Never Outshine the Master
Ensure that those above you always feel superior. Go out of your way to make your bosses look better and feel smarter than anyone else. Everyone is insecure, but an insecure boss can retaliate more strongly than others can.
Never Put too Much Trust in Friends, Learn How to Use Enemies
Keep a close eye on your friends — they get envious and will undermine you. If you co-opt an enemy, he’ll be more loyal than a friend because he’ll try harder to prove himself worthy of your trust.
Conceal Your Intentions
Always hide your true intentions. Create a smokescreen. If you keep people off-balance and in the dark, they can’t counter your efforts.
Always Say Less than Necessary
Say little and be ambiguous, leaving the meaning to others to interpret. The less you say, the more intimidating and powerful you are.
So Much Depends on Reputation — Guard It with Your Life
Nurture and guard your reputation because reputation is integral to power. With a strong reputation, you can influence and intimidate others.
Create an Air of Mystery
Be outrageous or create an aura of mystery. Any attention — positive or negative — is better than being ignored. Attention brings you wealth.
Get Others to Do the Work for You, but Always Take the Credit
Get others to do your work for you. Use their skill, time, and energy to further your ambitions while taking full credit. You’ll be admired for your efficiency.
Make Other People Come to You — Use Bait if Necessary
Make your opponent come to you. When you force others to act, you’re in control. Bait them, then attack.
Win Through Your Actions, Never Through Argument
Demonstrate your point rather than arguing. Arguing rarely changes anyone’s mind, but people believe what they see. They’re also less likely to be offended.
Infection: Avoid the Unhappy and Unlucky
Avoid miserable people. The perpetually miserable spread misery like an infection, and they’ll drown you in it.
Learn to Keep People Dependent on You
Make your superior dependent on you. The more she needs you, the more security and freedom you have to pursue your goals.
Use Selective Honesty and Generosity to Disarm Your Victim
Use honesty and generosity to disarm and distract others from your schemes. Even the most suspicious people respond to acts of kindness, leaving them vulnerable to manipulation.
When Asking for Help, Appeal to People’s Self-Interest, Never to their Mercy or Gratitude
When you need help from someone in a position of power, appeal to their self-interest. They’ll be glad to help if they’ll get something in return, and you’ll get what you want without seeming desperate or irritating.
Pose as a Friend, Work as a Spy
Be friendly, sympathetic, and interested to get people to reveal their deepest thoughts and feelings. When you know your opponent’s secrets, you can predict his behavior and control him.
Crush Your Enemy Totally
Crush your enemy completely. If you leave even one ember smoldering, it will eventually ignite. You can’t afford to be lenient.
Use Absence to Increase Respect and Honor
Once you’ve become well-known, don’t wear out your welcome. The more you’re seen and heard from, the more you cheapen your brand.
Keep Others in Suspended Terror: Cultivate an Air of Unpredictability
Throw others off balance and unnerve them with random, unpredictable acts. You’ll gain the upper hand.
Do Not Build Fortresses to Protect Yourself – Isolation is Dangerous
Never isolate yourself when under pressure. This cuts you off from information you need, and when real danger arises you won’t see it coming.
Know Who You’re Dealing With – Do Not Offend the Wrong Person
When attempting to deceive someone, know who you’re dealing with, so you don’t waste your time or stir up a hornets’ nest in reaction.
Do Not Commit to Anyone
Don’t commit to any side or cause except yourself. By maintaining your independence, you remain in control — others will vie for your attention. You also have the ability to pit the sides against each other.
Play a Sucker to Catch a Sucker – Seem Dumber Than Your Mark
Make your intended victims feel as though they’re smarter than you are, and they won’t suspect you of having ulterior motives.
Use the Surrender Tactic: Transform Weakness into Power
When you’re weaker, surrender rather than fighting for the sake of honor. This gives you time to build strength and undermine your victor. You’ll win in the end.
Concentrate Your Forces
Focus your resources and energies where you’ll have the most impact or get the most benefit. Otherwise, you’ll waste limited time and energy.
Play the Perfect Courtier
Learn the rules of the society you’re playing in, and follow them to avoid attracting unfavorable attention. This includes appearing like a team player and being careful about criticizing diplomatically.
Re-Create Yourself
Create a powerful image that stands out, rather than letting others define you. Change your appearance and emotions to suit the occasion. People who seem larger than life attract admiration and power.
Keep Your Hands Clean
You’ll inevitably make mistakes or need to take care of unpleasant problems. But keep your hands clean by finding others to do the dirty work, and scapegoats to blame.
Play on People’s Need to Believe to Create a Cultlike Following
Offer people something to believe in and someone to follow. Promise the world but keep it vague; whip up enthusiasm. People will respond to a desperate need for belonging. Followers line your pockets, and your opponents are afraid to rile them.
Enter Action with Boldness
When you act, do so boldly — and if you make mistakes, correct them with even greater boldness. Boldness brings admiration and power.
Plan All the Way to the End
Make detailed plans with a clear ending. Take into account all possible developments. Then don’t be tempted from your path. Otherwise, you risk being surprised and forced to react without time to think.
Make Your Accomplishments Seem Effortless
Make difficult feats seem effortless and you’ll inspire awe in others and seem powerful. By contrast, when you make too much of your efforts, your achievement will seem less impressive and you’ll lose respect.
Control the Options: Get Others to Play with the Cards You Deal
To deceive people, seem to give them a meaningful choice. But sharply limit their options to a few that work in your favor regardless of which they choose. Your victims will feel in control, but you’ll pull the strings.
Play to People’s Fantasies
Conjure up alluring fantasies in contrast to the gloomy realities of life, and people will flock to you. Spin the right tale and wealth and power will follow.
Discover Each Man’s Thumbscrew
Everyone has a weakness, a hole in his armor. Find it and it’s leverage that you can use to your advantage.
Be Royal in Your Own Fashion: Act Like a King to Be Treated Like One
Act like royalty and people will treat you that way. Project dignity and supreme confidence that you’re destined for great things, and others will believe it.
Master the Art of Timing
Anticipate the ebb and flow of power. Recognize when the time is right, and align yourself with the right side. Be patient and wait for your moment. Bad timing ends careers and ambitions.
Disdain Things You Cannot Have: Ignoring Them Is the Best Revenge
Sometimes it’s better to ignore things because reacting can make small problems worse, make you look bad, and give your enemy attention.
Create Compelling Spectacles
In addition to words, use visuals and symbols to underscore your power. What people see makes a greater impression on them than what they hear.
Think as You Like But Behave Like Others
Don’t make a show of being different, or people will think you look down on them and will retaliate against you.
Stir Up Waters to Catch Fish
Always stay calm and objective. When you get angry, you’ve lost control. But if you can make your enemies angry, you gain an advantage.
Despise the Free Lunch
Use money and generosity strategically to achieve your goals. Use gifts to build a reputation of generosity, and also to obligate people to you.
Avoid Stepping Into a Great Man’s Shoes
If you succeed a great leader or famous parent, find or create your own space to fill. Sharply separate from the past and set your own standards — or you’ll be deemed a failure for not being a clone of your predecessor.
Strike the Shepherd and the Sheep Will Scatter
Trouble in a group often starts with a single individual who stirs the pot. Stop them before others succumb to their influence.
Work on the Hearts and Minds of Others
Win others’ hearts and minds. Play on their emotions and weaknesses, and appeal to their self-interest. You’ll have them eating out of your hand, and they’ll be less likely to turn on you.
Disarm and Infuriate with the Mirror Effect
Seduce people by mirroring their emotions and interests; create the illusion that you share their values. They’ll be so grateful to be understood that they won’t notice your ulterior motives.
Preach the Need for Change, But Never Reform Too Much at Once
Talk change but move slowly. Evoke revered history and cloak your changes in familiar rituals. Too much change is unsettling and will spark backlash.
Never Appear Too Perfect
To forestall or mitigate envy, admit to a flaw or weakness, emphasize the role of luck, or downplay your talents. If you don’t recognize and nip envy in the bud, it will grow and the envious will work insidiously against you.
Do Not Go Past the Mark You Aimed For; In Victory, Learn When to Stop
When you’ve won, don’t let emotions push you past your goal. The moment of victory is dangerous because if you press your luck, you’ll blunder into something you haven’t planned for.
Assume Formlessness
Be flexible, fluid, and unpredictable — formless — so your opponents can’t get a fix on you and can’t figure out how to respond.