Top 10 Laws from 'The Laws of Human Nature' by Robert Greene

This book is the Holy Grail of understanding the social world around us. I would have recommended it as compulsory reading in schools, except for the fear that students might be too impressed and take some harsh lessons (that might not be 100% true) to heart. This book is exceptionally well written, and yet I can't say I understood everything in it - because some of the lessons are so profound and counterintuitive that it might take time and experience to internalize them.

Long story short - read it, really.

My grade of the book: A+ (using the American grading system) - one of the best!

For this book summary, I wanted to pick some quotes that impressed me the most and that I wanted to write down for myself. I couldn't stick to the usual "top 5" so today we have top 10 laws!

Top 10: See other people as a mystery

See other people as phenomena, as neutral as comets or plants. They simply exist. They come in all varieties, making life rich and interesting. Work with what they give you, instead of resisting and trying to change them. Make understanding people a fun game, the solving of puzzles. It is all part of the human comedy. Yes, people are irrational, but so are you. Make your acceptance of human nature as radical as possible.

Top 9: What do you worship?

The human mind has to worship something, has to have its attention directed to something it values above all else. For most people, it is their ego; for some it is their family, their clan, their god, or their nation. For Pericles it would be nous, the ancient Greek word for “mind” or “intelligence.”

Top 8: Want to grow? Make it a necessity. 

What makes us develop these empathic powers is necessity. If we feel our survival depends on how well we gauge the moods and minds of others, then we will find the requisite focus and tap into the powers.

Top 7: The patterns of human weakness, and stress as a real test

If we are honest with ourselves, we must admit there is some truth to the concept of fate. We are prone to repeat the same decisions and methods of dealing with problems. There is a pattern to our life, particularly visible in our mistakes and failures. People never do something just once. They might try to excuse themselves, to say they lost their heads in the moment, but you can be sure they will repeat whatever foolishness they did on another occasion, compelled by their character and habits. In fact, they will often repeat actions when it is completely against their self-interest, revealing the compulsive nature of their weaknesses.

People under stress lose their normal self-control. They reveal their insecurities about their reputation, their fear of failure and lack of inner resilience. On the other hand, some people rise to the occasion and reveal strength under fire. There’s no way to tell until the heat is on, but you must pay extra attention to such moments.

Recent finds in anthropology and archaeology, however, have proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that our ancestors (going back tens of thousands of years, well before civilization) engaged in warfare that was as murderous and brutal as anything in the present.

Top 6: Adopt the mindset of endless possibility

Whatever you are doing now, you are in fact capable of much more, and by thinking that, you will create a very different dynamic.

Top 5: Power and love are not opposites, but quite the opposite!

“All too many people have seen power and love as polar opposites. . . . [But] the two fulfill each other. Power without love is reckless, and love without power is sentimental.” - Martin Luther King

Top 4: We all have the need to touch the immeasurable and the infinite

The whole law of human existence consists in nothing other than a man’s always being able to bow before the immeasurably great. If people are deprived of the immeasurably great, they will not live and will die in despair. The immeasurable and infinite are as necessary for man as the small planet he inhabits. —Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Top 3: What's the strongest memory of envy you have? 

Envy is a painful emotion, an admission of our own inferiority, something rather unbearable for us humans. It is not an emotion we want to sit with and brood over. We like to conceal it from ourselves and not be aware that it motivates our actions.

Top 2: Greatness takes time. Do you want greatness or the fantasy of it?

Your present work is not confirming your greatness and superiority, because to be truly great would require more years of training and the development of new skills. Better to quit and be lured by the possibilities a new career offers, allowing you to entertain fantasies of greatness. In this way, you never quite master anything. You may have dozens of great ideas that you never attempt to execute, because that would cause you to confront the reality of your actual skill level.

Top 1: Turn your attention outwards, to other people

Normally we go through life in a very distracted, dreamlike state, with our gaze turned inward. Much of our mental activity revolves around fantasies and resentments that are completely internal and have little relationship to reality.

Instead of focusing on what you want and covet in the world, you must train yourself to focus on others, on their repressed desires and unmet fantasies. You must train yourself to see how they perceive you and the objects you make, as if you were looking at yourself and your work from the outside. This will give you the almost limitless power to shape people’s perceptions about these objects and excite them. People do not want truth and honesty, no matter how much we hear such nonsense endlessly repeated.

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