Quotes from The Art of Seduction

“When our emotions are engaged, we often have trouble seeing things as they are.”
― Robert Greene, quote from The Art of Seduction

“People are more complicated than the masks they wear in society.”
― Robert Greene, quote from The Art of Seduction

“Her seductive power, however, did not lie in her looks [...]. In reality, Cleopatra was physically unexceptional and had no political power, yet both Caesar and Antony, brave and clever men, saw none of this. What they saw was a woman who constantly transformed herself before their eyes, a one-woman spectacle.

Her dress and makeup changed from day to day, but always gave her a heightened, goddesslike appearance. Her words could be banal enough, but were spoken so sweetly that listeners would find themselves remembering not what she said but how she said it.”
― Robert Greene, quote from The Art of Seduction

“Desire is both imitative (we like what others like) and competitive (we want to take away from others what they have). As children, we wanted to monopolize the attention of a parent, to draw it away from other siblings. This sense of rivalry... makes people compete for the attention.”
― Robert Greene, quote from The Art of Seduction

“There is too little mystery in the world; too many people say exactly what they feel or want.”
― Robert Greene, quote from The Art of Seduction

“Sadness of any sort is also seductive, particularly if it seems deep-rooted, even spiritual, rather than needy or pathetic—it makes people come to you.”
― Robert Greene, quote from The Art of Seduction

“The Shadow. It cannot be grasped. Chase your shadow and it will, flee; turn your back on it and it will follow you. It is also a person’s dark side, the thing that makes them mysterious. After they have given us pleasure, the shadow of their withdrawal makes us yearn for their return, much as clouds make us yearn for the sun.”
― Robert Greene, quote from The Art of Seduction

“Religion humanizes this universe, makes us feel important and loved. We are not animals governed by uncontrollable drives, animals that die for no apparent reason, but creatures made in the image of supreme being”
― Robert Greene, quote from The Art of Seduction

“The key to such power is ambiguity. In a society where the roles everyone plays are obvious, the refusal to conform to any standard will excite interest. Be both masculine and feminine, impudent and charming, subtle and outrageous. Let other people worry about being socially acceptable; those types are a dime a dozen, and you are after a power greater than they can imagine.”
― Robert Greene, quote from The Art of Seduction

“Religion is the great balm of existence because it takes us outside ourselves, connects us to something larger”
― Robert Greene, quote from The Art of Seduction

“if no resistances or obstacles face you, you must create them. No seduction can proceed without them.”
― Robert Greene, quote from The Art of Seduction

“I give my mind the liberty to follow the first wise or foolish idea that presents itself,”
― Robert Greene, quote from The Art of Seduction

“I do not believe that any of us would exchange places with any other people or any other generation. The energy, the faith, the devotion which we bring to this endeavor will light our country and all who serve it—and the glow from that fire can truly light the world.”
― Robert Greene, quote from The Art of Seduction

“PSYCHOLOGY OF LOVE, TRANSLATED BY JOAN RIVIÈRE”
― Robert Greene, quote from The Art of Seduction

“This is a young country,” Kennedy went on, his voice getting louder, “founded by young men . . . and still young in heart. . . . The world is changing, the old ways will not do. . . . It is time for a new generation of leadership to cope with new problems and new opportunities.” Even Kennedy’s enemies agreed that his speech that day was stirring. He turned Truman’s challenge around: the issue was not his inexperience but the older generation’s monopoly on power.”
― Robert Greene, quote from The Art of Seduction

“Un día, al ensayar una escena de El jardín de los cerezos, su maestro de actuación, Michael Chekhov, le preguntó: “¿Pensabas en sexo mientras hicimos esta escena?”. Ella contestó que no, y él continuó: “En toda la escena no dejé de recibir vibraciones sexuales de ti. Como si fueras una mujer en las garras de la pasión. […] Ahora entiendo tu problema con tu estudio, Marilyn. Eres una mujer que emite vibraciones sexuales, hagas o pienses lo que sea.”
― Robert Greene, quote from The Art of Seduction

“According to Freud (who was speaking from experience, since he was his mother’s darling), spoiled children have a confidence that stays with them all their lives.”
― Robert Greene, quote from The Art of Seduction

“Try to persuade a person by appealing to their consciousness, by saying outright what you want, by showing all your cards, and what hope do you have? You are just one more irritation to be tuned out.”
― Robert Greene, quote from The Art of Seduction

“Most of us live in a semi-somnambulistic state: we do our daily tasks and the days fly by. The two exceptions to this are childhood and those moments when we are in love. In both cases, our emotions are more engaged, more open and active. And we equate feeling emotional with feeling more alive.”
― Robert Greene, quote from The Art of Seduction

“The fetish is an object that commands an emotional response and that makes us breathe life into it. Because it is an object we can imagine whatever we want to about it.”
― Robert Greene, quote from The Art of Seduction

“If everything in a dream were realistic, it would have no power over us; if everything were unreal, we would feel less involved in its pleasures and fears. Its fusion of the two is what makes it haunting.”
― Robert Greene, quote from The Art of Seduction

“Избалованные дети пользуются незаслуженно скверной репутацией; правда, те из них, кого избаловали, задаривая игрушками и другими материальными вещами, действительно совершенно несносны, однако другие, избалованные вниманием и обожанием, могут быть очень обаятельными.”
― Robert Greene, quote from The Art of Seduction

“A man grows bored with a woman, no matter how beautiful; he yearns for different pleasures, and for adventure.”
― Robert Greene, quote from The Art of Seduction

“избалованные дети наделены уверенностью в себе, которая не покидает их на протяжении всей жизни.”
― Robert Greene, quote from The Art of Seduction

“The vast majority of people conform to whatever is normal for the time.”
― Robert Greene, quote from The Art of Seduction

“Поскольку характер и естественная энергия этих детей не были скованы строгими родителями, из них вырастают взрослые с задатками искателей приключений, решительные и смелые, хотя нередко при этом эгоистичные и вредные.”
― Robert Greene, quote from The Art of Seduction

“At certain points in history it may be fashionable to be different and rebellious, but if a lot of people are playing that role, there is nothing different or rebellious about it.”
― Robert Greene, quote from The Art of Seduction

“On July 2, 1960, a few weeks before that year’s Democratic National Convention, former President Harry Truman publicly stated that John F Kennedy—who had won enough delegates to be chosen his party’s candidate for the presidency—was too young and inexperienced for the job.”
― Robert Greene, quote from The Art of Seduction

“Men do not understand how women think, and vice versa; each tries to make the other act more like a member of their own sex.”
― Robert Greene, quote from The Art of Seduction

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“Wherefore it would appear that this number was thus allied unto her for the purpose of signifying that, at her birth, all these nine heavens were at perfect unity with each other as to their influence. This is one reason that may be brought: but more narrowly considering, and according to the infallible truth, this number was her own self: that is to say, by similitude. As thus. The number three is the root of the number nine; seeing that without the interposition of any other number, being multiplied merely by itself, it produceth nine, as we manifestly perceive that three times three are nine. Thus, three being of itself the efficient of nine, and the Great Efficient of Miracles being of Himself Three Persons (to wit: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit), which, being Three, are also One:—this lady was accompanied by the number nine to the end that men might clearly perceive her to be a nine, that is, a miracle, whose only root is the Holy Trinity. It may be that a more subtile person would find for this thing a reason of greater subtilty: but such is the reason that I find, and that liketh me best.”
― Dante Alighieri, quote from Vita Nuova

“How ... how fragile situations are. But not tenuous. Delicate, but not flimsy, not indulgent. Delicate, that's why they keep breaking, they must break and you must get the pieces together and show it before it breaks again, or put them aside for a moment when something else breaks and turn to that, and all this keeps going on. That's why most writing now, if you read it they go on one two three four and tell you what happened like newspaper accounts, no adjectives, no long sentences, no tricks they pretend, and they finally believe that they really believe that the way they saw it is the way it is ... it never takes your breath away, telling you things you already know, laying everything out flat, as though the terms and the time, and the nature and the movement of everything were secrets of the same magnitude. They write for people who read with the surface of their minds, people with reading habits that make the smallest demands on them, people brought up reading for facts, who know what's going to come next and want to know what's coming next, and get angry at surprises. Clarity's essential, and detail, no fake mysticism, the facts are bad enough. But we're embarrassed for people who tell too much, and tell it without surprise. How does he know what happened? unless it's one unshaven man alone in a boat, changing I to he, and how often do you get a man alone in a boat, in all this ... all this ... Listen, there are so many delicate fixtures, moving toward you, you'll see. Like a man going into a dark room, holding his hands down guarding his parts for fear of a table corner, and ... Why, all this around us is for people who can keep their balance only in the light, where they move as though nothing were fragile, nothing tempered by possibility, and all of a sudden bang! something breaks. Then you have to stop and put the pieces together again. But you never can put them back together quite the same way. You stop when you can and expose things, and leave them within reach, and others come on by themselves, and they break, and even then you may put the pieces aside just out of reach until you can bring them back and show them, put together slightly different, maybe a little more enduring, until you've broken it and picked up the pieces enough times, and you have the whole thing in all its dimensions. But the discipline, the detail, it's just ... sometimes the accumulation is too much to bear.”
― William Gaddis, quote from The Recognitions

“Old Deuteronomy's lived a long time;
He's a Cat who has lived many lives in succession.
He was famous in proverb and famous in rhyme
A long while before Queen Victoria's accession.
Old Deuteronomy's buried nine wives
And more – I am tempted to say, ninety-nine;
And his numerous progeny prospers and thrives
And the village is proud of him in his decline.
At the sight of that placid and bland physiognomy,
When he sits in the sun on the vicarage wall,
The Oldest Inhabitant croaks: "Well, of all …
Things … Can it be … really! … No! … Yes! …
Ho! hi!
Oh, my eye!
My mind may be wandering, but I confess
I believe it is Old Deuteronomy!"

Old Deuteronomy sits in the street,
He sits in the High Street on market day;
The bullocks may bellow, the sheep they may bleat,
But the dogs and the herdsman will turn them away.
The cars and the lorries run over the kerb,
And the villagers put up a notice: ROAD CLOSED —
So that nothing untoward may chance to disturb
Deuteronomy's rest when he feels so disposed
Or when he's engaged in domestic economy:
And the Oldest Inhabitant croaks: "Well of all …
Things … Can it be … really! … No! … Yes! …
Ho! hi!
Oh, my eye!
My sight's unreliable, but I can guess
That the cause of the trouble is Old Deuteronomy!”
― T.S. Eliot, quote from Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats

“But politeness and candour run together, when one is not fitting neither is the other. Then the occasion calls for silence, that frail partition between the ill-concealed and the ill-revealed, the clumsily false and the unavoidably so.”
― Samuel Beckett, quote from Murphy

“I don’t think so, dude. Gabriel would kill me. And then Scarlet would kill me. And they could just keep on killing me over and over again because I don’t ever die. Do you know how much that would suck?”
― Chelsea Fine, quote from Anew

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