The 48 Laws of Power

• Never Outshine The Master
  • Always make those above you feel comfortably superior. In your desire to please and 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.
• 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.
  • Friends often agree on things in order to avoid an argument. They cover up their unpleasant qualities so as to not offend each other. They laugh extra hard at each other’s jokes. Since honesty rarely strengthens friendship, you may never know how a friend truly feels. Friends will say that they love your poetry, adore your music, envy your taste in clothes—maybe they mean it, often they do not.
  • The problem with using or hiring friends is that it will inevitably limit your power. A friend is rarely the one who is most able to help you; and in the end, skill and competence are far more important than friendly feelings.
  • The key to power, then, is the ability to judge who is best able to further your interests in all situations. Keep friends for friendship, but work with the skilled and competent.
  • A person who has something to prove will move mountains for you.
  • As Lincoln said, you destroy an enemy when you make a friend of him.
  • Without enemies around us, we grow lazy.
  • It is sometimes better, then, to use enemies as enemies rather than transforming them into friends or allies.
• Keep people off-balance and in the dark by never revealing the purpose behind your actions.
  • If they have no clue what you are up to, they cannot prepare a defense. Guide them far enough down the wrong path, envelop them in enough smoke, and by the time they realize your intentions, it will be too late.