If you want to get things done, if you want your ideas to influence the world, you must read this book.
In a very “Machiavellian-way”, Greene just shares the tools and lets you decide which ones to use.
Also, you might not be fighting any “military wars” but this book will still be valuable because we are all fighting some kind of war.
This is a book, along with the 48 Laws of Power and the Laws of Human Nature, that EVERY leader should read.
Period.
Flow: 4/5
Actionability: 5/5
Mindset: 5/5
Some of My Highlights:
- “Many psychologists and sociologists have argued that it is through conflict that problems are often solved and real differences reconciled. Our successes and failures in life can be traced to how well or how badly we deal with the inevitable conflicts that confront us in society.”
- “But true strategy is psychological – a matter of intelligence, not material force.”
- “But if your mind is armed with the art of war, there is no power that can take that away.”
- “As Sun-Tzu says, ‘Being unconquerable lies with yourself.'”
- “In this world, where the game is played with loaded dice, a man must have a temper of iron, with armor proof to the blows of fate, and weapons to make his ways against men.” – Arthur Schopenhauer
- “Do not listen to people who say that the distinction between friend and enemy is primitive and passé. They are just disguising their fear of conflict behind a front of false warmth.”
- “Your first task as a strategist is to widen your concept of the enemy, to include in that group those who are working against you, thwarting you, even in subtle ways.”
- “Avoidance of conflict becomes a habit, and you lose the taste for battle. Feeling guilty is pointless; it is not your fault you have enemies. Feeling wronged or victimized is equally futile.”
- “Instead of internalizing a bad situation, externalize it and face your enemy. It is the only way out.”
- “It is better to lose to a worthy opponent than to squash some harmless foe.”
- “Being attacked is a sign that you are important enough to be a target.”
- “With some people you have to harden yourself, to recognize that there is no middle ground, no hope of conciliation.”
- “Strategy is not a question of learning a series of moves or ideas to follow like a recipe; history has no magic formula. Ideas are merely nutrients for the soil: the lie in your brain as possibilities, so that in the heat of the moment they can inspire a direction, an appropriate and creative response.”
- “What makes us go astray in the first place is that we are unattuned to the present moment, insensitive to the circumstances.”
- “Think of your mind as a river: the faster it flows, the better it keeps up with the present and responds to change. The faster it flows, also the more it refreshes itself and the greater its energy. Obsessional thoughts, past experiences (whether traumas or successes), and preconceived notions are like boulders or mud in this river, settling and hardening there and damming it up. The river stops moving; stagnation sets in. You must wage constant war on this tendency if the mind.”
- “All the greatest strategists – Alexander the Great, Napoleon, Musashi – were childlike in this respect.”
- “Great strategists do not act according to preconceived ideas; they respond to the moment, like children. Their minds are always moving, and they are always excited and curious. They quickly forget the past – the present is much too interesting.”
- “What makes your mind stronger, and more able to control your emotions, is internal discipline and toughness.”
- “Understand: presence of mind is the ability to detach yourself from all that, to see the whole battlefield, the whole picture, with clarity. All great generals have this quality. And what gives you that mental distance is preparation, mastering the details beforehand.”