“Scoff at the need for attention and approval—they will lead you astray. Feel some anger and resentment at the parental forces that want to foist upon you an alien vocation. It is a healthy part of your development to follow a path independent of your parents and to establish your own identity. Let your sense of rebellion fill you with energy and purpose.”
Robert Greene, The Daily Laws (Page 26)
“Your Life’s Task does not always appear to you through some grand or promising inclination. It can appear in the guise of your deficiencies, making you focus on the one or two things that you are inevitably good at. Working at these skills, you learn the value of discipline and see the rewards you get from your efforts. Like a lotus flower, your skills will expand outward from a center of strength and confidence.”
Robert Greene, The Daily Laws (Page 24)
“Confront one of your limitations—one of the obstructions in your path—today. Break beyond it, climb over it, think your way around it. Don’t run from it. It was created for you.”
Robert Greene, The Daily Laws (Page 24)
“In order to master a field, you must love the subject and feel a profound connection to it. Your interest must transcend the field and border on the religious.”
Robert Greene, The Daily Laws (Page 21)
“If we want and need desperately to sleep, we are less likely to fall asleep. If we absolutely must give the best talk possible at some conference, we become hyper-anxious about the result, and the performance suffers. If we desperately need to find an intimate partner or make friends, we are more likely to push them away. If instead we relax and focus on other things, we are more likely to fall asleep or give a great talk or charm people. The most pleasurable things in life occur as a result of something not directly intended and expected.”
Robert Greene, The Daily Laws (Page 19)
“This can be the source of your unhappiness—your lack of connection to who you are and what makes you unique. 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, The Daily Laws (Page 13)
“We are not provided with wisdom, we must discover it for ourselves, after a journey through the wilderness which no one else can take for us… The lives that you admire, the attitudes that seem noble to you are not the result of training at home, by a father, or by masters at school, they have sprung from beginnings of a very different order, by reaction from the influence of everything evil or commonplace that prevailed round about them. They represent a struggle and a victory.”
Marcel Proust, via The Daily Laws (Page 5)
The Daily Laws [Book]
Book Overview: Robert Greene, the #1 New York Times bestselling author, has been the consigliere to millions for more than two decades. Now, with entries that are drawn from his five books, plus never-before-published works, The Daily Laws offers a page of refined and concise wisdom for each day of the year, in an easy-to-digest lesson that will only take a few minutes to absorb. Each day features a Daily Law as well—a prescription that readers cannot afford to ignore in the battle of life.