Robert Greene

you have more to fear from friends than from enemies

Be wary of friends—they will betray you more quickly, for they are easily aroused to envy.

Men are more ready to repay an injury than a benefit, because gratitude is a burden and revenge a pleasure. Tacitus, c. a.d. 55-120

Friends often agree on tilings in order to avoid an argument. They cover up their unpleasant qualities so as to not offend each other. They laugh extra hard at each odier's jokes. Since honesty rarely strengthens friendship, you may never know how a friend truly feels. Friends will say that they love your poetry, adore your music, envy your taste in clothesmaybe they mean it, often they do not.

Strangely enough, it is your act of kindness tiiat unbalances everything.

Seducers know that the possibility of pleasure will make a person follow them, and the experience of it will make someone open up, weak to the touch. They also train themselves to be sensitive to pleasure, knowing that feeling pleasure themselves will make it that much easier for them to infect the people around them.

Everybody steals in commerce and industry.
I’ve stolen a lot myself.
But I know how to steal.

Thomas Edison, 1847–1931

At this very moment, while you are slaving away on some project, there are vultures circling above trying to figure out a way to survive and even thrive off your creativity.

Fools say that they learn by experience. I prefer to profit by others’ experience.”

Keep an eye on the Vulture—while you are hard at work, he is circling above. Do not fight him, join him.