48 Laws of Power by Robert Greene — Notes

Sohil Gupta

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Jul 7, 2020

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1. Men are more ready to repay an injury than a benefit, because gratitude is a burden and revenge a pleasure.
2. The wise man profits more from his enemies, than a fool from his friends.
   Only gods and the dead can seem perfect with impunity.
3. A greedy man and an envious man met a king. The king said to them, “One of you may ask something of me and I will give it to him, provided I give twice as much to the other. ” The envious person did not want to ask first for he was envious of his companion who would receive twice as much, and the greedy man did not want to ask first since he wanted everything that was to be had. Finally the greedy one pressed the envious one to be the first to make the request. So the envious person asked the king to pluck out one of his eyes.
4. Choose the most innocent victim possible as sacrificial scapegoat, to deliver bad news. Be careful, never to make him a martyr.
5. Always be a messenger of good news, never deliver unpleasant news yourself. By doing first, you win favor, by doing latter, you deflect ill-will.
6. Important affairs require rewards and punishments. Let only the good come from you, and evil from others. — Baltasar Gracian
7. If victim appears too weak, and punishment too cruel, you’ll end up victim of your own device. Sometimes, you should find a more powerful scapegoat, one who’ll elicit less sympathy in the long run.
8. All men make mistakes, but the wise ones conceal their blunders, while fools make them public.
9. “Never compete with someone who has nothing to lose.” ― Baltasar Gracián
10. “Life is a warfare against the malice of others.” ― Baltasar Gracián
11. Be effortless.
12. When dependence disappears, so does civility and decency, and then respect. Keep hope alive, but never satisfied.
13. Learn to get others do the world for you.
14. “Ascend a step to choose a friend, descend a step to choose a wife,”
15. “Knowledge without courage is sterile.” ― Baltasar Gracián
16. “When desire dies, fear is born” ― Baltasar Gracián
17. “Better mad with the rest of the world than wise alone.” ― Baltasar Gracián
18. Folly consists not in committing Folly, but in being incapable of concealing it. All men make mistakes, but the wise conceal the blunders they have made, while fools make them public. Reputation depends more on what is hidden than on what is seen. If you can’t be good, be careful.”
    ― Baltasar Gracián
19. “Do not enter where too much is anticipated. It is the misfortune of the over-celebrated that they cannot measure up to excessive expectations. The actual can never attain the imagined: for to think perfection is easy, but to embody it is most difficult. The imagination weds the wish, and together they always conjure up more than reality can furnish. For however great may be a person’s virtues, the will never measure up to what was imagined. When people see themselves cheated in their extravagant anticipations, they turn more quickly to disparagement than to praise. Hope is a great falsifier of the truth; the intelligence put her right by seeing to it that the fruit is superior to its appetite. You will make a better exit when the actual transcends the imagined, and is more than was expected.”
    ― Baltasar Gracián
20. “It requires as much caution to tell the truth as to conceal it.”
    ― Baltasar Gracián
21. “We have eyelids but not earlids, for the ears are the portals of learning, and Nature wanted to keep them wide open.”
    ― Baltasar Gracián
22. “Attempt easy tasks as if they were difficult, and difficult as if they were easy; in the one case that confidence may not fall asleep, in the other that it may not be dismayed.”
    ― Baltasar Gracián
23. “At 20 a man is a peacock, at 30 a lion, at 40 a camel, at 50 a serpent, at 60 a dog, at 70 an ape, and at 80 nothing”
    ― Baltasar Gracián
24. “Don’t take the wrong side of an argument just because your opponent has taken the right side.”
    ― Baltasar Gracián
25. “You should therefore never reveal what causes you pain or pleasure, so that the former may quickly end and the latter long continue.”
    ― Baltasar Gracián
26. “Not all were born into a period worthy of them.”
    ― Baltasar Gracián
27. “Avoid outshining the master. All superiority is odious, but the superiority of a subject over his prince is not only stupid, it is fatal. This is a lesson that the stars in the sky teach us — they may be related to the sun, and just as brilliant, but they never appear in her company.”
    ― Baltasar Gracián
28. “Be a combination of a dove and the serpent; not a monster, but a prodigy.”
    ― Baltasar Gracián
29. “Man’s life is militia against man’s malice.”
    ― Baltasar Gracián
30. “The most and best of us depend on others; we have to live either among friends or among enemies.”
    ― Baltasar Gracián
31. “When you counsel someone, you should appear to be reminding him of something he had forgotten, not of the light he was unable to see.”
    ― Baltasar Gracián
32. “Many people spend time studying the properties of animals or herbs; how much more important it would be to study those of people, with whom we must live or die!”
    ― Baltasar Gracián
33. “Respect yourself is you would have others respect you.”
    ― Baltasar Gracián
34. “He that can live alone resembles the brute beast in nothing, the sage in much and God in everything. cxxxviii”
    ― Baltasar Gracián
35. “Be slow in enjoyment, quick at work, for men see work ended with pleasure, pleasure ended with regret. clxxv”
    ― Baltasar Gracián
36. “At twenty the will rules; at thirty the intellect; at forty the judgment.”
    ― Baltasar Gracián
37. “Life doesn’t depend on any one opinion, any one custom, or any one century.”
    ― Baltasar Gracián
38. “Many owe their greatness to their enemies. Flattery is fiercer than hatred, for hatred corrects the faults flattery had disguised.”
    ― Baltasar Gracián
39. “a man is judged by his friends, for there was never agreement between wise men and fools.”
    ― Baltasar Gracián
40. “Moderation is necessary even in our desire for knowledge so as not to know things badly.”
    ― Baltasar Gracián
41. “Freedom is more precious than any gifts for which you may be tempted to give it up.”
    ― Baltasar Gracián
42. “Worries die away before a man who asserts himself.”
    ― Baltasar Gracián
43. “A man should not employ all his capacity and power at once and on every occasion. Even in knowledge there should be a rearguard, so that your resources are doubled. One must always have something to resort to when there is fear of a defeat. The reserve is of more importance than the attacking force: for it is distinguished for valour and reputation.”
    ― Baltasar Gracián
44. “a misfortune cannot surprise a man who has already feared it.”
    ― Baltasar Gracián
45. “When you are on the way to fortune associate with the eminent; when arrived, with the mediocre.”
    ― Baltasar Gracián
46. “it’s better to have a dispute with honourable people than to have a victory over dishonourable ones. You cannot treat with the ruined, for they have no hostages for rectitude. With them there is no true friendship, and their agreements are not binding, however stringent they may appear, because they have no feeling of honour. Never have to do with such men, for if honour does not restrain a man, virtue will not, since honour is the throne of rectitude. cxvii”
    ― Baltasar Gracián
47. “Let the first impulse pass. Wait for the second.”
    ― Baltasar Gracián
48. “Think with the Few and speak with the Many.”
    ― Baltasar Gracián
49. When you meet a swordsman, pull out your sword. Never recite poetry to one who is not a poet.
50. The highest form of power is the ability to distinguish between a wolf and a lamb, the foxes from hares, the hawks from vultures.
51. Avoid Arrogant and proud man. Any perceived slight will lead to vengeance of overwhelming violence.
52. Avoid hopelessly insecure man. His attack is less violent than arrogant/proud, but the’ll attack you in bites and it’ll take forever for you to notice, and he’ll nibble you to death.
53. Avoid Mr. Suspicion. He sees worst in other people, and always suspects everyone is after him. He’s least dangerous, easy to deceive. Play on his suspicion to get him to turn against other people easily.
54. The serpent with long memory. He’ll calculate and wait to attack. Either crush him completely, or get him out of sight.
55. Plain, unassuming and unintelligent man. He’s a lot harder to deceive. The danger with such a man is not that he’ll harm you or seek revenge, but merely waste your time, energy, resources, and even your sanity in trying to deceive him.
56. Wrongs are often forgiven, but contempt never is. Our pride remembers it forever.
57. Lion despise the weak, and yield to the strong.
58. All people have insecurities, and often the best way to deceive a sucker is to play upon his insecurities.
59. If you practice deception or trickery of any sort, study your mark well. Some people’s insecurity and ego fragility cannot tolerate the slightest offense. To see if you are dealing with such a type, test them first — make, say, a mild joke at their expense. A confident person will laugh; an overly insecure one will react as if personally insulted. If you suspect you are dealing with this type, find another victim.
60. A man who is of little importance and means today can be a person of power tomorrow. We forget a lot in our lives, but we rarely forget an insult.
61. There is nothing to be gained by insulting a person unnecessarily. Swallow the impulse to offend, even if the other person seems weak. The satisfaction is meager compared to the danger that someday he or she will be in a position to hurt you.
62. Humans are creatures of habit with an insatiable need to see familiarity in other people’s actions. Your predictability gives them a sense of control. Turn the tables: Be deliberately unpredictable. Behavior that seems to have no consistency or purpose will keep them off-balance, and they will wear themselves out trying to explain your moves. Taken to an extreme, this strategy can intimidate and terrorize.
63. A person of power instills a kind of fear by deliberately unsettling those around him to keep the initiative on his side. You sometimes need to strike without warning, to make others tremble when they least expect it. It is a device that the powerful have used for centuries.

LAW 37 CREATE COMPELLING SPECTACLES

1. Striking imagery and grand symbolic gestures create the aura of power — everyone responds to them. Stage spectacles for those around you, then, full of arresting visuals and radiant symbols that heighten your presence. Dazzled by appearances, no one will notice what you are really doing.
2. People do not always want words, or rational explanations, or demonstrations of the powers of science; they want an immediate appeal to their emotions.
3. The simpler the spectacle the better
4. Your search for power depends on shortcuts.
5. You must always circumvent people’s suspicions, their perverse desire to resist your will
6. Images are an extremely effective shortcut: Bypassing the head, the seat of doubt and resistance, they aim straight for the heart.
7. Overwhelming the eyes, they create powerful associations, bringing people together and stirring their emotions.
8. Symbolism appears as a sort of short cut of thought.
9. Instead of looking for the relation between two things by following the hidden detours of their causal connexions, thought makes a leap and discovers their relation not in the connexion of cause and effects, but in a connexion of signification.
10. Find an image or symbol from the past that will neatly fit your situation, and put it on your shoulders like a cape. It will make you seem larger than life.
11. Using words to plead your case is risky business: Words are dangerous instruments, and often go astray. The words people use to persuade us virtually invite us to reflect on them with words of our own; we mull them over, and often end up believing the opposite of what they say. (That is part of our perverse nature.) It also happens that words offend us, stirring up associations unintended by the speaker.
12. The visual, on the other hand, short-circuits the labyrinth of words. It strikes with an emotional power and immediacy that leave no gaps for reflection and doubt. Like music, it leaps right over rational, reasonable thoughts.
13. Words put you on the defensive. If you have to explain yourself your power is already in question. The image, on the other hand, imposes itself as a given. It discourages questions, creates forceful associations, resists unintended interpretations, communicates instantly, and forges bonds that transcend social differences. Words stir up arguments and divisions; images bring people together. They are the quintessential instruments of power.
14. The symbol has the same force, whether it is visual (the statue of Diana) or a verbal description of something visual (the words “the Sun King”). The symbolic object stands for something else, something abstract (such as the image “Diana” standing for chastity). The abstract concept — purity, patriotism, courage, love — is full of emotional and powerful associations. The symbol is a shortcut of expression, containing dozens of meanings in one simple phrase or object.
15. The symbol of the Sun King, as explained by Louis XIV, can be read on many layers, but the beauty of it is that its associations required no explanation, spoke immediately to his subjects, distinguished him from all other kings, and conjured up a kind of majesty that went far beyond the words themselves. The symbol contains untold power.
16. The first step in using symbols and images is to understand the primacy of sight among the senses. Before the Renaissance, it has been argued, sight and the other senses — taste, touch, and so on — operated on a relatively equal plane. Since then, however, the visual has come to dominate the others, and is the sense we most depend on and trust.
17. The truth is generally seen, rarely heard. — Baltasar Gracian
18. Never neglect the way you arrange things visually. Factors like color, for example, have enormous symbolic resonance.
19. Red color created a sense of urgency, power, and good fortune.
20. If you use “gold” in the title of anything you are trying to sell, for example, print it in gold. Since the eye predominates, people will respond more to the color than to the word.
21. The visual contains great emotional power.
22. Find and associate yourself with the images and symbols that will communicate in this immediate way today, and you will have untold power.
23. 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 center seems to have central importance.
24. Always find a symbol to represent your cause — the more emotional associations, the better.
25. The best way to use images and symbols is to organize them into a grand spectacle that awes people and distracts them from unpleasant realities. This is easy to do: People love what is grand, spectacular, and larger than life. Appeal to their emotions and they will flock to your spectacle in hordes. The visual is the easiest route to their hearts.
26. The people are always impressed by the superficial appearance of things. The [prince] should, at fitting times of the year, keep the people occupied and distracted with festivities and spectacles. — Niccolo Machiavelli
27. No power is made available by ignoring images and symbols. There is no possible reversal to this law.

LAW 38: THINK AS YOU LIKE BUT BEHAVE LIKE OTHERS

1. If you make a show of going against the times, flaunting your unconventional ideas and unorthodox ways, people will think that you only want attention and that you look down upon them. They will find a way to punish you for making them feel inferior. It is far safer to blend in and nurture the common touch. Share your originality only with tolerant friends and those who are sure to appreciate your uniqueness.
2. THINK WITH THE FEW AND SPEAK WITH THE MANY
3. Truth is for the few, error is as usual as it is vulgar.
4. “He lives well who conceals himself well. — OVID
5. People who flaunt their infatuation with a different culture are expressing a disdain and contempt for their own.
6. They are using the outward appearance of the exotic to separate themselves from the common folk who unques tioningly follow the local customs and laws, and to express their sense of superiority.
7. Wise men [should be] like coffers with double bottoms: Which when others look into, being opened, they see not all that they hold. — SIR WALTER RALEIGH
8. Feign madness — the medieval equivalent of disavowing responsibility for one’s actions, like blaming one’s parents today.
9. Disguise ideas while insinuating them at the same time.
10. 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.
11. It is inevitable in society that certain values and customs lose contact with their original motives and become oppressive. And there will always be those who rebel against such oppression, harboring ideas far ahead of their time.
12. Martyrdom serves no purpose — better 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. Laying your pearls before swine will only bring you trouble.
13. It is also well to avoid correcting people’s mistakes in conversation, however good your intentions may be; for it is easy to offend people, and difficult, if not impossible to mend them. The man who comes into the world with the notion that he is really going to instruct it in matters of the highest importance, may thank his stars if he escapes with a whole skin. — Arthur Shopenhauer
14. For a long time I have not said what I believed, nor do I ever believe what I say, and if indeed sometimes I do happen to tell the truth, I hide it among so many lies that it is hard to find. — Niccolò Machiavelli
15. We all tell lies and hide our true feelings, for complete free expression is a social impossibility.
16. From an early age we learn to conceal our thoughts, telling the prickly and insecure what we know they want to hear, watching carefully lest we offend them.
17. There are people, however, who see such restraints as an intolerable infringement on their freedom, and who have a need to prove the superiority of their values and beliefs. In the end, though, their arguments convince only a few and offend a great deal more. The reason arguments do not work is that most people hold their ideas and values without thinking about them. There is a strong emotional content in their beliefs: They really do not want to have to rework their habits of thinking, and when you challenge them, whether directly through your arguments or indirectly through your behavior, they are hostile.
18. Wise and clever people learn early on that they can display conventional behavior and mouth conventional ideas without having to believe in them. The power these people gain from blending in is that of being left alone to have the thoughts they want to have, and to express them to the people they want to express them to, without suffering isolation or ostracism. Once they have established themselves in a position of power, they can try to convince a wider circle of the correctness of their ideas — perhaps working indirectly.
19. If you stick to conventional appearances in public few will believe you think differently in private.
20. If Machiavelli had had a prince for disciple, the first thing he would have recommended him to do would have been to write a book against Machiavellism — VOLTAIRE
21. Do not give dogs what is holy; and do not throw your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under foot and turn to attack you.
22. The only time it is worth standing out is when you already stand out — when you have achieved an unshakable position of power, and can display your difference from others as a sign of the distance between you.

LAW 39 STIR UP WATERS TO CATCH FISH

1. Anger and emotion are strategically counterproductive. You must always stay calm and objective. But if you can make your enemies angry while staying calm yourself, you gain a decided advantage. Put your enemies off-balance: Find the chink in their vanity through which you can rattle them and you hold the strings.
2. 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.
3. Tantrums neither intimidate nor inspire loyalty. They only create doubts and uneasiness about your power. Exposing your weakness, these stormy eruptions often herald a fall.
4. Anger or hatred should never be shown otherwise than in what you do; and feelings will be all the more effective in action. in so far as you avoid the exhibition of them in any other way. It is only the cold-blooded animals whose bite is poisonous. — ARTHUR SCHOPENHAUER.
5. Stir the waters, force the fish to the surface, get them to act before they are ready, steal the initiative. The best way to do this is to play on uncontrollable emotions — pride, vanity, love, hate.
6. A sovereign should never launch an army out of anger, a leader should never start a war out of wrath — Sun-tzu
7. Petulance is not power, it is a sign of helplessness.
8. People may temporarily be cowed by your tantrums, but in the end they lose respect for you. They also realize they can easily undermine a person with so little self-control.
9. Repression drains us of energy and pushes us into strange behavior. Instead we have to change our perspective: We have to realize that nothing in the social realm, and in the game of power, is personal.
10. Everyone is caught up in a chain of events that long predates the present moment. Our anger often stems from problems in our childhood, from the problems of our parents which stem from their own childhood, on and on.
11. Our anger also has roots in the many interactions with others, the accumulated disappointments and heartaches that we have suffered.
12. Instead of seeing somebody bursting you in anger as a personal grudge, look at the emotional outburst as a disguised power move, an attempt to control or punish you cloaked in the form of hurt feelings and anger.
13. Anger only cuts off our options, and the powerful cannot thrive without options.
14. Once you train yourself not to take matters personally, and to control your emotional responses, you will have placed yourself in a position of tremendous power: Now you can play with the emotional responses of other people.
15. Stir the insecure into action by impugning their manhood, and by dangling the prospect of an easy victory before their faces.
16. With the arrogant too you can appear weaker than you are, taunting them into a rash action.
17. In the face of a hot-headed enemy, finally, an excellent response is no response.
18. Nothing is as infuriating as a man who keeps his cool while others are losing theirs.
19. If your opponent is of a hot temper, try to irritate him. If he is arrogant, try to encourage his egotism…. One who is skilled at making the enemy move does so by creating a situation according to which the enemy will act; he entices the enemy with something he is certain to take. He keeps the enemy on the move by holding out bait and then attacks him with picked troops — Sun-tzu
20. You can bait the powerful and get them to commit and divide their forces as Sun Pin did, but test the waters first. Find the gap in their strength. If there is no gap — if they are impossibly strong — you have nothing to gain and everything to lose by provoking them.
21. Reversal: Choose carefully whom you bait, and never stir up the sharks.
22. Finally there are times when a well-timed burst of anger can do you good, but your anger must be manufactured and under your control. Then you can determine exactly how and on whom it will fall. Never stir up reactions that will work against you in the long run. And use your thunder-bolts rarely, to make them the more intimidating and meaningful. Whether purposefully staged or not, if your outbursts come too often, they will lose their power.

LAW 40 DESPISE THE FREE LUNCH

1. What is offered for free is dangerous-it usually involves either a trick or a hidden obligation. What has worth is worth paying for. By paying your own way you stay clear of gratitude, guilt, and deceit. It is also often wise to pay the full price — there is no cutting corners with excellence. Be lavish with your money and keep it circulating, for generosity is a sign and a magnet for power.
2. What is offered for free or at bargain rates often comes with a psychological price tag — complicated feelings of obligation, compromises with quality, the insecurity those compromises bring, on and on.
3. The powerful learn early to protect their most valuable resources: independence and room to maneuver. By paying the full price, they keep themselves free of dangerous entanglements and worries.
4. Being open and flexible with money also teaches the value of strategic generosity, a variation on the old trick of “giving when you are about to take.” By giving the appropriate gift, you put the recipient under obligation.
5. Generosity softens people up — to be deceived. By gaining a reputation for liberality, you win people’s admiration while distracting them from your power plays. By strategically spreading your wealth, you charm the other courtiers, creating pleasure and making valuable allies.
6. Look at the masters of power — the Caesars, the Queen Elizabeths, the Michelangelos, the Medicis: Not a miser among them
7. The powerful understand that money is psychologically charged, and that it is also a vessel of politeness and sociability. They make the human side of money a weapon in their armory.
8. The Greedy Fish: Greedy fish are the con artist’s bread and butter: Lured by the bait of easy money, they swallow the ruse hook, line, and sinker. They are easy to deceive, for they spend so much time dealing with numbers (not with people) that they become blind to psychology, including their own. Either avoid them before they exploit you or play on their greed to your gain.
9. Sadists seem to think that paying for something gives them the right to torture and abuse the seller.
10. Indiscriminate Givers, are generous because they want to be loved and admired by all. And their generosity is so indiscriminate and needy that it may not have the desired effect: If they give to one and all, why should the recipient feel special?
11. “Nothing is more costly than something given free of charge.”
12. With one exception — death — no lasting change in fortune comes quickly. Sudden wealth rarely lasts, for it is built on nothing solid. 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. Leave El Dorado for suckers and fools.
13. What money should buy is not lifeless objects but power over people.
14. Key property of gift: To give a gift is to imply that you and the recipient are equals at the very least, or that you are the recipient’s superior.
15. A gift also involves an indebtedness or obligation; when friends, for instance, offer you something for free, you can be sure they expect something in return, and that to get it they are making you feel indebted.
16. Money may determine power relationships, but those relationships need not depend on the amount of money you have; they also depend on the way you use it.
17. Powerful people give freely, buying influence rather than things. If you accept the inferior position because you have no fortune yet, you may find yourself in it forever.
18. Transform money into influence.
19. When we are children, all kinds of complicated feelings about our parents center around gifts; we see the giving of a gift as a sign of love and approval. And that emotional element never goes away. The recipients of gifts, financial or otherwise, are suddenly as vulnerable as children, especially when the gift comes from someone in authority. They cannot help opening up; their will is loosened.
20. To succeed best, the gift should come out of the blue. It should be remarkable for the fact that a gift like it has never been given before, or for being preceded by a cold shoulder from the giver. The more often you give to particular people, the blunter this weapon becomes. If they don’t take your gifts for granted, becoming monsters of ingratitude, they will resent what appears to be charity. The sudden, unexpected, one-time gift will not spoil your children; it will keep them under your thumb.
21. Money is never spent to so much advantage as when vou have been cheated out of it; for at one stroke you have purchased prudence — ARTHUR SCHOPENHAUER
22. first, an essential aspect of money: That it is humans who have created it and humans who instill it with meaning and value. Second, with objects as with money, what the courtier most values are the sentiments and emotions embedded in them — these are what make them worth having.
23. The more your gifts and your acts of generosity play with sentiment, the more powerful they are.
24. When you insist on paying less, you may save your five ryo, but the insult you cause and the cheap impression you create will cost you in reputation, which is the thing the powerful prize above all. Learn to pay the full price — it will save you a lot in the end.
25. Money gives its possessor the ability to give pleasure to others. The more you can do this, the more you attract admiration. When you make a horse come out of a gourd, you give the ultimate demonstration of your power.
26. The great man who is a miser is a great fool, and a man in high places can have no vice so harmful as avarice.
27. A miserly man can conquer neither lands nor lordships, for he does not have a plentiful supply of friends with whom he may work his will.
28. Whoever wants to have friends must not love his possessions but must acquire friends by means of fair gifts; for in the same way that the lodestone subtly draws iron to itself, so the gold and silver that a man gives attract the hearts of men.
29. The powerful never forget that what is offered for free is inevitably a trick. Friends who offer favors without asking for payment will later want something far dearer than the money you would have paid them. The bargain has hidden problems, both material and psychological. Learn to pay, then, and to pay well.
30. 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 and that small sum will become a fortune when multiplied by thousands of suckers. Lure people in with the prospect of easy money and you have the room to work still more deceptions on them, since greed is powerful enough to blind your victims to anything. Greed does not pay.

LAW 41 AVOID STEPPING INTO A GREAT MAN’S SHOES

1. What happens first always appears better and more original than what comes after. If you succeed a great man or have a famous parent, you will have to accomplish double their achievements to outshine them. Do not get lost in their shadow, or stuck in a past not of your own making: Establish your own name and identity by changing course. Slay the overbearing father, disparage his legacy, and gain power by shining in your own way.
2. Necessity is what impels men to take action, and once the necessity is gone, only rot and decay are left.
3. After bad weather, good weather must follow, and that during the good weather houses must be built for shelter in times of need. — GIORGIO VASARI
4. The father most often manages to amass his fortune, his kingdom, because he begins with little or nothing. A desperate urge impels him to succeed — he has nothing to lose by cunning and impetuousness, and has no famous father of his own to compete against. This kind of man has reason to believe in himself — to believe that his way of doing things is the best, because, after all, it worked for him.
5. When a man like this has a son, he becomes domineering and oppressive, imposing his lessons on the son, who is starting off life in circumstances totally different from those in which the father himself began. Instead of allowing the son to go in a new direction, the father will try to put him in his own shoes, perhaps secretly wishing the boy will fail. Fathers envy their sons’ youth and vigor, after all, and their desire is to control and dominate. The sons of such men tend to become cowed and cautious, terrified of losing what their fathers have gained.
6. The son will never step out of his father’s shadow unless he adopts the ruthless strategy of Alexander: disparage the past, create your own kingdom, put the father in the shadows instead of letting him do the same to you. If you cannot materially start from ground zero — it would be foolish to renounce an inheritance — you can at least begin from ground zero psychologically, by throwing off the weight of the past and charting a new direction.
7. Be merciless with the past, then — not only with your father and his father but with your own earlier achievements. Only the weak rest on their laurels and dote on past triumphs; in the game of power there is never time to rest.
8. Never let yourself be seen as following your predecessor’s path. If you do you will never surpass him. You must physically demonstrate your difference, by establishing a style and symbolism that sets you apart.
9. You are your own father. Do not let yourself spend years creating yourself only to let your guard down and allow the ghost of the past — father, habit, history — to sneak back in.
10. You must be prepared to return to square one psychologically rather than growing fat and lazy with prosperity.
11. It is an uncommon skill to find a new path for excellence, a modern route to celebrity. There are many roads to singularity, not all of them well traveled. The newest ones can be arduous, but they are often shortcuts to greatness. — Baltasar Gracián
12. If you have the kind of intelligence and instinct that will point you in the right direction, playing the rebel will not be dangerous. But if you are mediocre, you are better off learning from your predecessor’s knowledge and experience, which are based on something real.
13. It is often wise to keep an eye on the young, your future rivals in power. Just as you try to rid yourself of your father, they will soon play the same trick on you, denigrating everything you have accomplished. Just as you rise by rebelling against the past, 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

1. Trouble can often be traced to a single strong individual — the stirrer, the arrogant underling, the poisoner of goodwill. If you allow such people room to operate, others will succumb to their influence. Do not wait for the troubles they cause to multiply, do not try to negotiate with them — they are irredeemable. Neutralize their influence by isolating or banishing them. Strike at the source of the trouble and the sheep will scatter.
2. First, recognize troublemakers by their overbearing presence, or by their complaining nature. Once you spot them do not try to reform them or appease them — that will only make things worse. Do not attack them, whether directly or indirectly, for they are poisonous in nature and will work underground to destroy you. Do as the Athenians did: Banish them before it is too late. Separate them from the group before they become the eye of a whirlpool. Do not give them time to stir up anxieties and sow discontent; do not give them room to move. Let one person suffer so that the rest can live in peace.
3. When the tree falls, the monkeys scatter — Chinese saying
4. THE WOLVES AND THE SHEEP: Once apon a time, the wolves sent an embassy to the sheep, desiring that there might be peace between them for the time to come. “Why,” said they, “should we be for ever waging this deadly strife? Those wicked dogs are the cause of all; they are incessantly barking at us, and provoking us. Send them away, and there will be no longer any obstacle to our eternal friendship and peace.” The silly sheep listened, the dogs were dismissed, and the flock, thus deprived of their best protectors, became an easy prey to their treacherous enemy — FABLES, AESOP, SIXTH CENTURY B.C.
5. Threaten with one hand while holding out the olive branch with the other
6. One resolute person, one disobedient spirit, can turn a flock of sheep into a den of lions.
7. Do not waste your time lashing out in all directions at what seems to be a many-headed enemy. Find the one head that matters — the person with willpower, or smarts, or, most important of all, charisma. Whatever it costs you, lure this person away, for once he is absent his powers will lose their effect. His isolation can be physical (banishment or absence from the court), political (narrowing his base of support), or psychological (alienating him from the group through slander and insinuation). Cancer begins with a single cell; excise it before it spreads beyond cure.
8. Powerful people never waste time. Outwardly they may play along with the game — pretending that power is shared among many — but inwardly they keep their eyes on the inevitable few in the group who hold the cards. These are the ones they work on. When troubles arise, they look for the underlying cause, the single strong character who started the stirring and whose isolation or banishment will settle the waters again.
9. 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.
10. A key element in games of strategy is isolating the enemy’s power. In chess you try to corner the king.
11. It is often better to isolate your enemies than to destroy them — you seem less brutal. The result, though, is the same, for in the game of power, isolation spells death.
12. The most effective form of isolation is somehow to separate your victims from their power base.
13. First, your absence from the court spells danger for you, and you should never leave the scene in a time of turmoil, for your absence can both symbolize and induce a loss of power; second, and on the other hand, luring your enemies away from the court at critical moments is a great ploy.
14. When trying to seduce people, it is often wise to isolate them from their usual social context. Once isolated they are vulnerable to you, and your presence becomes magnified.
15. Con artists often look for ways to isolate their marks from their normal social milieux, steering them into new environments in which they are no longer comfortable. Here they feel weak, and succumb to deception more easily. Isolation, then, can prove a powerful way of bringing people under your spell to seduce or swindle them.
16. Always search out people who hold high positions yet who find themselves isolated on the board. They are like apples falling into your lap, easily seduced, and able to catapult you into power yourself.
17. The reason you strike at the shepherd is because such an action will dishearten the sheep beyond any rational measure.
18. Aim at the leaders, bring them down, and look for the endless opportunities in the confusion that will ensue.
19. Do not waste precious time trying to steal a sheep or two; do not risk life and limb by setting upon the dogs that guard the flock. Aim at the shepherd. Lure him away and the dogs will follow. Strike him down and the flock will scatter — you can pick them off one by one.
20. If you draw a bow, draw the strongest. If you use an arrow, use the longest. To shoot a rider, first shoot his horse. To catch a gang of bandits, first capture its leader. Just as a country has its border, so the killing of men has its limits. If the enemy’s attack can be stopped [with a blow to the head], why have any more dead and wounded than necessary? (Chinese poet Tu Fu, Tang dynasty, eighth century)
21. “Any harm you do to a man should be done in such a way that you need not fear his revenge,” — Machiavelli
22. If you act to isolate your enemy, make sure he lacks the means to repay the favor. If you apply this Law, in other words, apply it from a position of superiority, so that you have nothing to fear from his resentment.
23. You may often find it better to keep people on your side, where you can watch them, than to risk creating an angry enemy. Keeping them close, you can secretly whittle away at their support base, so that when the time comes to cut them loose they will fall fast and hard without knowing what hit them.

LAW 43 WORK ON THE HEARTS AND MINDS OF OTHERS

1. Coercion creates a reaction that will eventually work against you. You must seduce others into wanting to move in your direction. A person you have seduced becomes your loyal pawn. And the way to seduce others is to operate on their individual psychologies and weaknesses. Soften up the resistant by working on their emotions, playing on what they hold dear and what they fear. Ignore the hearts and minds of others and they will grow to hate you.
2. It is so infuriating to meet with a person who makes no effort to seduce you or attempt to persuade you, even if only for the purpose of deception.
3. People seem to feel they are born kings and queens, and that attention is owed them.
4. Pampered and indulged as children, as adults they still believe that everything must come to them; convinced of their own charm, they make no effort to charm, seduce, or gently persuade.
5. In the realm of power, such attitudes are disastrous. 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. This requires energy and art. The higher your station, the greater the need to remain attuned to the hearts and minds of those below you, creating a base of support to maintain you at the pinnacle. Without that base, your power will teeter, and at the slightest change of fortune those below will gladly assist in your fall from grace.
6. The north wind and the sun were disputing which was the stronger, and agreed to acknowledge as the victor whichever of them could strip a traveler of his clothing. The wind tried first. But its violent gusts only made the man hold his clothes tightly around him, and when it blew harder still the cold made him so uncomfortable that he put on an extra wrap. Eventually the wind got tired of it and handed him over to the sun. The sun shone first with a moderate warmth, which made the man take off his topcoat. Then it blazed fiercely, till, unable to stand the heat, he stripped and went off to bathe in a nearby river. Persuasion is more effective than force — FABLES, AESOP, SIXTH CENTURY B.C.
7. The men who have changed the universe have never gotten there by working on leaders, but rather by moving the masses. Working on leaders is the method of intrigue and only leads to secondary results. Working on the masses, however, is the stroke of genius that changes the face of the world — NAPOLEON BONAPARTE, 1769–1821
8. In all your encounters, take a step back — take the time to calculate and attune yourself to your targets’ emotional makeup and psychological weaknesses.
9. Force will only strengthen their resistance. With most people the heart is the key: They are like children, ruled by their emotions. To soften them up, alternate harshness with mercy. Play on their basic fears, and also their loves — freedom, family, etc. Once you break them down, you will have a lifelong friend and fiercely loyal ally.
10. In the game of power, you are surrounded by people who have absolutely no reason to help you unless it is in their interest to do so.
11. And if you have nothing to offer their self-interest, you are likely to make them hostile, for they will see in you just one more competitor, one more waster of their time.
12. Those that overcome this prevailing coldness are the ones who find the key that unlocks the stranger’s heart and mind, seducing him into their comer, if necessary softening him up for a punch.
13. The key to persuasion is softening people up and breaking them down, gently. Seduce them with a two-pronged approach: Work on their emotions and play on their intellectual weaknesses. 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.
14. All of us are mortal and face the same dreadful fate, and all of us share the desire for attachment and belonging. Stir up these emotions and you captivate our hearts.
15. Push people to despair, then give them relief. If they expect pain and you give them pleasure, you win their hearts. Creating pleasure of any kind, in fact, will usually bring you success, as will allaying fears and providing or promising security.
16. Symbolic gestures are often enough to win sympathy and goodwill. A gesture of self-sacrifice, for example — a show that you suffer as those around you do — will make people identify with you, even if your suffering is symbolic or minor and theirs is real. When you enter a group, make a gesture of goodwill; soften the group up for the harsher actions that will follow later.
17. so many of us feel alienated, anonymous, and suspicious of authority, all of which makes overt power plays and force even more counterproductive and dangerous.
18. Instead of manipulating lifeless pawns, make those on your side convinced and excited by the cause you have enlisted them in; this will not only make your work easier but it will also give you more leeway to deceive them later on.
19. Never clumsily assume that the tactic that worked on one person will necessarily work on another. 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 dislikes — the handles and levers to move them with.
20. The quickest way to secure people’s minds is by demonstrating, as simply as possible, how an action will benefit them. Self-interest is the strongest motive of all: A great cause may capture minds, but once the first flush of excitement is over, interest will flag — unless there is something to be gained. Self-interest is the solider foundation. The causes that work best use a noble veneer to cover a blatant appeal to self-interest; the cause seduces but the self-interest secures the deal.
21. The people who are best at appealing to people’s minds are often artists, intellectuals, and those of a more poetic nature.
22. This is because ideas are most easily communicated through metaphors and imagery. It is always good policy, then, to have in your pocket at least one artist or intellectual who can appeal concretely to people’s minds.
23. Kings have always kept a stable of writers in their barn.
24. It is dangerous, then, to alienate those who have powers of expression, and useful to pacify and exploit them.
25. You must constantly win over more allies on all levels — a time will inevitably come when you will need them.

LAW 44 DISARM AND INFURIATE WITH THE MIRROR EFFECT