- 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 costs
- 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 or the 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 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 strength and honor
- Law 17: Keep others in suspended terror, cultivate an air of unpredictability
- Law 18: Do not build a fortress 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 cult like 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 to 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, know when to stop
- Law 48: Assume formlessness
48 Laws of Power
·454 words·3 mins