Robert Greene

Greene is cited twice in Discipline Is Destiny. First on restraint as power: “Powerful people impress and intimidate by saying less” — Holiday’s gloss being that with power comes license to say whatever you want, and that it’s the discipline not to that creates a powerful person’s presence. Second, the book invokes Greene’s idea of “formlessness” — describing him as a “great strategist” — when asking whether a figure would become a prisoner of his method or break through into the adaptive, unfixed posture Greene later named.

Context: Robert Greene is an American author of strategy and power books, including The 48 Laws of Power, The 33 Strategies of War (the source of “formlessness”), Mastery, and The Laws of Human Nature.

Where this appears

• Discipline Is Destiny — cited on “powerful people impress by saying less” and on the strategic ideal of “formlessness.”