The Daily Laws: 366 Meditations on Power, Seduction, Mastery, Strategy, and Human Nature

by Robert Greene

The moment our ancestors began to turn inward and give in to wishes and fantasies, reality rigorously punished them for their delusions and bad decisions.

Being ourselves and just saying what we think can land us in all kinds of trouble. We come to realize that the work world is riddled with political games that nobody has prepared us for.

These entries will show you that what matters is not education or money, but your persistence and the intensity of your desire to learn; that failures, mistakes, and conflicts are often the best education of all; and how true creativity and mastery emerge from all this.

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.

We all know the effects of “hyperintention”: If we want and need desperately to sleep, we are less likely to fall asleep.

The most pleasurable things in life occur as a result of something not directly intended and expected. When we try to manufacture happy moments, they tend to disappoint us.

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.

Ignore your weaknesses and resist the temptation to be more like others. Instead, direct yourself toward the small things you are good at.

Do not dream or make grand plans for the future, but instead concentrate on becoming proficient at these simple and immediate skills. This will bring you confidence and become a base from which you can expand to other pursuits.

Just as a well-filled day brings blessed sleep, so a well-employed life brings blessed death. —Leonardo da Vinci

You could have the most brilliant mind, teeming with knowledge and ideas, but if you choose the wrong subject or problem to attack, you can run out of energy and interest. In such a case all of your intellectual brilliance will lead to nothing.

Keep in mind that power lies in asserting your uniqueness, even if that offends some people along the way.

You are here not merely to gratify your impulses and consume what others have made but to make and contribute as well, to serve a higher purpose.

The misery that oppresses you lies not in your profession but in yourself! What man in the world would not find his situation intolerable if he chooses a craft, an art, indeed any form of life, without experiencing an inner calling? —Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

We must create our own world or we will die from inaction.

You are contributing to the most important cause of all—the survival and prosperity of the human race, in a time of stagnation.

Understand: we tend to overestimate other people’s abilities—after all, they’re trying hard to make it look as if they knew what they were doing—and we tend to underestimate our own. You must compensate for this by trusting yourself more and others less.

The key to success in any field is first developing skills in various areas, which you can later combine in unique and creative ways.

look inward, focus on the smaller internal changes that lay the groundwork for a much larger change in fortune.

You must see your career or vocational path more as a journey with twists and turns rather than a straight line.

The great danger is that we give in to feelings of boredom, impatience, fear, and confusion. We stop observing and learning. The process comes to a halt.

Trust the process—time is the essential ingredient of mastery. Use it to your advantage.