement. The moment that you rest, thinking that you have attained the level you desire, a part of your mind enters a phase of decay. You lose your hard-earned creativity and others begin to sense it.''
― Robert Greene, Mastery
''You possess a kind of inner force that seeks to guide you toward your Life’s Task —what you are meant to accomplish in the time that you have to live.''
― Robert Greene, Mastery
''We are entering a world in which we can rely less and less upon the state, the corporation, or family or friends to help and protect us. It is a globalized, harshly competitive environment. We must learn to develop ourselves.''
― Robert Greene, Mastery
''In order to master a field, you must love the subject and feel a profound connection to it. Your interest must transcend the field itself and border on the religious.''
― Robert Greene, 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 own.''
― Robert Greene, Mastery
''You don’t want to abandon the skills and experience you have gained,but to find a new way to apply them. Your eye is on the future, not the past.Often such creative readjustments lead to a superior path for us—we are shaken out of our complacency and forced to reassess where we are headed.''
― Robert Greene, Mastery
''No good can ever come from deviating from the path that you were destined to follow. You will be assailed by varieties of hidden pain. Most often you deviate because of the lure of money, of more immediate prospects of prosperity.Because this does not comply with something deep within you, your interest will lag and eventually the money will not come so easily.''
― Robert Greene, Mastery
''You cannot have everything in the present. 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, Mastery
''Practical knowledge is the ultimate commodity, and is what will pay you dividends for decades to come.''
― Robert Greene, Mastery
''Move toward challenges that will toughen and improve you.''
― Robert Greene, Mastery
''Too many people believe that everything must be pleasurable in life, which makes them constantly search for distractions and short-circuits the learning process.''
― Robert Greene, Mastery
''It is better to dedicate two or three hours of intense focus to a skill than to spend eight hours of diffused concentration on it. You want to be as immediately present to what you are doing as possible.''
― Robert Greene, Mastery
''What is important when you are young, is to train yourself to get by with little money and make the most of your youthful energy.''
― Robert Greene, Mastery
''It is a simple law of human psychology that your thoughts will tend to revolve around what you value most.''
― Robert Greene, Mastery
''You must value learning above everything else.''
― Robert Greene, Mastery
''You must never disdain an apprenticeship with no pay. In fact, it is often the height of wisdom to find the perfect mentor and offer your services as an assistant for free. Happy to exploit your cheap and eager spirit, such mentors will often divulge more than the usual trade secrets. In the end, by valuing learning above all else, you will set the stage for your creative expansion, and the money will soon come to you.''
― Robert Greene, Mastery
''No one is really going to help you or give you direction. In fact, the odds are against you. If you desire an apprenticeship, if you want to learn and set yourself up for mastery, you have to do it yourself,and with great energy.''
― Robert Greene, Mastery
''Many of those who succeed in life have had the experience in their youth of having mastered some skill—a sport or game, a musical instrument, a foreign language, and so on. Buried in their minds is the sensation of overcoming their frustrations and entering the cycle of accelerated returns. In moments of doubt in the present, the memory of the past experience rises to the surface. Filled with trust in the process, they trudge on well past the point at which others slow down or mentally quit.''
― Robert Greene, 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, Mastery
''It is never wise to purposefully do without the benefits of having a mentor in your life. You will waste valuable time in finding and shaping what you need to know. But sometimes you have no choice.''
― Robert Greene, Mastery
''When it comes to mastering a skill, time is the magic ingredient.Assuming your practice proceeds at a steady level, over days and weeks certain elements of the skill become hardwired. Slowly, the entire skill becomes internalized, part of your nervous system. The mind is no longer mired in the details, but can see the larger picture. It is a miraculous sensation and practice will lead you to that point, no matter the talent level you are born with. 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, 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 criticisms. Your failures also permit you to see the flaws of your ideas, which are only revealed in the execution of them.''
― Robert Greene, Mastery
''There are two kinds of failure. The first comes from never trying out your ideas because you are afraid, or because you are waiting for the perfect time. This kind of failure you can never learn from, and such timidity will destroy you. The second kind comes from a bold and venturesome spirit. If you fail in this way, the hit that you take to your reputation is greatly outweighed by what you learn. Repeated failure will toughen your spirit and show you with absolute clarity how things must be done.''
― Robert Greene, Mastery
''It is a curse to have everything go right on your first attempt. You will fail to question the element of luck, making you think that you have the golden touch. When you do inevitably fail, it will confuse and demoralize you past the point of learning. In any case, to apprentice as an entrepreneur you must act on your ideas as early as possible, exposing them to the public, a part of you even hoping that you’ll fail. You have everything to gain.''
― Robert Greene, Mastery
''The very desire to find shortcuts makes you eminently unsuited for any kind of mastery.''
― Robert Greene, Mastery
''In the work environment the stakes are suddenly raised. People are no longer struggling for good grades or social approval,but for survival. Under such pressure, they reveal qualities of their characters that they normally try to conceal. They manipulate, compete, and think of themselves first.''
― Robert Greene, 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. If you can get people to become emotional, they will reveal a lot more.''
― Robert Greene, Mastery
''To be truly charming and socially effective you have to understand people, and to understand them you have to get outside yourself and immerse your mind in their world.''
― Robert Greene, Mastery
''Read people, to get a feel for how they see the world, and to understand their individuality.''
― Robert Greene, Mastery
''First, there is what we shall call specific knowledge of human nature—namely the ability to read people, to get a feel for how they see the world, and to understand their individuality. Second,there is the general knowledge of human nature, which means accumulating an understanding of the overall patterns of human behavior that transcend us as individuals, including some of the darker qualities we often disregard. Because we are all a mix of unique qualities and traits common to our species, only the possession of both forms of knowledge can give you a complete picture of the people around you. Practice both forms of knowledge and they will yield invaluable skills that are essential in the quest for mastery.''
― Robert Greene, Mastery
''you should take particular note of people’s actions and decisions. Your goal is to figure out the hidden motives behind them, which will often revolve around power. People will say all kinds of things about their motives and intentions; they are used to dressing things up with words. Their actions, however, say much more about their character,about what is going on underneath the surface. If they present a harmless front but have acted aggressively on several occasions, give the knowledge of that aggression much greater weight than the surface they present. In a similar vein,you should take special note of how people respond to stressful situations—often the mask they wear in public falls off in the heat of the moment.''
― Robert Greene, Mastery
''You must avoid the common mistake of making judgments based on your initial impressions of people. Such impressions can sometimes tell you something, but more often they are misleading... For instance, the man you judged to be so powerful and assertive may be merely masking his fears and may have far less power than you first imagined. Often it is the quiet ones,those who give out less at first glance, who hide greater depths, and who secretly wield greater power.''
― Robert Greene, Mastery
''You will encounter thousands of various individuals in your life, and the ability to see them as they are will prove invaluable. Keep in mind, however,that people are in a state of continual flux. You must not let your ideas about them harden into a set impression. You are continually observing them and bringing your readings of them up to date.What you want is a picture of a person’s character over time, which will give you a far more accurate sense of their true character than any first impression could.''
― Robert Greene, Mastery
''You must be particularly careful to never make people feel stupid in your presence.''
― Robert Greene, Mastery
''we are quick to discern the mistakes and defects of others, but when it comes to ourselves we are generally too emotional and insecure to look squarely at our own. Second, people rarely tell us the truth about what it is that we do wrong. They are afraid to cause conflict or to be viewed as mean-spirited. And so it becomes very difficult for us to perceive our flaws, let alone correct them.''
― Robert Greene, Mastery
''To have the power to see ourselves through the eyes of others would be of immense benefit to our social intelligence. We could begin to correct the flaws that offend, to see the role that we play in creating any kind of negative dynamic, and to have a more realistic assessment of who we are.''
― Robert Greene, Mastery
''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, Mastery
''Pay attention and learn the lessons contained in every experience.''
― Robert Greene, Mastery
''Anything that is peculiar to our makeup is precisely what we must pay the deepest attention to and lean 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, Mastery
If you want to master a skill or follow your passion,the best encouragement you can get is from reading this book.And,that's not all,you will also learn how to improve your social skills.
Here are the quotes that I like:
''Feeling motivated and energized, we can overcome almost anything. Feeling bored and restless, our minds shut off and we become increasingly passive.''
― Robert Greene, Mastery
''You may grow frustrated and depressed, never realizing that the source of it is your alienation from your own creative potential.''
― Robert Greene, Mastery
''Anything that is alive is in a continual state of change and movement. The moment that you rest, thinking that you have attained the level you desire, a part of your mind enters a phase of decay. You lose your hard-earned creativity and others begin to sense it.''
― Robert Greene, Mastery
''You possess a kind of inner force that seeks to guide you toward your Life’s Task —what you are meant to accomplish in the time that you have to live.''
― Robert Greene, Mastery
''We are entering a world in which we can rely less and less upon the state, the corporation, or family or friends to help and protect us. It is a globalized, harshly competitive environment. We must learn to develop ourselves.''
― Robert Greene, Mastery
''In order to master a field, you must love the subject and feel a profound connection to it. Your interest must transcend the field itself and border on the religious.''
― Robert Greene, 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 own.''
― Robert Greene, Mastery
''You don’t want to abandon the skills and experience you have gained,but to find a new way to apply them. Your eye is on the future, not the past.Often such creative readjustments lead to a superior path for us—we are shaken out of our complacency and forced to reassess where we are headed.''
― Robert Greene, Mastery
''No good can ever come from deviating from the path that you were destined to follow. You will be assailed by varieties of hidden pain. Most often you deviate because of the lure of money, of more immediate prospects of prosperity.Because this does not comply with something deep within you, your interest will lag and eventually the money will not come so easily.''
― Robert Greene, Mastery
''You cannot have everything in the present. 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, Mastery
''Practical knowledge is the ultimate commodity, and is what will pay you dividends for decades to come.''
― Robert Greene, Mastery
''Move toward challenges that will toughen and improve you.''
― Robert Greene, Mastery
''Too many people believe that everything must be pleasurable in life, which makes them constantly search for distractions and short-circuits the learning process.''
― Robert Greene, Mastery
''It is better to dedicate two or three hours of intense focus to a skill than to spend eight hours of diffused concentration on it. You want to be as immediately present to what you are doing as possible.''
― Robert Greene, Mastery
''What is important when you are young, is to train yourself to get by with little money and make the most of your youthful energy.''
― Robert Greene, Mastery
''It is a simple law of human psychology that your thoughts will tend to revolve around what you value most.''
― Robert Greene, Mastery
''You must value learning above everything else.''
― Robert Greene, Mastery
''You must never disdain an apprenticeship with no pay. In fact, it is often the height of wisdom to find the perfect mentor and offer your services as an assistant for free. Happy to exploit your cheap and eager spirit, such mentors will often divulge more than the usual trade secrets. In the end, by valuing learning above all else, you will set the stage for your creative expansion, and the money will soon come to you.''
― Robert Greene, Mastery
''No one is really going to help you or give you direction. In fact, the odds are against you. If you desire an apprenticeship, if you want to learn and set yourself up for mastery, you have to do it yourself,and with great energy.''
― Robert Greene, Mastery
''Many of those who succeed in life have had the experience in their youth of having mastered some skill—a sport or game, a musical instrument, a foreign language, and so on. Buried in their minds is the sensation of overcoming their frustrations and entering the cycle of accelerated returns. In moments of doubt in the present, the memory of the past experience rises to the surface. Filled with trust in the process, they trudge on well past the point at which others slow down or mentally quit.''
― Robert Greene, 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, Mastery
''It is never wise to purposefully do without the benefits of having a mentor in your life. You will waste valuable time in finding and shaping what you need to know. But sometimes you have no choice.''
― Robert Greene, Mastery
''When it comes to mastering a skill, time is the magic ingredient.Assuming your practice proceeds at a steady level, over days and weeks certain elements of the skill become hardwired. Slowly, the entire skill becomes internalized, part of your nervous system. The mind is no longer mired in the details, but can see the larger picture. It is a miraculous sensation and practice will lead you to that point, no matter the talent level you are born with. 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, 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 criticisms. Your failures also permit you to see the flaws of your ideas, which are only revealed in the execution of them.''
― Robert Greene, Mastery
''There are two kinds of failure. The first comes from never trying out your ideas because you are afraid, or because you are waiting for the perfect time. This kind of failure you can never learn from, and such timidity will destroy you. The second kind comes from a bold and venturesome spirit. If you fail in this way, the hit that you take to your reputation is greatly outweighed by what you learn. Repeated failure will toughen your spirit and show you with absolute clarity how things must be done.''
― Robert Greene, Mastery
''It is a curse to have everything go right on your first attempt. You will fail to question the element of luck, making you think that you have the golden touch. When you do inevitably fail, it will confuse and demoralize you past the point of learning. In any case, to apprentice as an entrepreneur you must act on your ideas as early as possible, exposing them to the public, a part of you even hoping that you’ll fail. You have everything to gain.''
― Robert Greene, Mastery
''The very desire to find shortcuts makes you eminently unsuited for any kind of mastery.''
― Robert Greene, Mastery
''In the work environment the stakes are suddenly raised. People are no longer struggling for good grades or social approval,but for survival. Under such pressure, they reveal qualities of their characters that they normally try to conceal. They manipulate, compete, and think of themselves first.''
― Robert Greene, 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. If you can get people to become emotional, they will reveal a lot more.''
― Robert Greene, Mastery
''To be truly charming and socially effective you have to understand people, and to understand them you have to get outside yourself and immerse your mind in their world.''
― Robert Greene, Mastery
''Read people, to get a feel for how they see the world, and to understand their individuality.''
― Robert Greene, Mastery
''First, there is what we shall call specific knowledge of human nature—namely the ability to read people, to get a feel for how they see the world, and to understand their individuality. Second,there is the general knowledge of human nature, which means accumulating an understanding of the overall patterns of human behavior that transcend us as individuals, including some of the darker qualities we often disregard. Because we are all a mix of unique qualities and traits common to our species, only the possession of both forms of knowledge can give you a complete picture of the people around you. Practice both forms of knowledge and they will yield invaluable skills that are essential in the quest for mastery.''
― Robert Greene, Mastery
''you should take particular note of people’s actions and decisions. Your goal is to figure out the hidden motives behind them, which will often revolve around power. People will say all kinds of things about their motives and intentions; they are used to dressing things up with words. Their actions, however, say much more about their character,about what is going on underneath the surface. If they present a harmless front but have acted aggressively on several occasions, give the knowledge of that aggression much greater weight than the surface they present. In a similar vein,you should take special note of how people respond to stressful situations—often the mask they wear in public falls off in the heat of the moment.''
― Robert Greene, Mastery
''You must avoid the common mistake of making judgments based on your initial impressions of people. Such impressions can sometimes tell you something, but more often they are misleading... For instance, the man you judged to be so powerful and assertive may be merely masking his fears and may have far less power than you first imagined. Often it is the quiet ones,those who give out less at first glance, who hide greater depths, and who secretly wield greater power.''
― Robert Greene, Mastery
''You will encounter thousands of various individuals in your life, and the ability to see them as they are will prove invaluable. Keep in mind, however,that people are in a state of continual flux. You must not let your ideas about them harden into a set impression. You are continually observing them and bringing your readings of them up to date.What you want is a picture of a person’s character over time, which will give you a far more accurate sense of their true character than any first impression could.''
― Robert Greene, Mastery
''You must be particularly careful to never make people feel stupid in your presence.''
― Robert Greene, Mastery
''we are quick to discern the mistakes and defects of others, but when it comes to ourselves we are generally too emotional and insecure to look squarely at our own. Second, people rarely tell us the truth about what it is that we do wrong. They are afraid to cause conflict or to be viewed as mean-spirited. And so it becomes very difficult for us to perceive our flaws, let alone correct them.''
― Robert Greene, Mastery
''To have the power to see ourselves through the eyes of others would be of immense benefit to our social intelligence. We could begin to correct the flaws that offend, to see the role that we play in creating any kind of negative dynamic, and to have a more realistic assessment of who we are.''
― Robert Greene, Mastery
''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, Mastery
''Pay attention and learn the lessons contained in every experience.''
― Robert Greene, Mastery
''Anything that is peculiar to our makeup is precisely what we must pay the deepest attention to and lean 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, Mastery
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