Notes

law 1: Never Outshine the Master: Ensure that those above you always feel superior.
law 2: 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.
law 3: Conceal Your Intentions: Always hide your true intentions. Create a smokescreen.
law 4: Always Say Less than Necessary: Say little and be ambiguous, leaving the meaning to others to interpret.
law 5: So Much Depends on Reputation — Guard It with Your Life: Nurture and guard your reputation because reputation is integral to power.
law 6: Create an Air of Mystery: Be outrageous or create an aura of mystery.
law 7: Get Others to Do the Work for You, but Always Take the Credit: Get others to do your work for you.
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 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 the Self-interests of Others
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 – Don’t Offend the Wrong Person
Law 20: Don’t Commit to Anyone.
Law 21: Play a Sucker to Catch a Sucker – Appear 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: Recreate Yourself
Law 26: Keep Your Hands Clean
Law 27: Create a Cult-like Following by Playing on People’s Need to Believe
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 Into 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: Don’t Go Past the Mark You Aimed For: In Victory, Learn When to Stop
Law 48: Assume Formlessness.