The 48 Laws of Power: highlighted excerpts

Created:22/01/2013 14:49
Updated:21/03/2013 12:36

PREFACE
  • The courtier's dilemma: while appearing the very paragon of elegance, they had to outwit and thwart their own opponents in the subtlest of ways.
  • Machiavelli: "Any man who tries to be good all the time is bound to come to ruin among the great number who are not good."
  • Napolean: Place your iron hand inside a velvet glove. If, like the courtier of times gone by, you can master the arts of indirection, learning to seduce, charm, deceive, and subtly outmanoeuvre your opponents, you will attain the heights of power. You will be able to make people bend to your will without their realizing what you have done. And if they do not realize what you have done, they will neither resent nor resist you.
  • Making a show of one's weakness is actually a very effective strategy, subtle and deceptive.
  • The use of honesty is indeed a power strategy, intended to convince people of one's noble, good-hearted, selfless character. It is a form of persuasion.
  • All of us hunger for power.
  • There is no use in trying to opt out of the game.
  • The most important of these skills, and power's crucial foundation, is the ability to master your emotions.
  • Emotions cloud reason, and if you cannot see the situation clearly, you cannot prepare for and respond to it with any degree of control.
  • For the future, the motto is, "No days unalert."
  • Impatience, on the other hand, only makes you look weak.
  • Never waste valuable time, or mental peace of mind, on the affairs of others.
  • To be a master player you must also be a master psychologist.
  • Never trust anyone completely and study everyone.

LAW 1: NEVER OUTSHINE THE MASTER
  • Fouquet's elaborate party offended the king's vanity.
  • It is a deadly but common misperception to believe that by displaying and vaunting your gifts and talents you are winning the master's affection. He will replace you with someone less intelligent, less attractive, less threatening. He will not admit the truth, but will find an excuse to rid himself of your presence.
  • If you cannot help being charming and superior, you must learn to avoid such monsters of vanity. Either that, or find a way to mute your good qualities when in the company of a Cesare Borgia.
  • Never take your position for granted and never let any favors you receive go to your head.
  • By letting others outshine you, you remain in control, instead of being a victim of their insecurity.
  • Baltasar Gracian: "All superiority is odious, but the superiority of a subject over his prince is not only stupid, it is fatal."
  • Do not risk outshining a feeble superiorit might appear cruel or spiteful.

LAW 2: NEVER PUT TOO MUCH TRUST IN FRIENDS, LEARN HOW TO USE ENEMIES
  • Nobody believes a friend can betray.
  • Abraham Lincoln: "Do I not destroy my enemies when I make them my friends?"
  • Sufi proverb: "Pick up a bee from kindness and learn the limitations of kindness."
  • The problem is that you often do not know your friends as well as you imagine. Friends often agree on things in order to avoid an argument.
  • People want to feel they deserve their good fortune.
  • The key to power, then, is the ability to judge who is best able to further your interests in all situations.
  • A person who has nothing to prove will move mountains for you.
  • An enemy at our heels sharpens our wits, keeping us focused and alert.
  • Without a worthy opponent, he explained, a man or group cannot grow stronger.
  • Without clear-cut enemies, he believed, his people would lose any sense of what Chinese Communism meant.
  • You are far better off with a declared opponent or two than not knowing where your real enemies lie.

LAW 3: CONCEAL YOUR INTENTIONS
  • Never reveal the purpose behind your actions. If people have no clue what you are up to, they cannot prepare a defense.
  • [Use decoyed objects of desire and red herrings to throw people off the scent. Use false sincerity, send ambiguous signals, set up misleading objects of desire.] Unable to distinguish the genuine from the false, they cannot pick out your real goal.
  • The state of emotional confusion that is a prerequisite for successful seduction.
  • Everything in seduction, however, depends on suggestion.
  • Any emotion is better than the boredom of security.
  • [His intention was revealed: he was seducing her.] This put everything he had done in a new light. All that before had been charming now seemed ugly and conniving.
  • Otto von Bismarck: "Woe unto the statesman who makes war without a reason that will still be valid when the war is over!"
  • By being completely insincere and sending misleading signals, however, he deceived everyone, concealed his purpose, and attained everything he wanted. [Such is the power of hiding your intentions.]
  • It takes effort to control your tongue and monitor what you reveal.
  • By being unabashedly open when you make yourself so predictable and familiar that it is almost impossible to respect or fear you.
  • Our first instinct is to always trust appearances
  • Simply dangle an object you seem to desire, a goal you seem to aim for, in front of people's eyes and they will take the appearance for reality. Once their eyes focus on the decoy, they will fail to notice what you are really up to.
  • Hide your intentions not by closing up (with the risk of appearing secretive, and making people suspicious) but by talking endlessly about your desires and goalsjust not your real ones. You will kill three birds with one stone: you appear friendly, open, and trusting; you conceal your intentions; and you send your rivals on time-consuming wild goose chases.
  • Another powerful tool in throwing people off the scent is false sincerity. [People easily mistake sincerity for honesty].
  • Cultivate an air of honesty in one area to disguise dishonesty in others.
  • "Sneak across the ocean in broad daylight."
  • The familiar, inconspicuous front is the perfect smoke screen. Approach your mark with an idea that seems ordinary enough

    a business deal, financial intrigue. The sucker's mind is distracted, his suspicions allayed. That is when you gently guide him onto the second path, the slippery slope down which he slides helplessly into your trap.
  • The simplest form of smoke screen is facial expression.
  • One of the most effective smoke screens is the noble gesture.
  • Another effective smoke screen is the pattern, the establishment of a series of actions that seduce the victim into believing you will continue in the same way.
  • Another psychological weakness on which to construct a smoke screen is the tendency to mistake appearances for reality.
  • Kierkegaard: "The world wants to be deceived."

LAW 4: ALWAYS SAY LESS THAN NECESSARY
  • Even if you are saying something banal, it will seem original if you make it vague, open-ended, and sphinxlike.
  • Since the citizens knew little about him, all kinds of legends became attached to his name.
  • A person who cannot control his words shows that he cannot control himself, and is unworthy of respect.
  • Leonardo da Vinci: "Oysters open completely when the moon is full; and when the crab sees one it throws a piece of stone or seaweed into it and the oyster cannot close again so that it serves the crab for meat. Such is the fate of him who opens his mouth too much and thereby puts himself at the mercy of the listener."
  • No one could try to deceive him by saying what they thought he wanted to hear, because no one knew what he wanted to hear. As they talked on and on to the silent Louis, they revealed more and more about themselves, information he would later use against them to great effect.
  • Your silence will make other people uncomfortable.
  • When you carefully control what you reveal, they cannot pierce your intentions or your meaning.
  • Your short answers and silences will put them on the defensive, and they will jump in, nervously filling the silence with all kinds of comments that will reveal valuable information about them and their weaknesses.
  • The less he said about his work, the more people talked about it. And the more they talked, the more valuable his work became.
  • Learn the lesson: once the words are out, you cannot take them back.
  • Saying less than necessary must be practiced with caution. [It is occasionally wiser to imitate the court jester, who plays the fool but knows he is smarter than the king. He talks and talks and entertains, and no one suspects that he is more than just a fool.]

LAW 5: SO MUCH DEPENDS ON REPUTATIONGUARD IT WITH YOUR LIFE
  • Make your reputation unassailable.
  • Doubt is a powerful weapon. [Once you let it out of the bag with insidious rumors, your opponents are in a horrible dilemma.]
  • A humorous front can make you out as a harmless entertainer while poking holes in the reputation of your rival.
  • In the social realm, appearances are the barometer of almost all of our judgements.
  • The supreme importance of making and maintaining a reputation that is of your own creation.
  • That reputation will protect you in the dangerous game of appearances, distracting the probing eyes of others from knowing what you are really like, and giving you a degree of control over how the world judges you.
  • In the beginning, you must work to establish a reputation for one outstanding quality. This quality sets you apart and gets other people to talk about you.
  • Make your reputation simple and base it on one sterling quality.
  • Reputation is critical; there are no exceptions to this law.
  • There is nothing to be gained by neglecting your reputation.

LAW 6: COURT ATTENTION AT ALL COST
  • What is unseen counts for nothing.
  • Stand out.
  • More colorful, more mysterious.
  • Draw attention to yourself by creating an unforgettable, even controversial image.
  • Notoriety of any sort will bring you power.
  • Crowds are magnetically attracted by the unusual.
  • Once you have their attention, never let it go.
  • [At the start of your career,] you must attach your name and reputation to a quality, an image, that sets you apart from other people. This image can be something like a characteristic style of dress, or a personality quirk that amuses people and gets talked about.
  • Enthralled by him, they wanted him around at any cost.
  • If you find yourself in a lowly position that offers little opportunity for you to draw attention, an effective trick is to attack the most visible, most famous, most powerful person you can find.
  • People feel superior to the person whose actions they can predict.
  • Baltasar Gracian: "Be ostentatious and be seen. ... What is not seen is as though it did not exist."
  • What seems enigmatic instantly draws attention.
  • Do not show all your cards.
  • The mysterious cannot be grasped.
  • Do not imagine that to create an air of mystery you have to be grand and awe-inspiring.
  • By holding back, keeping silent, occasionally uttering ambiguous phrases, deliberately appearing inconsistent, and acting odd in the subtlest of ways, you will emanate an aura of mystery. The people around you will then magnify that aura by constantly trying to interpret you.
  • Mystery about an artist makes his or her artwork immediately more intriguing.
  • Mysterious people put others in a kind of inferior positionthat of trying to figure them out.
  • Every now and then, act in a way that does not mesh with other people's perception of you.
  • Baltasar Gracian: "If you do not declare yourself immediately, you arouse expectation. ... And when you explain, be not too explicit."
  • Do not let your air of mystery be slowly transformed into a reputation for deceit.
  • Never appear overly greedy for attention, then, for it signals insecurity, and insecurity drives power away.

LAW 7: GET OTHERS TO DO THE WORK FOR YOU, BUT ALWAYS TAKE THE CREDIT
  • You must secure the credit for yourself and keep others from stealing it away, or from piggy-backing on your hard work.
  • Find people with the skills and creativity you lack.
  • Learn to use the knowledge of the past ["standing on the shoulders of giants"] and you will look like a genius.

LAW 8: MAKE OTHER PEOPLE COME TO YOUUSE BAIT IF NECESSARY
  • When you force the other person to act, you are the one in control.
  • And most often the most effective action is to stay back, keep calm, and let others be frustrated by the traps you lay for them.
  • The essence of power is the ability to keep the initiative, to get others to react to your moves, to keep your opponent and those around you on the defensive. When you make other people come to you, you suddenly become the one controlling the situation. And the one who has control has power. Two things must happen to place you in this position: you yourself must learn to master your emotions, and never to be influenced by anger; meanwhile, however, you must play on people's natural tendency to react angrily when pushed or baited.
  • It is only natural to want to persuade people by pleading your case, imposing your will with words. But this often turns against you.
  • If your trap is attractive enough, the turbulence of your enemies' emotions and desires will blind them to reality.
  • Zhang Yu: "Good warriors make others come to them, and do not go to others."
  • Fast attack can be an awesome weapon, for it forces the other person to react without the time to think or plan. With no time to think, people make errors of judgment and are thrown on the defensive.
  • You must choose your tactics depending on the situation.

LAW 9: WIN THROUGH YOUR ACTIONS, NEVER THROUGH ARGUMENT
  • It is much more powerful to get others to agree with you through your actions, without saying a word.
  • Learn to demonstrate the correctness of your ideas indirectly.
  • Such is the double power of winning through actions rather than argument: no one is offended, and your point is proven.
  • The problem in trying to prove a point or gain a victory through argument is that in the end you can never be certain how it affects the people you're arguing with: they may appear to agree with you politely, but inside they may resent you.
  • Action and demonstration are much more powerful and meaningful. ... There are no offensive words, no possibility of misinterpretation.
  • Baltasar Gracian: "The truth is generally seen, rarely heard."
  • The most powerful persuasion goes beyond action into symbol. ...They carry great emotional significance.
  • When aiming for power, or trying to conserve it, always look for the indirect route. And also choose your battles carefully. If it does not matter in the long run whether the other person agrees with you

    or if time and their own experience will make them understand what you mean

    then it is best not even to bother with a demonstration. Save your energy and walk away.
  • Benjamin Disraeli: "Never argue. In society nothing must be discussed; give only results."

LAW 10: INFECTION: AVOID THE UNHAPPY AND UNLUCKY
  • A Book of Five Rings: "Make a show of complete calmness, and the enemy will be taken by this and will become relaxed. You infect their spirit. You can infect them with ... even weakness."
  • When you suspect you are in the presence of an infector, don't argue, don't try to help, or you will become enmeshed. Flee the infector's presence or suffer the consequences.
  • Humans are extremely susceptible to the moods, emotions, and even the ways of thinking of those with whom they spend their time.
  • They often present themselves as victims, making it difficult, at first, to see their miseries as self-inflicted.
  • [How can you protect yourself against such insidious viruses?] The answer lies in judging people on the effects they have on the world and not on the reasons they give for their problems.
  • All positive qualities can infect us.
  • Never associate with those who share your defectsthey will reinforce everything that holds you back.
  • Ignore this law at your peril.

LAW 11: LEARN TO KEEP PEOPLE DEPENDENT ON YOU
  • The more you are relied on, the more freedom you have.
  • Never teach them enough so that they can do without you.
  • The problem was not ingratitude; it was that there were so many other condottieri as able and valiant as they were. They were replaceable. Nothing was lost by killing them.
  • He had taken his power for granted without making sure that he was truly indispensable.
  • Be the only one who can do what you do, and make the fate of those who hire you so entwined with yours that they cannot possibly get rid of you.
  • No one will come to depend on you if they are already strong.
  • [Seek rulers with whom you can create a relationship of dependency.] You become their strength, their intelligence, their spine. What power you hold!
  • The ultimate power is the power to get people to do as you wish.
  • The best you can hope for is that others will grow so dependent on you that you enjoy a kind of reverse independence: their need for you frees you.
  • You should create a situation in which you can always latch on to another master or patron but your master cannot easily find another servant with your particular talent.
  • Having the appearance of specialized knowledge and skill gives you leeway in your ability to deceive those above you into thinking they cannot do without you.
  • Kissinger survived because he entrenched himself in so many areas of the political structure that to do away with him would lead to chaos.
  • Depending on an emotion as subtle and changeable as love friendship will only make you insecure. Better to have others depend on you out of fear of the consequences of losing you than out of love of your company.

LAW 12: USE SELECTIVE HONESTY AND GENEROSITY TO DISARM YOUR VICTIM
  • Open-hearted gestures of honesty and generosity bring down the guard of even the most suspicious people.
  • A timely gifta Trojan horsewill serve the same purpose.
  • The con artist's job is to bring those defenses down.
  • One sure way to do this is through an act of apparent sincerity and honesty. Who will distrust a person literally caught in the act of being honest?
  • An act of kindness, generosity, or honesty is often the most powerful form of distraction because it disarms other people's suspicion. It turns them into children, eagerly lapping up any kind of affectionate gesture.
  • It is also dangerous simply to ask for what you need, no matter how politely: unless the other person sees some gain for themselves, they may come to resent your neediness.
  • Selective honesty is best employed on your first encounter with someone. We are all creatures of habit, and our first impressions last a long time. If someone believes you are honest at the start of your relationship it takes a lot to convince them otherwise. This gives you room to manoeuvre.
  • A single act of honesty is often not enough. What is required is a reputation for honesty.
  • [Honesty is one of the best ways to disarm the wary, but it is not the only one.] Perhaps the best such act, though, is one of generosity. Few people can resist a gift, even from the most hardened enemy, which is why it is often the perfect way to disarm people.
  • A gift is the perfect object in which to hide a deceptive move.
  • Selective kindness will often break down even the most stubborn foe: aiming right for the heart, it corrodes the will to fight back.
  • If people see through it, their disappointed feelings of gratitude and warmth will become the most violent hatred and distrust. Unless you can make the gesture seem sincere and heartfelt, do not play with fire.
  • Han-fei-tzu: "When you are about to take, you should give."

LAW 13: WHEN ASKING FOR HELP, APPEAL TO PEOPLE'S SELF-INTEREST, NEVER TO THEIR MERCY OR GRATITUDE
  • Instead, uncover something in your request, or in your alliance with him, that will benefit him, and emphasize it out of all proportion. He will respond enthusiastically when he sees something to be gained for himself.
  • Not only is a man not obliged to be grateful, gratitude is often a terrible burden that he gladly discards.
  • Arthur Schopenhauer: "Most men are so thoroughly subjective that nothing really interests them but themselves."
  • And in the end, most people are in fact pragmaticthey will rarely act against their own self-interest.
  • There is an art to asking for help, an art that depends on your ability to understand the person you are dealing with, and to not confuse your needs with theirs.
  • A key step in the process is to understand the other person's psychology.
  • Self-interest is the lever that will move people.
  • Master this art and there will be no limits to what you can accomplish.
  • The cord of mercy and gratitude is threadbare, and will break at the first shock.
  • Some people will see an appeal to their self-interest as ugly and ignoble. They actually prefer to be able to exercise charity, mercy, and justice, which are their ways of feeling superior to you. ... Provided, of course, that all this is done in public and for a good cause.

LAW 14: POSE AS A FRIEND, WORK AS A SPY
  • Ask indirect questions to get people to reveal their weaknesses and intentions.
  • For several years [Duveen] tracked his prey, learning the man's habits, tastes, phobias.
  • Such is the power of artful spying: it makes you seem all-powerful, clairvoyant.
  • In the realm of power, you goal is a degree of control over future events.
  • Controlling what they say, they often keep the most critical parts of their character hidden

    their weaknesses, ulterior motives, obsessions. The result is that you cannot predict their moves, and are constantly in the dark. The trick is to find a way to probe them, to find out their secrets and hidden intentions, without letting them know what you are up to.
  • The key here is Talleyrand's ability to suppress himself in the conversation, to make others talk endlessly about themselves and inadvertently reveal their intentions and plans.
  • Arthur Schopenhauer: "If you have reason to suspect that a person is telling you a lie, look as though you believed every word he said. This will give him courage to go on; he will become more vehement in his assertions, and in the end betray himself."
  • During social gatherings and innocuous encounters, pay attention. This is when people's guards are down. By suppressing your own personality, you can make them reveal things.
  • Give them a false confession and they will give you a real one.
  • Schopenhauer suggested vehemently contradicting people you're in conversation with as a way of irritating them, stirring them up so that they lose some of the control over their words. In their emotional reaction they will reveal all kinds of truths about themselves, truths you can later use against them.
  • Winston Churchill: "Truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies." By planting the information of your choice, you control the game.
  • By feeding people wrong information, then, you gain a potent advantage.

LAW 15: CRUSH YOUR ENEMY TOTALLY
  • Kautilya: "One should never ignore an enemy, knowing him to be weak."
  • Power cannot be dealt with in this way [by sympathizing with our enemies]. It must be exterminated, crushed, and denied the chance to return to haunt us.
  • The law governing fatal antagonisms reads: reconciliation is out of the question. Only one side can win, and it must win totally.
  • Kautilya: "Those who seek to achieve things should show no mercy."
  • She was never naive. She knew that any hesitation, any momentary weakness, would spell her end.
  • "Crush the enemy" is a key strategic tenet of Sun-tzu.
  • Negotiation is the insidious viper that will eat away at your victory, so give your enemies nothing to negotiate, no hope, no room to manoeuvre. They are crushed and that is that.
  • [It does sometimes happen that it is better to let your enemies destroy themselves than to make them suffer by your hand. When you have someone on the ropes, thenbut only when you are sure they have no chance of recoveryyou might let them hang themselves. Let them be the agents of their own destruction.] The result will be the same, and you won't feel half as bad.

LAW 16: USE ABSENCE TO INCREASE RESPECT AND HONOUR
  • You must learn when to leave. Create value through scarcity.
  • The stronger and longer the disagreement, he told Guillaume, the sweeter the feeling that comes with peace and rapprochement.
  • Jean de la Fontaine: "People whom distance magnifies, who, close to, don't amount to much."
  • At the start of an affair, you need to heighten your presence in the eyes of the other. If you absent yourself too early, you may be forgotten.
  • Giving no reason for your absence excites even more: the other person assumes he or she is at fault.
  • What stays too long, inundating us with its presence, makes us disdain it.
  • La Rochefoucauld: "Absence diminishes minor passions and inflames great ones, as the wind douses a candle and fans a fire."
  • [During Deioces' reign, the people's] respect for him gradually turned into a form of worship.
  • Deioces was a man of great ambition. He determined early on that the country needed a strong ruler, and that he was the man for the job. So Deioces began his career by making his reputation as a man of impeccable fairness.
  • The only way to regain the veneration and power he wanted was to withdraw completely, and let the Medes taste what life was like without him. As he expected, they came begging for him.
  • "If nobody saw him, the legend would grow that he was a being of a different order from mere men." (Herodotus)
  • Mulla Jami: "...the words 'Why have you not been to see me?' are sweeter to my ear than the words 'Why have you come again?'"
  • By completely withdrawing for a while, you create a kind of death before death.
  • Today, in a world inundated with presence through the flood of images, the game of withdrawal is all the more powerful. We rarely know when to withdraw anymore, and nothing seems private, so we are awed by anyone who is able to disappear by choice.
  • Image: The Sun. It can only be appreciated by its absence. The longer the days of rain, the more the sun is craved. But too many hot days and the sun overwhelms. Learn to keep yourself obscure and make people demand your return.
  • Extend the law of scarcity to your own skills.
  • The need to withdraw only comes after you have established your presence; leave too early and you do not increase your respect, you are simply forgotten. When you are first entering onto the world's stage, create an image that is recognizable, reproducible, and is seen everywhere.
  • Only what is seen, appreciated, and loved will be missed in its absence.

LAW 17: KEEP OTHERS IN SUSPENDED TERROR: CULTIVATE AN AIR OF UNPREDICTABILITY
  • Behaviour that seems to have no consistency or purpose will keep them off-balance.
  • Yet despite the Russian's suspicions, he could not figure out the trap. ... In the next games Fischer pulled moved that no one had seen from him before, moves that were not his style.
  • Most powerful of all, though, were Fischer's deliberate blunders and his appearance of having no clear strategy.
  • Your opponent analyzes the patterns you are playing and uses them to try to foresee your moves.
  • Jackson's inexplicable moves made the Union generals delay the march on Richmond as they waited to figure out what he was up to.
  • This law applies not only to war but to everyday situations.
  • Because they do not understand you, they are unnerved, and in such a state you can easily intimidate them.
  • Scrambling your patters on a day-to-day basis will cause a stir around you and stimulate interest. People will talk about you.
  • By creating a pattern for people to be familiar and comfortable with, you can lull them to sleep. They have prepared everything according to their preconceived notions about you. ... It sets up a smoke screen.
  • A warning: unpredictability can work against you sometimes, especially if you are in a subordinate position. There are times when it is better to let people feel comfortable and settled around you than to disturb them. Too much unpredictability will be seen as a sign of indecisiveness, or even of some more serious psychic problem. Patterns are powerful, and you can terrify people by disrupting them. Such power should only be used judiciously.

LAW 18: DO NOT BUILD FORTRESSES TO PROTECT YOURSELF: ISOLATION IS DANGEROUS
  • Never enclose yourself so far from the streets that you cannot hear what is happening around you, including the plots against you.
  • Power depends on social interaction and circulation. ... You should be aware of everything happening on the street.
  • The more you are in contact with others, the more graceful and at ease you become.
  • Clearly, isolation is as deadly for the creative arts...
  • Artists who hole themselves up in their fortress lose a sense of proportion. ... Such art remains cornered and powerless.
  • You need to be permeable, able to float in and out of different circles and mix with different types.
  • Without keeping an ear on what is happening in the streets, you will be unable to protect yourself.
  • The weight of society's pressure to conform, and the lack of distance from other people, can make it impossible to think clearly about what is going on around you. As a temporary recourse, then, isolation can help you to gain perspective. Many a serious thinker has been produced in prisons.

LAW 19: KNOW WHO YOU'RE DEALING WITH: DO NOT OFFEND THE WRONG PERSON
  • Choose your victims and opponents carefully, thennever offend or deceive the wrong person.
  • Being able to recognize types of people, and to act accordingly, is critical.
  • Never assume that the person you are dealing with is weaker or less important than you are.
  • If you want to turn people down, it is best to do so politely and respectfully.
  • You can never be sure who you are dealing with. A Man who is of little importance and means today can be a person of power tomorrow.
  • There is nothing to be gained by insulting a person unnecessarily. Swallow the impulse to offend, even if the other person seems weak.
  • The ability to measure people and to know who you're dealing with is the most important skill of all in gathering and conserving power. Without it you are blind: not only will you offend the wrong people, you will choose the wrong types to work on, and will think you are flattering people when you are actually insulting them. Before embarking on any move, take the measure of your mark or potential opponent.
  • Study people's weaknesses, the chinks in their armor, their areas of both pride and insecurity.
  • First, in judging and measuring your opponent, ever rely on your instinct. Second, never trust appearances.
  • Never trust the version that people give of themselves

    it is utterly unreliable.
  • Lord Chesterfield: "Wrongs are often forgiven, but contempt never is."

LAW 20: DO NOT COMMIT TO ANYONE
  • Do not commit to any side or cause but yourself.
  • By not committing your affections, they will only try harder to win you over.
  • Give them hope but never satisfaction.
  • Elizabeth kept the hopes of both alive.
  • She had to emanate mystery and desirability, ever discouraging anyone's hopes but never yielding.
  • Since power depends greatly on appearances, you must learn the tricks that will enhance your image.
  • When you hold yourself back, you incur not anger but a kind of respect. You instantly seem more powerful because you make yourself ungraspable, rather than succumbing to the group.
  • The goal is not to put people off, or to make it seem that you are incapable of commitment.
  • People who rush to the support of others tend to gain little respect in the process, for their help is so easily obtained, while those who stand back find themselves besieged with supplicants.
  • Do not let people drag you into their petty fights and squabbles.
  • When the fighting parties are good and tired they will be ripe for the picking.
  • Nor would she try to stop the conflict that raged around herthat would only drag her into it.
  • Be friendly and charming to each of the combatants, then step back as they collide. With every battle they grow weaker, while you grow stronger with every battle you avoid.
  • To play the game properly, you must seem interested in other people's problems.
  • Play a waiting game and you cannot lose. ... By committing too quickly you lose your manoeuvrability.
  • Every moment wasted on the affairs of others subtracts from your strength.
  • Baltasar Gracian: "Where there is already one interfering fool, take care that there shall not be two."
  • Both parts of this law will turn against you if you take it too far. ... People will start to lose interest.

LAW 21: PLAY A SUCKER TO CATCH A SUCKER: SEEM DUMBER THAN YOUR MARK
  • Once convinced [that they are smarter than you are], they will never suspect that you may have ulterior motives.
  • They played up their clodhopper image.
  • Given how important the idea of intelligence is to most people's vanity, it is critical never inadvertently to insult or impugn a person's brain power.
  • Subliminally reassure people that they are more intelligent than you are, or even that you are a bit of a moron.
  • The easier they think it is to prey on you, the more easily you can turn the tables.
  • Look like a harmless pig and no one will believe you harbour dangerous ambitions.
  • In general, then, always make people believe they are smarter and more sophisticated than you are.
  • Baltasar Gracian: "You must not be ignorant but capable of playing it."
  • To reveal the true nature of your intelligence rarely pays; you should get in the habit of downplaying it at all times.
  • At the start of your climb to the top, of course, you cannot play too stupid: you may want to let your bosses know, in a subtle way, that you are smarter than the competition around you.
  • His confident tone and air of authority intimidated the Frenchman. ...convinced everyone of his "expertness" through his air of irreproachable authority.
  • Play the professor when necessary.

LAW 22: USE THE SURRENDER TACTIC: TRANSFORM WEAKNESS INTO POWER
  • By turning the other cheek you infuriate and unsettle him.
  • Fortunes change and the mighty are often brought down. Surrender conceals great power: lulling the enemy into complacency, it gives you time to recoup, time to undermine, time for revenge.
  • What good was it, he asked, to play the martyr and gain a little public sympathy if in the process they lost the ability to stage their plays and sell their scripts for years to come?
  • Why lower themselves to the level of their opponents by arguing with them? Why not fox the committee by appearing to surrender to it while subtly mocking it?
  • ...but his politeness and the way he yielded to their authority made it impossible for them to get angry with him.
  • Your outward sign of submission makes them feel important.
  • But the next time someone pushes you and you find yourself starting to react, try this: do not resist or fight back, but yield, turn the other cheek, bend.
  • By yielding, you in fact control the situation.
  • While he considers you weak and inferior, and takes no precautions against you, you are using the time to catch up and surpass him.
  • Overobeying the guards, however, made them ridiculous, yet they could not rightly punish the prisoners, who had only done what they asked.
  • Those with power almost always find themselves eventually on the downward swing.

LAW 23: CONCENTRATE YOUR FORCES
  • You gain more by finding a rich mine and mining it deeper, than by flitting from one shallow mine to anotherintensity defeats extensity every time.
  • Arthur Schopenhauer: "Intellect is a magnitude of intensity, not a magnitude of extensity."
  • Single-mindedness of purpose, total concentration on the goal, and the use of these qualities against people less focused, people in a state of distraction...
  • Concentrate on a single goal, a single task, and beat it into submission.
  • You must find out who controls the operations, who is the real director behind the scenes.
  • Baltasar Gracian: "Perfection resides in quality, not quantity."
  • When fighting a stronger army, concentrating your forces only makes you an easier targetbetter to dissolve into the scenery and frustrate your enemy with the elusiveness of your presence.
  • In cases when you may need protection, then, it is often wise to entwine yourself around several sources of power. Such a move would be especially prudent in periods of great tumult and violent change.
  • Finally, being too single-minded in purpose can make you an intolerable bore, especially in the arts.

LAW 24: PLAY THE PERFECT COURTIER
  • Learn and apply the laws of courtiership and there will be no limit to how far you can rise in the court.
  • Their aggression is veiled and indirect.
  • It is never prudent to prattle on about yourself or call too much attention to your actions.
  • Always talk less about yourself than about other people.
  • Never seem to be working too hard. Your talent must appear to flow naturally. ... blood and toil, another form of ostentation.
  • Learn to flatter indirectlyby downplaying your own contribution.
  • Pay attention to your physical appearance, then, and find a way to create a distinctivea subtly distinctivestyle and image.
  • Alter your style and language according to the person you are dealing with.
  • People will groan at each new cynical comment, and you will irritate them.
  • Train your mind to see yourself as others see you.
  • Master your emotions.
  • Your spirit and way of thinking must keep up with the times, even if the times offend your sensibilities.
  • ...control our unpleasant qualities and obscure them when necessary.
  • Never be so self-absorbed as to believe that the master is interested in your criticisms of him, no matter how accurate they are.
  • It is never good to seem to be trying too hard.
  • Make your master a gift of your talents and you will rise.
  • Use him as a stepping stone, a way of displaying your talent and eventually buying your freedom from enslavement.
  • It is always beneficial to play the obliging courtier, even when you are not serving a master.

LAW 25: RE-CREATE YOURSELF
  • Be the master of your own image rather than letting others define it for you. Incorporate dramatic devices into your public gestures and actions.
  • ...the vital link between power and theatre.
  • You must be constantly aware of your audience

    of what will please them and what will bore them.
  • [The character created] could grow stale or predictable, and to avoid this she would every now and then dramatically alter the character she had created.
  • The world wants to assign you a role in life. And once you accept that role you are doomed.
  • The character you seem to have been born with is not necessarily who you are.
  • Remake yourself into a character of power. Work on yourself like clay.
  • The first step in the process of self-creation is self-consciousness ... taking control of your appearance and emotions.
  • People who wear their hearts on their sleeves out in society are tiresome and embarrassing.
  • [The second step:] the creation of a memorable character, one that compels attention, that stands out above the other players on the stage.
  • Good drama, however, needs more than an interesting appearance.
  • ...never revealing all your cards at once, but unfolding them in a way that heightens their dramatic effect.
  • Your own entrances and exits should be crafted and planned as carefully.
  • The actor Richard Burton discovered early in his career that by standing totally still onstage, he drew attention to himself and away from the other actors.
  • Be whatever the moment requires.
  • What cannot be grasped cannot be consumed.
  • Know how to be all things to all men. That is the art of winning over everyone, for like attracts like. Take note of temperaments and adapt yourself to that of each person you meet.

LAW 26: KEEP YOUR HANDS CLEAN
  • You must seem to be a paragon of civility and efficiency: your hands are never soiled by mistakes.
  • People of power, however, are undone not by the mistakes they make, but by the way they deal with them.
  • By apologizing you open up all sorts of doubts about your competence, your intentions, any other mistakes you may not have confessed.
  • Because it comes so naturally to us to look outward rather than inward, we readily accept the scapegoat's guilt.
  • Sometimes you should find a more powerful scapegoatone who will elicit less sympathy in the long run.
  • Baltasar Gracian: "If you can't be good, be careful."
  • If there is something unpleasant or unpopular that needs to be done, it is far too risky for you to do the work yourself. You need a cat's paw.
  • [Cleopatra's] power came from an ability to get people to do her bidding without realizing they were being manipulated.
  • [The cat's paw] will usually be a person from outside your immediate circle, who will therefore be unlikely to realize how he or she is being used.
  • Always search out the overly aggressive as potential cat's pawsthey are often more than willing to get into a fight.
  • The granting of a favour is never simple: if it is done with fuss and obviousness, its receiver feels burdened by an obligation.
  • The paradigm for every favour done between friends and peers: never impose your favours. Search out ways to make yourself the cat's paw, indirectly extricating your friends from distress without imposing yourself or making them feel obligated to you.
  • The truly powerful, on the other hand, seem never to be in a hurry or overburdened. ...the only announcements they make are of glorious achievements.
  • The key to planning such a strategy is the ability to think far ahead, to imagine ways in which other people can be baited into doing the job for you.
  • [...the best way to approach a person of power:] use an associate or subordinate to hook you up with your primary target.
  • As the instrument that protects a master or peer from unpleasantness or danger, you gain immense respect, which sooner or later will pay dividends. ... If you can make your assistance or subtle and gracious rather than boastful and burdensome, your recompense will be that much more satisfying and powerful.

LAW 27: PLAY ON PEOPLE'S NEED TO BELIEVE TO CREATE A CULTLIKE FOLLOWING
  • Become the focal point of such desire by offering them a cause, a new faith to follow.
  • Having a large following opens up all sorts of possibilities for deception.
  • As humans, we have a desperate need to believe in something, anything. ... We simply cannot endure long periods of doubt, or of the emptiness that comes from a lack of something to believe in.
  • ...we leap from the water as one to take the bait.
  • ...we will manufacture saints and faiths out of nothing.
  • ...impossible for them to find the distance to be skeptical. Any deficiencies in the charlatan's ideas were hidden by the zeal of the mass.
  • ...words, which are hazy and deceptive. ... on the one hand the promise of something great and transformative, and on the other a total vagueness.
  • ...fancy titles for simple things ... the creation of new words for vague concepts ... giving you a veneer of profundity.
  • ...as long as you do not make anyone really think.
  • Ask them for sacrifices that will fill your coffers and increase your power.
  • Talk and act like a prophet.
  • Your followers want to believe that if they follow you all sorts of good things will fall into their lap. By surrounding yourself with luxury you become living proof of the soundness of your belief system.
  • There is a force of nonbelievers that will do anything to stop you. Any outsider who tries to reveal the charlatan nature of your belief system can now be described as a member of this devious force.
  • His reputation only grew in his absence. He became famous, although in fact he had never done a single concrete thing.
  • By only hinting at his accomplishments, he encouraged people's imaginations to blow them up to fantastic proportions.
  • Niccolo Machiavelli: "Men are so simple of mind, and so much dominated by their immediate needs, that a deceitful man will always find plenty who are ready to be deceive."
  • Make their belief in your powers strong enough that they imagine all sorts of benefits.
  • Also, by playing on people's repressed sexuality, you lead them into mistaking their excited feelings for signs of your mystical strength.
  • Grete de Francesco: "The charlatan achieves his great power by simply opening a possibility for men to believe what they already want to believe."
  • [Reversal] Isolating them from their normal milieu can have the same effect as putting them in a groupit makes them more prone to suggestion and intimidation.

LAW 28: ENTER ACTION WITH BOLDNESS
  • Timidity is dangerous. Any mistakes you commit through audacity are easily corrected with more audacity.
  • If, in a first encounter, you demonstrate your willingness to compromise, back down, and retreat, you bring out the lion even in people who are not necessarily bloodthirsty.
  • [By intimidating with a bold move,] you establish a precedent: in every subsequent encounter, people will be on the defensive, in terror of your next strike.
  • When you take time to think, to hem and haw, you create a gap that allows others time to think as well. ... Doubt springs up on all sides.
  • The bold draw attention, and what draws attention draws power.
  • Largeness of scale deceives the human eye. It distracts and awes us, and is so self-evident that we cannot imagine there is any illusion or deception afoot.
  • Negotiate with a boyar and you create opportunities for him.
  • When you are as small and obscure as David was, you must find a Goliath to attack. The larger the target, the more attention you gain.
  • All great seducers succeed through effrontery.
  • Aesop: "Do boldly what you do at all."
  • He held nothing back from her. This was infinitely more flattering than compliments.
  • How often we put ourselves down by asking for too little.
  • Your value is lowered and you create a self-fulfilling cycle of doubt and disaster.
  • Since boldness is a learned response, it is also one that you learn to control and utilize at will.
  • Timidity has no place in the realm of power; you will often benefit, however, by being able to feign it. You are luring people in with your show of shyness, all the better to pounce on them boldly later.

LAW 29: PLAN ALL THE WAY TO THE END
  • Help determine the future by thinking far ahead.
  • Improvisation will only bring you as far as the next crisis.
  • A real man of power would have had the prudence to see the dangers in the distance.
  • Foresee the future with as much clarity as the gods on Mount Olympus, who look through the clouds and see the ends of all things.
  • Cardinal Richelieu: "Experience shows that, if one foresees from far away the designs to be undertaken, one can act with speed when the moment comes to execute them."
  • The ability to ignore immediate dangers and pleasures translates into power. It is the power of being able to overcome the natural human tendency to react to things as they happen, and instead to train oneself to step back, imagining the larger things taking shape beyond one's immediate vision.
  • "The most ordinary cause of people's mistakes," Cardinal de Retz later wrote, "is their being too much frightened at the present danger, and not enough so at that which is remote."
  • So much of power is not what you do but what you do not do.
  • The ending is everything.
  • Your conclusion must be crystal clear, and you must keep it constantly in mind.

LAW 30: MAKE YOUR ACCOMPLISHMENTS SEEM EFFORTLESS
  • When you act, act effortlessly, as if you could do much more.
  • Teach no one your tricks or they will be used against you.
  • ...unable to endure the affectation and effort it inadvertently revealed.
  • ...and noticed how it called no attention to the manner in which Rikyu had accomplished it, but only to the polite gesture itself.
  • ...looked contrived.
  • [Houdini] had never looked concerned, had shown no sign of doubt.
  • Keep the extent of your abilities unknown.
  • As a person of power, you must research and practice endlessly before appearing in public.
  • Baldessare Castiglione: "Practice in all things a certain nonchalance which conceals all artistry and makes whatever one says or does seem uncontrived and effortless."
  • ... "whereas ... to labour at what one is doing and ... to make bones over it, shows an extreme lack of grace and causes everything, whatever it is worth, to be discounted."
  • [Seeing people trying so hard] makes us uncomfortable.
  • Avoid the temptation of showing how clever you areit is far more clever to conceal the mechanisms of your cleverness.
  • [There is another reason for concealing your shortcuts and tricks:] When you let this information out, you give people ideas they can use against you.
  • The more mystery surrounds your actions, the more awesome your power seems.
  • Because you achieve your accomplishments with grace and ease, people believe that you could always do more if you tried harder. This elicits not only admiration but a touch of fear.
  • Keep others at a distance and they will only see the ease with which you move.
  • Baldassare Castiglione: "For whatever action [nonchalance] accompanies, no matter how trivial it is, it not only reveals the skill of the person doing it but also very often causes it to be considered far greater than it really is."
  • The secrecy with which you surround your actions must seem lighthearted in spirit.
  • As long as the partial disclosure of tricks and techniques is carefully planned, rather than the result of an uncontrollable need to blab, it is the ultimate in cleverness.

LAW 31: CONTROL THE OPTIONS: GET OTHERS TO PLAY WITH THE CARDS YOU DEAL
  • The best deceptions are the ones that seem to give the other person a choice: your victims feel they are in control.
  • The main weakness of a show of force is that it stirs up resentment and eventually leads to a response that eats at your authority.
  • Withdrawal and disappearance are classic ways of controlling the options. You give people a sense of how things will fall apart without you, and you offer them a "choice".
  • Whenever people feel they have a choice, they walk into your trap that much more easily.
  • The illusion of choice, married to the possibility of future goof fortune, will lure the most stubborn sucker into your glittering web.
  • This unwillingness to probe the smallness of our choices stems from the fact that too much freedom creates a kind of anxiety.
  • Setting up a narrow range of choices, then, should always be a part of your deceptions.
  • [Color the choices for] an insecure master.
  • [With willful people] push them to "choose what you want them to do by appearing to advocate the opposite.
  • [Altering the playing field] is effective against those who resist at all costs.
  • [With weak people] work on their emotionsuse fear and terror to propel them into action.
  • [The horns of a dilemma is a way to narrow the options], a classic trial lawyer's technique: the lawyer leads the witnesses to decide between two possible explanations of an event, both of which poke a hole in their story. They have to answer the lawyer's questions, but whatever they say they hurt themselves. As they wriggle between the horns of the dilemma, they dig their own grave.
  • This tactic works best, then, for those whose power is fragile.
  • Even as a general rule, however, it is rarely wise to be seen as exerting power directly and forcefully.
  • There are situations in which it is to your advantage to allow your rivals a large degree of freedom ... you give yourself rich opportunities to gather information.

LAW 32: PLAY TO PEOPLE'S FANTASIES
  • There is great power in tapping into the fantasies of the masses.
  • The reality was too ugly and the solution too painful. ... Fantasy was easy to understand and infinitely more palatable.
  • To gain power, you must be a source of pleasure for those around you

    and pleasure comes from playing to people's fantasies.
  • [Never be distracted by people's glamorous portraits of themselves and their lives;] search and dig for what really imprisons them. Once you find that, you have the magical key that will put great power in your hands.
  • Promise a great and total change and you will have followers.
  • Another form of the fantasy of the exotic is simply the hope for relief from boredom.
  • Joseph Weil: "A lie is more palatable. The most detested person in the world is the one who always tells the truth, who never romances."
  • Never make the mistake of imagining that fantasy is always fantastical.
  • [Reality itself is sometimes so theatrical and stylized that] fantasy becomes a desire for simple things.

LAW 33: DISCOVER EACH MAN'S THUMBSCREW
  • That weakness is usually an insecurity, an uncontrollable emotion or need.
  • Those who disguise them are often the ones most effectively undone through that one chink in their armour.
  • A person's weakness is revealed by seemingly unimportant gestures and passing words.
  • Everyday conversation supplies the richest mine of weaknesses.
  • If you suspect that someone has a particular soft spot, probe for it indirectly.
  • An overt trait often conceals its opposite.
  • By probing beyond appearances, you will often find people's weaknesses in the opposite of the qualities they reveal to you.
  • The insecure and the unhappy are the people least able to disguise their weaknesses. The ability to fill their emotional voids is a great source of power.
  • Remember: when entering the court, find the weak link.
  • When dealing with helpless children who cannot make decisions, play on their weakness and push them into bold ventures.
  • Their neediness is the groove in which you place your thumbnail and turn them at will.
  • Always look for passions and obsessions that cannot be controlled. The stronger the passion, the more vulnerable the person.
  • [Look at the part of a person that is most visibletheir greed, their lust, their intense fear. These are the emotions they cannot conceal, and over which they have the least control.] And what people cannot control, you can control for them.
  • People's need for validation and recognition, their need to feel important, is the best kind of weakness to exploit.
  • All you have to do is find ways to make people feel better. ... you are filling a positive role, giving them what they cannot get on their own.
  • Never take appearances at face value.
  • In your games of power you always look several steps ahead and plan accordingly.
  • Know the limits to this game, then, and never get carried away by your control over your victims.

LAW 34: BE ROYAL IN YOUR OWN FASHION: ACT LIKE A KING TO BE TREATED LIKE ONE
  • The way you carry yourself will often determine how you are treated.
  • Baltasar Gracian: "Desist from unseemly conduct, rather out of respect for your own virtue."
  • The aristocracy could not endure the sight of an unkingly king.
  • By asking for the moon, he had instantly raised his own status ... he must somehow be worth it.
  • Nor was his confidence the aggressive, ugly self-promotion of an upstart

    it was a quiet and calm self-assurance.
  • It is within your power to set your own price, How you carry yourself reflects what you think of yourself.
  • Friedrich Nietzsche: "In the actual act of deception they are overcome by belief in themselves: it is this which then speaks so miraculously and compelling to those around them."
  • One way to emphasize your difference is to always act with dignity, no matter the circumstance.
  • [...he maintained his dignified pose] ... This elevated him while making his opponents look even uglier. Dignity, in fact, is invariably the mask to assume under difficult circumstances.
  • The greatest emperors crown themselves.
  • You are radiating confidence, not arrogance or disdain.

LAW 35: MASTER THE ART OF TIMING
  • Hurrying betrays a lack of control over yourself, and over time.
  • First, it is critical to recognize the spirit of the times. You must always work with the times, anticipate twists and turns, and never miss the boat.
  • Second, recognizing the prevailing winds does not necessarily mean running with them.
  • Napoleon Bonaparte: "Space we can recover, time never."
  • Since we have constructed the concept of time, we are also able to mold it to some degree, to play tricks with it.
  • Sometimes not acting in the face of danger is your best move

    you wait, you deliberately slow down. As time passes it will eventually present opportunities you had not imagined.
  • If you let them rush headlong into trouble while you stand back and wait, you will soon find ripe moments to intervene and pick up the pieces.
  • People who lack the time to think will make mistakesso set their deadlines for them.
  • The deadline, then, is a powerful tool.
  • Creating suspense brings time to a terrifying pause.
  • Use speed to paralyze your opponent, cover up any mistakes you might make, and impress people with your aura of authority and finality.
  • Your mastery of timing can really only be judged by how you work with end timehow you quickly change the pace and bring things to a swift and definitive conclusion.

LAW 36: DISDAIN THINGS YOU CANNOT HAVE: IGNORING THEM IS THE BEST REVENGE
  • The less interest you reveal, the more superior you seem.
  • Remember: you choose to let things bother you.
  • What you do not react to cannot drag you down in futile engagement.
  • By ignoring people you cancel them out. This unsettles and infuriates thembut since they have no dealings with you, there is nothing they can do.
  • Uncontrollable desire makes you seem weak, unworthy, pathetic.
  • By paying undue attention to a puny enemy, you look puny.
  • It is tempting to want to fix our mistakes, but the harder we try, the worse we often make them.
  • When you yourself have committed a blunder, the best response is often to make less of your mistake by treating it lightly.
  • [He] signaled his own worth and power by treating his mistake with a touch of disdain.
  • Never show that something has affected you, or that you are offendedthat only shows you have acknowledged a problem.
  • Baltasar Gracian: "There is no revenge like oblivion, for it is the entombment of the unworthy in the dust of their own nothingness."
  • While you show contempt publicly you will also need to keep an eye on the problem privately, monitoring its status and making sure it goes away.
  • Learn to distinguish between the potentially disastrous and the mildly irritating, the buisance that will quietly go away on its own.

LAW 37: CREATE COMPELLING SPECTACLES
  • Dazzled by appearances, no one will notice what you are really doing.
  • Images are an extremely effective shortcut: bypassing the head, the seat of doubt and resistance, they aim straight for the heart.
  • Establish a trademark like these [insignia and associated colours] to set yourself apart.
  • Find an image or symbol from the past that will neatly fit your situation, and put it on your shoulders like a cape.
  • The symbol is a shortcut of expression, containing dozens of meanings in one simple phrase or object.
  • Never neglect the way you arrange things visually.
  • The eye predominates.
  • Most effective of all is a new combination

    a fusion of images and symbols that have not been seen together before, but that through their association clearly demonstrate your new idea, message, religion.
  • Visual images often appear in a sequence, and the order in which they appear creates a symbol. The first to appear, for instance, symbolizes power; the image at the centre seems to have central importance.
  • Use the power of symbols as a way to rally, animate, and unite your troops or team.
  • Always find a symbol to represent your cause

    the more emotional associations, the better.
  • The visual is the easiest route to their hearts.

LAW 38: THINK AS YOU LIKE BUT BEHAVE LIKE OTHERS
  • Ovid: "He lives well who conceals himself well."
  • People who flaunt their infatuation with a different culture are expressing a disdain and contempt for their own.
  • Flaunting your pleasure in alien ways of thinking and acting will reveal a different motive

    to demonstrate your superiority over your fellows.
  • He would not renounce his beliefs, yet he knew he had to disguise their outward appearance.
  • An old but powerful trick: you pretend to disagree with dangerous ideas, but in the course of your disagreement you give those ideas expression and exposure. You seem to conform to the prevailing orthodoxy, but those who know will understand the irony involved. You are protected.
  • There is no point in making a display of your dangerous ideas if they only bring you suffering and persecution. Martyrdom serves no purposebetter to live on in an oppressive world, even to thrive in it. Meanwhile find a way to express your ideas subtly for those who understand you.
  • We believe what we want to, then, but on the outside we wear a mask.
  • If you stick to conventional appearances in public few will believe you think differently in private.
  • When you go into society, leave behind your own ideas and values, and put on the mask that is most appropriate for the group in which you find yourself.
  • People will swallow the bait because it flatters them to believe that you share their ideas.
  • The only time it is worth standing out is when you already stand outwhen you have achieved an unshakable position of power.

LAW 39: STIR UP WATERS TO CATCH FISH
  • You must always stay calm and objective.
  • Find the chink in their vanity through which you can rattle them and you hold the strings.
  • Talleyrand had essentially humiliated him by maintaining his composure and dignity.
  • This is the problem with the angry response. At first it may strike fear and terror, but only in some, and as the days pass and the storm clears, other responses emerge.
  • To show your frustration is to show that you have lost your power to shape events; it is the helpless action of the child who resorts to a hysterical fit to get his way. The powerful never reveal this kind of weakness.
  • Remember: tantrums neither intimidate nor inspire loyalty.
  • When the waters are still, your opponents have the time and space to plot actions that they will initiate and control. ... get them to act before they are ready... The best way to do this is to play on uncontrollable emotions.
  • We have to realize that nothing in the social realm, and in the game of power, is personal.
  • [If a person explodes with anger at you (and it seems out of proportion to what you did to them),] You must remind yourself that it is not exclusively directed at youdo not be so vain. The cause is much larger, goes way back in time, involves dozens of prior hurts, and is actually not worth the bother to understand.
  • Anger only cuts off our options, and the powerful cannot thrive without options.
  • Once you train yourself not to take matters personally ... Now you can play with the emotional responses of other people.
  • In the face of a hot-headed enemy, finally, an excellent response is no response.
  • Choose carefully whom you bait, and never stir up the sharks.

LAW 40: DESPISE THE FREE LUNCH
  • What has worth is worth paying for. By paying your own way you stay clear of gratitude, guilt, and deceit.
  • Be lavish with your money and keep it circulating, for generosity is a sign and a magnet for power.
  • What is offered for free or at bargain rates often comes with a psychological price tag.
  • Tight purse strings are unattractive.
  • [Money] is a vessel of politeness and sociability.
  • Greedy fish are the con artist's bread and butter.
  • Sadists seem to think that paying for something gives them the right to torture and abuse the seller.
  • Aesop: "The worth of money is not in its possession, but in its use."
  • Michihiro Matsumoto: "'Nothing is more costly that something given free of charge.'" 
  • Never let lust for money lure you out of the protective and enduring fortress of real power. Make power your goal and money will find its way to you.
  • Finally, too, posterity had the last word: Vanbrugh is recognized as a genius while the duchess is forever remembered for her consummate cheapness.
  • The powerful must have grandeur of spirit

    they can never reveal any pettiness.
  • What money should buy is not lifeless objects but power over people.
  • To give a gift is to imply that you and the recipient are equals at the very least.
  • Instead of being indebted to the powerful, he made the powerful indebted to him.
  • If you accept the inferior position because you have no fortune yet, you may find yourself in it forever.
  • Strategic generosity in a nutshellthe ability to be flexible with your wealth, putting it to work, not to buy objects, but to win people's hearts.
  • There is no better use of strategic generosity than that of distracting attention from an unsavory reality and wrapping oneself in the mantle of art or religion.
  • Facing hardened earth in which nothing could take root, Louis loosened the soil before he planted his seeds.
  • We see the giving of a gift as a sign of love and approval. And that emotional element never goes away.
  • To succeed best, the gift should come out of the blue.
  • [It should be remarkable for ... being preceded by a cold shoulder from the giver.
  • The more your gifts and your acts of generosity play with sentiment, the more powerful they are.
  • The object or concept that plays with a charged emotion or hits a chord of sentiment has more power than the money you squander on an expensive yet lifeless present.
  • When you insist on paying less ... the cheap impression you create will cost you in reputation.
  • Money gives its possessor the ability to give pleasure to others. The more you can do this, the more you attract admiration.
  • Guillaume de Lorris: "Whoever wants to have friends must not love his possessions but must acquire friends by means of fair gifts."
  • Bait your deceptions with the possibility of easy money. People are essentially lazy, and want wealth to fall in their lap rather than to work for it. For a small sum, sell them advice on how to make millions.
  • Greed does not pay.

LAW 41: AVOID STEPPING INTO A GREAT MAN'S SHOES
  • What happens first always appears better and more original than what comes after.
  • As Machiavelli states, necessity is what impels men to take action, and once the necessity is gone, only rot and decay are left.
  • Power depends on appearing larger than other people.
  • Be merciless with the past, then, ... with your own earlier achievements. Only the weak rest on their laurels and dote on past triumphs.
  • The past also weighs the hero down with an inheritance that he is terrified of losing, making him timid and cautious.
  • Perhaps the simplest way to escape the shadow of the past is simply to belittle it, playing on the timeless antagonism between the generations, stirring up the young against the old.
  • Never let yourself be seen as following your predecessor's path. If you do you will never surpass him.
  • Hunt out the vacuumsthose areas in culture that have been left vacant and in which you can become the first and principal figure to shine.
  • [Pericles] would make a name for himself where no shadows could obscure his presence.
  • [Diego de Velazquez knew he could not compete in refinement and technique with the great Renaissance painters who had come before him.] Instead he chose to work in a style that by the standards of the time seemed coarse and rough, in a way that had never been seen before. And in this style he excelled.
  • So much power to be gained from entering vacuums and voids.
  • Those who follow are taken for imitators. No matter how much they sweat, they will never shed that burden.
  • The shadow of a great predecessor could be used to advantage if it is chosen as a trick, a tactic that can be discarded once it has brought you power.
  • Making a display of doing things differently from your predecessor can make you seem childish and in fact out of control, unless your actions have a logic of their own.
  • Keep an eye on those rising from below, and never give them the chance to do the same to you.

LAW 42: STRIKE THE SHEPHERD AND THE SHEEP WILL SCATTER
  • Trouble can often be traced to a single strong individual. If you allow such people room to operate, others will succumb to their influence.
  • Neutralize their influence by isolating or banishing them.
  • First, recognise troublemakers by their overbearing presence, or by their complaining nature.
  • Do not attack them, whether directly or indirectly, for they are poisonous in nature and will work underground to destroy you.
  • The oldest card in the bookthreatening with one hand while holding out the olive branch with the other.
  • One resolute person, one disobedient spirit, can turn a flock of sheep into a den of lions. So he isolated the troublemaker.
  • People will congregate around a single strong personality.
  • Once you recognize who the stirrer is, pointing it out to other people will accomplish a great deal.
  • Remember: stirrers thrive by hiding in the group, disguising their actions among the reactions of others. Render their actions visible and they lose their power to upset.
  • Presence and appearance have a great import in the game of power.
  • When trying to seduce people, it is often wise to isolate them from their usual social context.
  • Aim at the leaders, bring them down, and look for the endless opportunities in the confusion that will ensue.
  • And so you may often find it better to keep people on your side, where you can watch them, than to risk creating an angry enemy.

LAW 43: WORK ON THE HEARTS AND MINDS OF OTHERS
  • You must seduce others into wanting to move in your direction.
  • It is so infuriating to meet with a person who makes no effort to seduce you or attempt to persuade you.
  • At all times you must attend to those around you, gauging their particular psychology, tailoring your words to what you know will entice and seduce them,
  • To soften them up, alternate harshness with mercy. Play on their basic fears, and also their loves.
  • There is no more infuriating feeling than having your individuality ignored, your own psychology unacknowledged,
  • Be alert to both what separates them from everyone else (their individual psychology) and what they share with everyone else (their basic emotional responses).
  • Aim at the primary emotions

    love, hate, jealousy. Once you move their emotions you have reduced their control, making them more vulnerable to persuasion.
  • All of us share the desire for attachment and belonging. Stir up these emotions and you captivate our hearts.
  • Creating pleasure of any kind, in fact, will usually bring you success, as will allaying fears and providing or promising security.
  • To find the key that will motivate them, first get them to open up. The more they talk, the more they reveal about their likes and dislikesthe handles and levers to move them with,
  • You too must constantly win over more allies on all levels.

LAW 44: DISARM AND INFURIATE WITH THE MIRROR EFFECT
  • [On the Neutralizing Effect] She saw only her own reflected actions, and behind this screen the hero stole up and destroyed her.
  • The Shadow is effective because to follow the movements of others is to gain valuable insights into their habits and routines.
  • [On the Narcissus Effect:] fathom their inmost desires, their values, their tastes, their spirit; and you reflect it back to them, making yourself into a kind of mirror image. Your ability to reflect their psyche gives you great power over them; they may even feel a tinge of love.
  • If you can show you understand another person by reflecting their inmost feelings, they will be entranced and disarmed.
  • [In the Moral Effect,] you mirror what other people have done to you, and do so in a way that makes them realize you are doing to them exactly what they did to you. And as they feel the result of their actions mirrored back at them, they realize in the profoundest sesne how they hurt or punish others with their unsocial behaviour. ... It can often be to your advantage to reflect it back to them in a way that makes them feel guilty about it.
  • Fouche gained power and flourished in a period of great tumult by mirroring those around him.
  • And the mirror saves you mental energy: simply echoing the moves of others gives you the space you need to develop a strategy of your own.
  • He would seduce them with the idea that their values were superior to everyone else's.
  • The Purloined Letter, by Edgar Allan Poe: "When I wish to find out how wise, or how stupid, or how good, or how wicked is any one, or what are his thoughts at the moment, I fashion the expression of my face, as accurately as possible, in accordance with the expression of his, and then wait to see what thoughts or sentiments arise in my mind or heart, as if to match or correspond with the expression.
  • By mirroring them, however, you seduce them into a kind of narcissistic rapture: they are gazing at a double of their own soul.
  • The dangers in the promiscuous use of the mirror ... people felt larger, as if their egos had been doubled. But once he left, they felt empty and diminished, and when they saw him mirroring completely different people as totally as he had mirrored them, they felt not just diminished but betrayed.
  • By doubling the tastes and ideals of the target, it shows your attention to his or her psychology, an attention more charming than any aggressive pursuit.
  • When you whine about some insensitivity on their part, they may seem to understand, but inwardly they are untouched and even more resistant. The goal of power is always to lower people's resistance to you.
  • Instead of haranguing people verbally, then, create a kind of mirror of their behaviour.
  • [When you mirror their behaviour] do not be afraid to add a touch of caricature and exaggeration ... and make them see the ridiculousness in their own actions.
  • A metaphor is a kind of mirror to the concrete and real. ...  Direct communication often only heightens their resistance.
  • ...enchanting them by adapting to their taste.
  • ...plumbing the subtle gestures that revealed a hidden desire, then producing that desire's image.
  • Study people's eyes, follow their gestures

    surer barometers of pain and pleasure than any spoken word. Notice and remember the details.
  • The wordless communication, the indirect compliment, contains the most power.
  • If you ever notice people associating you with some past event or person, do everything you can to separate yourrself from that memory and to shatter the reflection.

LAW 45: PREACH THE NEED FOR CHANGE, BUT NEVER REFORM TOO MUCH AT ONCE
  • Too much innovation is traumatic, and will lead to revolt.
  • Make a show of respecting the old way of doing things. If change is necessary, make it feel like a gentle improvement on the past.
  • If reform is necessary, anticipate the reaction against it and find ways to disguise the change and sweeten the poison.
  • Mao made the past seem to envelop and legitimize the Communist cause.
  • Instead of struggling against the past, he turned it to his advantage.
  • When you destroy the familiar you create a void or vacuum; people fear the chaos that will flood to fill it. Borrow the weight and legitimacy from the past, however remote, to create a comforting and familiar presence.
  • The opportunity for change and renewal seduces people to the side of the revolution, but once their enthusiasm fades, which it will, they are left with a certain emptiness. Yearning for the past, they create an opening for it to creep back in.
  • The fact that the past is dead and buried gives you the freedom to reinterpret it. To support your cause, tinker with the facts.
  • Say the right things, make a show of conformity, and meanwhile let your theories do their radical work.
  • Those who finish a revolution are rarely those who start it.
  • Niccolo Machiavelli: "For the great majority of mankind are satisfied with appearances, as though they were realities."
  • The past is a corpse to be used as you see fit.

LAW 46: NEVER APPEAR TOO PERFECT
  • Envy creates silent enemies.
  • Admit to harmless vices, in order to deflect envy and appear more human and approachable.
  • La Rochefoucauld: "It takes great talent and skill to conceal one's talent and skill."
  • Dampen your brilliance occasionally, purposefully revealing a defect, weakness, or anxiety, or attributing your success to luck.
  • Cosimo Medici: "Envy is a weed that should not be watered."
  • The insidious envy of the masses can actually be deflected quite easily: appear as one of them in style and values."
  • Make a display of deferring to others, as if they were more powerful than you.
  • The fool dares the gods of envy by flaunting his victories. The master of power understands that the appearance of superiority over others is inconsequential next to the reality of it.
  • Read between the lines of their criticisms, their little sarcastic remarks, the signs of backstabbing, the excessive praise that is preparing you for a fall, the resentful look in the eye.
  • Subtly emphasize how lucky you have been, to make your happiness seem more attainable to other people, and the need for envy less acute. But be careful not to affect a false modesty that people can easily see through.
  • People cannot envy the power that they themselves have given a person who does not seem to desire it.
  • Disguise your power as a kind of self-sacrifice rather than a source of happiness and you make it seem less enviable.
  • Excessive praise is an almost sure sign that the person praising you envies you.
  • Do not try to help or do favors for those who envy you; they will think you are condescending to them.
  • As Thoreau once said, "Envy is the tax which all distinction must pay."

LAW 47: DO NOT GO PAST THE MARK YOU AIMED FOR; IN VICTORY, LEARN WHEN TO STOP
  • In the heat of victory, arrogance and overconfidence can push you past the goal you had aimed for.
  • "Nothing can be more important than to close your examination with a triumph."

    The Art of Cross-Examination, Francis L. Wellman, 1913.
  • In the realm of power, you must be guided by reason.
  • When you attain success, step back.
  • When you gain victory, understand the part played by the particular circumstances of a situation, and never simply repeat the same actions again and again.
  • Success makes you less able to adapt to circumstance.
  • Bad luck teaches valuable lessons about patience, timing, and the need to be prepared for the worst.
  • If you prepare for the fall, it is less likely to ruin you when it happens.
  • When you serve a master, it is often wise to measure your victories carefully, letting him get the glory and never making him easy.
  • Leave momentum for those who have nothing better to rely upon.

LAW 48: ASSUME FORMLESSNESS
  • Keep yourself adaptable and on the move.
  • Never bet on stability or lasting order.
  • People weighed down by a system and inflexible ways of doing things cannot move fast, cannot sense or adapt to change.
  • Learn to move fast and adapt or you will be eaten.
  • In this fluid format of warfare, you value movement over position.
  • Nothing will infuriate and disorient them more than formlessness.
  • The first psychological requirement of formlessness is to train yourself to take nothing personally. Never show any defensiveness. When you act defensive, you show your emotions, revealing a clear format. Your opponents will realize they have hit a nerve, an Achilles' heel. And they will hit it again and again.
  • Let no one know what gets to you, or where your weaknesses lie. Make your face a formless mask and you will infuriate and disorient.
  • Conform on the surface, while breaking down your enemy from the inside.
  • The power of formlessness

    it gives the aggressor nothing to react against, nothing to hit.
  • The need for formlessness becomes greater the older we get.
  • Finally, learning to adapt to each new circumstance means seeing events through your own eyes, and often ignoring the advice that people constantly peddle your way. It means that ultimately you must throw out the laws that others preach, and the books they write to tell you what to do.
  • Rely too much on other people's ideas and you end up taking a former not of your own making.
  • When you play with formlessness, keep on top of the process and keep your long-term strategy in mind.