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- Law 1: Never Outshine the Master: A Strategic Guide _ The 48 Laws of Power
- Law 2: Never Put Too Much Trust in Friends - A Strategic Guide _ The 48 Laws of Power
- Law 3: Conceal your Intentions_ The 48 Laws of Power
- Law 4: Always Say Less than Necessary – The 48 Laws of Power
- Law 5: So Much Depends on Reputation – Guard It with Your Life_ The 48 Laws of Power
- Law 6: Court Attention at All Costs _ The 48 Laws of Power
- Law 7: Get Others to Do the Work for You, but Always Take the Credit_ The 48 Laws of Power
- Law 8: Make Other People Come to You – Use Bait if Necessary _ The 48 Laws of Power
- Law 9: Win through your Actions, Never through Argument _ The 48 Laws of Power
- Law 10: Infection – Avoid the Unhappy and Unlucky _ The 48 Laws of Power
- Law 11: Learn to Keep People Dependent on You _ Low Book- The 48 Laws of Power
- Law 12: Use Selective Honesty and Generosity to Disarm Your Victim _ Low Book- The 48 Laws of Power
- Law 13: When Asking for Help, Appeal to People’s Self-Interest, Never to Their Mercy or Gratitude _ The 48 Laws of Power
- Law 14: Pose as a Friend, Work as a Spy _ The 48 Laws of Power
- Law 15: Crush Your Enemy Totally _ The 48 Laws of Power
- Law 16: Use Absence to Increase Respect and Honor _ The 48 Laws of Power
- Law 17: Keep Others in Suspended Terror – Cultivate an Air of Unpredictability _ The 48 Laws of Power
- Law 18: Do Not Build Fortresses to Protect Yourself – Isolation is Dangerous_ The 48 Laws of Power
- Law 19: Know Who You're Dealing With – Do Not Offend the Wrong Person _
- Law 20: Do Not Commit to Anyone – Maintain Your Independence _ The 48 Laws of Power
- Law 21: Play a Sucker to Catch a Sucker – Seem Dumber Than Your Mark_ The 48 Laws of Power
- Law 22: Use the Surrender Tactic – Transform Weakness into Power _ The 48 Laws of Power
- Law 23: Concentrate Your Forces _ The 48 Laws of Power
- Law 24: Play the Perfect Courtier – Mastering the Art of Political GraceForm post _ The 48 Laws of Power
- Law 26: Keep Your Hands Clean _ The 48 Laws of Power
- Law 27: Play on People’s Need to Believe to Create a Cultlike Following_ The 48 Laws of Power
- Law 28: Enter Action with Boldness - Mastery Through Audacity _ The 48 Laws of Power
- Law 29: Plan All the Way to the End - Mastering the Art of Strategic Foresight_ The 48 Laws of Power
- Law 30: Make Your Accomplishments Seem Effortless - The Art of Effortless Mastery _ The 48 Laws of Power
- Law 31: Control the Options - The Illusion of Choice _ The 48 Laws of Power
- Law 32: Play to People's Fantasies - The Power of Enchantment _ The 48 Laws of Power
- Law 33: Discover Each Man's Thumbscrew - The Art of Leveraging Weaknesses _ The 48 Laws of Power
- Law 34: Be Royal in Your Own Fashion – Act Like a King to Be Treated Like One _ The 48 Laws of Power
- Law 35: Master the Art of Timing _ The 48 Laws of Power
- Law 36: Disdain Things You Cannot Have – Ignoring Them is the Best Revenge _ The 48 Laws of Power
- Law 37: Create Compelling Spectacles _ The 48 Laws of Power
- Law 38: Think As You Like, But Behave Like Others _ The 48 Laws of Power
- Law 39: Stir Up Waters to Catch Fish _ The 48 Laws of Power
- Law 3: Conceal your Intentions_ The 48 Laws of Power
- Law 40: Despise the Free Lunch _ The 48 Laws of Power
- Law 41: Avoid Stepping into a Great Man’s Shoes _ The 48 Laws of Power
- Law 42: Strike the Shepherd and the Sheep Will Scatter _ The 48 Laws of Power
- Law 43: Work on the Hearts and Minds of Others _ The 48 Laws of Power
- Law 44: Disarm and Infuriate with the Mirror Effect _ The 48 Laws of Power
- Law 45: Preach the Need for Change, but Never Reform Too Much at Once _ The 48 Laws of Power
- Law 46: Never Appear Too Perfect _ The 48 Laws of Power
- Law 47: Do Not Go Past the Mark You Aimed For – In Victory, Learn When to Stop_ The 48 Laws of Power
- Law 48: Assume Formlessness_ The 48 Laws of Power
Full book reading in English:
The 48 Laws of Power
by Robert Greene and Joost Elffers
- Law 1: Never Outshine the Master
- Law 2: Never put too Much Trust in Friends, Learn how to use Enemies
- Law 3: Conceal your Intentions
- Law 4: Always Say Less than Necessary
- Law 5: So Much Depends on Reputation - Guard it with your Life
- Law 6: Court Attention at all Cost
- Law 7: Get others to do the Work for you, but Always Take the Credit
- Law 8: Make other People come to you - use Bait if Necessary
- Law 9: Win through your Actions, Never through Argument
- Law 10: Infection: Avoid the Unhappy and Unlucky
- Law 11: Learn to Keep People Dependent on You
- Law 12: Use Selective Honesty and Generosity to Disarm your Victim
- Law 13: When Asking for Help, Appeal to People’s Self-Interest, Never to their Mercy or Gratitude
- Law 14: Pose as a Friend, Work as a Spy
- Law 15: Crush your Enemy Totally
- Law 16: Use Absence to Increase Respect and Honor
- Law 17: Keep Others in Suspended Terror: Cultivate an Air of Unpredictability
- Law 18: Do Not Build Fortresses to Protect Yourself - Isolation is Dangerous
- Law 19: Know Who You’re Dealing with - Do Not Offend the Wrong Person
- Law 20: Do Not Commit to Anyone
- Law 21: Play a Sucker to Catch a Sucker - Seem Dumber than your Mark
- Law 22: Use the Surrender Tactic: Transform Weakness into Power
- Law 23: Concentrate Your Forces
- Law 24: Play the Perfect Courtier
- Law 25: Re-Create Yourself
- Law 26: Keep Your Hands Clean
- Law 27: Play on People’s Need to Believe to Create a Cultlike Following
- Law 28: Enter Action with Boldness
- Law 29: Plan All the Way to the End
- Law 30: Make your Accomplishments Seem Effortless
- Law 31: Control the Options: Get Others to Play with the Cards you Deal
- Law 32: Play to People’s Fantasies
- Law 33: Discover Each Man’s Thumbscrew
- Law 34: Be Royal in your Own Fashion: Act like a King to be treated like one
- Law 35: Master the Art of Timing
- Law 36: Disdain Things you cannot have: Ignoring them is the best Revenge
- Law 37: Create Compelling Spectacles
- Law 38: Think as you like but Behave like others
- Law 39: Stir up Waters to Catch Fish
- Law 40: Despise the Free Lunch
- Law 41: Avoid Stepping into a Great Man’s Shoes
- Law 42: Strike the Shepherd and the Sheep will Scatter
- Law 43: Work on the Hearts and Minds of Others
- Law 44: Disarm and Infuriate with the Mirror Effect
- Law 45: Preach the Need for Change, but Never Reform too much at Once
- Law 46: Never appear too Perfect
- Law 47: Do not go Past the Mark you Aimed for; In Victory, Learn when to Stop
- Law 48: Assume Formlessness
The 48 Laws of Power
by Robert Greene and Joost Elffers
Law 1
Never
Outshine the Master
Always make those above you feel comfortably superior. In
your desire to please or impress
them, do not go too far in displaying your talents or you
might accomplish the opposite - inspire
fear and insecurity. Make your masters appear more brilliant
than they are and you will attain
the heights of power.
Law 2
Never
put too Much Trust in Friends, Learn how to use Enemies
Be wary of friends-they will betray you more quickly, for
they are easily aroused to envy. They
also become spoiled and tyrannical. But hire a former enemy
and he will be more loyal than a
friend, because he has more to prove. In fact, you have more
to fear from friends than from
enemies. If you have no enemies, find a way to make them.
Law 3
they have no clue what you are up to, they cannot prepare a
defense. Guide them far enough
down the wrong path, envelope them in enough smoke, and by
the time they realize your
intentions, it will be too late.
Law 4
appear, and the less in control. Even if you are saying
something banal, it will seem original if
you make it vague, open-ended, and sphinxlike. Powerful
people impress and intimidate by
saying less. The more you say, the more likely you are to
say something foolish.
Law 5
Reputation is the cornerstone of power. Through reputation
alone you can intimidate and win;
once you slip, however, you are vulnerable, and will be
attacked on all sides. Make your
reputation unassailable. Always be alert to potential
attacks and thwart them before they
happen. Meanwhile, learn to destroy your enemies by opening
holes in their own reputations.
Then stand aside and let public opinion hang them.
Law 6
Court
Attention at all Cost
lost in the crowd, then, or buried in oblivion. Stand out.
Be conspicuous, at all cost. Make
yourself a magnet of attention by appearing larger, more
colorful, more mysterious, than the
bland and timid masses.
Law 7
Use the wisdom, knowledge, and legwork of other people to
further your own cause. Not only
will such assistance save you valuable time and energy, it
will give you a godlike aura of
efficiency and speed. In the end your helpers will be
forgotten and you will be remembered.
Never do yourself what others can do for you.
Law 8
Make other People come to you - use Bait if Necessary
When you force the other person to act, you are the one in
control. It is always better to make
your opponent come to you, abandoning his own plans in the
process. Lure him with fabulous
gains - then attack. You hold the cards.
Law 9
Win through your Actions, Never through Argument
Any momentary triumph you think gained through argument is
really a Pyrrhic victory: The
resentment and ill will you stir up is stronger and lasts
longer than any momentary change of
opinion. It is much more powerful to get others to agree
with you through your actions, without
saying a word. Demonstrate, do not explicate.
Law 10
Infection: Avoid the Unhappy and Unlucky
You can die from someone else’s misery - emotional states
are as infectious as disease. You
may feel you are helping the drowning man but you are only
precipitating your own disaster.
The unfortunate sometimes draw misfortune on themselves;
they will also draw it on you.
Associate with the happy and fortunate instead.
Law 11
Learn to Keep People Dependent on You
To maintain your independence you must always be needed and
wanted. The more you are
relied on, the more freedom you have. Make people depend on
you for their happiness and
prosperity and you have nothing to fear. Never teach them
enough so that they can do without
you.
Law 12
Use Selective Honesty and Generosity to Disarm your Victim
One sincere and honest move will cover over dozens of
dishonest ones. Open-hearted gestures
of honesty and generosity bring down the guard of even the
most suspicious people. Once your
selective honesty opens a hole in their armor, you can
deceive and manipulate them at will. A
timely gift - a Trojan horse - will serve the same purpose.
Law 13
When Asking for Help, Appeal to People’s Self-Interest,
Never to their Mercy or Gratitude
If you need to turn to an ally for help, do not bother to
remind him of your past assistance and
good deeds. He will find a way to ignore you. 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.
Law 14
Pose as a Friend, Work as a Spy
Knowing about your rival is critical. Use spies to gather
valuable information that will keep you
a step ahead. Better still: Play the spy yourself. In polite
social encounters, learn to probe. Ask
indirect questions to get people to reveal their weaknesses
and intentions. There is no occasion
that is not an opportunity for artful spying.
Law 15
Crush your Enemy Totally
All great leaders since Moses have known that a feared enemy
must be crushed completely.
(Sometimes they have learned this the hard way.) If one
ember is left alight, no matter how
dimly it smolders, a fire will eventually break out. More is
lost through stopping halfway than
through total annihilation: The enemy will recover, and will
seek revenge. Crush him, not only
in body but in spirit.
Law 16
Use Absence to Increase Respect and Honor
Too much circulation makes the price go down: The more you
are seen and heard from, the
more common you appear. If you are already established in a
group, temporary withdrawal from
it will make you more talked about, even more admired. You
must learn when to leave. Create
value through scarcity.
Law 17
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.
Law 18
The world is dangerous and enemies are everywhere - everyone has to protect themselves. A
fortress seems the safest. But isolation exposes you to more
dangers than it protects you from - it
cuts you off from valuable information, it makes you
conspicuous and an easy target. Better to
circulate among people find allies, mingle. You are shielded
from your enemies by the crowd.
Law 19
will react to your strategies in the same way. Deceive or
outmaneuver some people and they will
spend the rest of their lives seeking revenge. They are
wolves in lambs’ clothing. Choose your
victims and opponents carefully, then - never offend or
deceive the wrong person.
Law 20
It is the fool who always rushes to take sides. Do not
commit to any side or cause but yourself.
By maintaining your independence, you become the master of
others - playing people against
one another, making them pursue you.
Law 21
Play a Sucker to Catch a Sucker - Seem Dumber than your Mark
No one l ik es feeling stupider than the next persons. The
trick, is to make your victims feel smart
- and not just smart, but smarter than you are. Once
convinced of this, they will never suspect
that you may have ulterior motives.
Law 22
you time to recover, time to torment and irritate your
conqueror, time to wait for his power to
wane. Do not give him the satisfaction of fighting and
defeating you - surrender first. By
turning the other check you infuriate and unsettle him. Make
surrender a tool of power.
Law 23
gain more by finding a rich mine and mining it deeper, than
by flitting from one shallow mine to
another - intensity defeats extensity every time. When
looking for sources of power to elevate
you, find the one key patron, the fat cow who will give you
milk for a long time to come.
Law 24
dexterity. He has mastered the art of indirection; he
flatters, yields to superiors, and asserts
power over others in the mot oblique and graceful manner.
Learn and apply the laws of
courtiership and there will be no limit to how far you can
rise in the court.
Law 25
one that commands attention and never bores the audience. Be
the master of your own image
gestures and actions - your power will be enhanced and your
character will seem larger than life.
Law 26
nasty deeds. Maintain such a spotless appearance by using
others as scapegoats and cat’s-paws
to disguise your involvement.
Law 27
desire by offering them a cause, a new faith to follow. Keep
your words vague but full of
promise; emphasize enthusiasm over rationality and clear
thinking. Give your new disciples
rituals to perform, ask them to make sacrifices on your
behalf. In the absence of organized
religion and grand causes, your new belief system will bring
you untold power.
Law 28
your execution. Timidity is dangerous: Better to enter with
boldness. Any mistakes you
commit through audacity are easily corrected with more
audacity. Everyone admires the bold;
no one honors the timid.
Law 29
consequences, obstacles, and twists of fortune that might
reverse your hard work and give the
glory to others. By planning to the end you will not be
overwhelmed by circumstances and you
will know when to stop. Gently guide fortune and help
determine the future by thinking far
ahead.
Law 30
them, and also all the clever tricks, must be concealed.
When you act, act effortlessly, as if you
questions. Teach no one your tricks or they will be used
against you.
they are in control, but are actually your puppets. Give
people options that come out in your
favor whichever one they choose. Force them to make choices
between the lesser of two evils,
both of which serve your purpose. Put them on the horns of a
dilemma: They are gored
wherever they turn.
unless you are prepared for the anger that comes for
disenchantment. Life is so harsh and
distressing that people who can manufacture romance or
conjure up fantasy are l ik e oases in the
desert: Everyone flocks to them. There is great power in
tapping into the fantasies of the masses.
Law 33
uncontrollable emotion or need; it can also be a small
secret pleasure. Either way, once found, it
is a thumbscrew you can turn to your advantage.
Law 34
vulgar or common will make people disrespect you. For a king
respects himself and inspires the
same sentiment in others. By acting regally and confident of
your powers, you make yourself
seem destined to wear a crown.
Law 35
Always seem patient, as if you know that everything will
come to you eventually. Become a
detective of the right moment; sniff out the spirit of the
times, the trends that will carry you to
power. Learn to stand back when the time is not yet ripe,
and to strike fiercely when it has
reached fruition.
pay an enemy, the stronger you make him; and a small mistake
is often made worse and more
visible when you try to fix it. It is sometimes best to
leave things alone. If there is something
you want but cannot have, show contempt for it. The less
interest you reveal, the more superior
you seem.
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.
Law 38
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.
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.
Law 40
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.
Law 41
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.
Law 42
poisoned 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.
Law 43
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.
Law 44
enemies, doing exactly as they do, they cannot figure out
your strategy. The Mirror Effect
mocks and humiliates them, making them overreact. By holding
up a mirror to their psyches,
you seduce them with the illusion that you share their
values; by holding up a mirror to their
actions, you teach them a lesson. Few can resist the power
of Mirror Effect.
Law 45
creatures of habit. Too much innovation is traumatic, and
will lead to revolt. If you are new to a
position of power, or an outsider trying to build a power
base, 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.
Law 46
no faults or weaknesses. Envy creates silent enemies. It is
smart to occasionally display defects,
and admit to harmless vices, in order to deflect envy and
appear more human and approachable.
Only gods and the dead can seem perfect with impunity.
Law 47
and overconfidence can push you past the goal you had aimed
for, and by going too far, you
make more enemies than you defeat. Do not allow success to
go to your head. There is no
substitute for strategy and careful planning. Set a goal,
and when you reach it, stop.
Law 48
for your enemy to grasp, keep yourself adaptable and on the
move. Accept the fact that nothing
is certain and no law is fixed. The best way to protect
yourself is to be as fluid and formless as
water; never bet on stability or lasting order. Everything
changes.