Impressions
- The 48 Laws of Power by Robert Greene is a practical manual on how to be successful in personal and professional life. Now that I have finished it, it is an instant favorite of mine. I have read all of Robert Greene’s books. Greene’s writing is clear and concise, making complex concepts accessible to a wide audience.
- One of the book’s strengths is its ability to challenge readers to think critically about human behavior. Whether interested in history, psychology, or leadership, “The 48 Laws of Power” offers valuable insights that can be applied to various aspects of life.
- It’s banned from US prisons.
Summary+Notes
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.
Hire a former enemy, and he will be more loyal than a friend.
He has more to prove.
Law 3: Conceal Your Intentions
Part 1 – Use decoyed objects and desires and red herrings to throw people off the scent.
Hide your intentions not by making people suspicious but by talking endlessly about your desires and goals— just not your real ones. That’s a really strong statement, so give it a try at your next social gathering.
You will kill three birds with one stone:
- You appear friendly, open, and trusting.
- You hide your intentions.
- You send your enemies on time-consuming chases.
Part 2 – Use smoke screens to disguise your actions.
People can only focus on one thing at a time, and if someone is saying they can multitask or focus, they are delusional and don’t have clear goals.
Law 4: Always say less than necessary
Here’s the story of Ambassador Winston Lord handing Kissinger a report (from Walter Isaacson’s book “Kissinger: A Biography”)
One oft-told tale about Kissinger…involved a report that Winston Lord had worked on for days.
After giving it to Kissinger, he got it back with the notation “Is this the best you can do?”
Lord rewrote and polished and finally resubmitted it; back it came with the same curt question.
After redrafting it one more time–and once again getting the same question from Kissinger–
Lord snapped, “Damn it, yes, it’s the best I can do.”
To which Kissinger replied: “Fine, then I guess I’ll read it this time.”
Persons who cannot control their words show that they cannot control themselves and are unworthy of respect.
Only a few can master their words and actions. People often forget what happened, but they never forget what you said. Use your words cautiously.
Power is in many ways a game of appearances, and when you say less than necessary, you inevitably appear greater and more powerful than you are.
Learn the lesson: You cannot take the words back once they are out. Keep them under control.
Be particularly careful with sarcasm: The momentary satisfaction you gain with your biting words will be outweighed by the price you pay.
Law 5: So much depends on reputation; guard it with your life
Always be alert to potential attacks. Meanwhile, learn to destroy your enemies by opening holes in their own reputations.
Then, stand aside and let public opinion hang them.
Doubt is a powerful weapon: Once you let it out of the bag with insidious rumors, your opponents are in a horrible dilemma.
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 costs
Part 1 – Surround your name with the sensational and the scandalous.
It is better to be slandered and attacked than ignored.
Every crowd has a silver lining.
At the start of your career, you must associate your name and reputation with a quality, an image, that sets you apart from others.
Part 2 – Create an air of mystery.
Most people are upfront, can be read like an open book, take little care to control their words or image, and are hopelessly predictable. You will emanate an aura of mystery by simply holding back, keeping silent, occasionally uttering ambiguous phrases, deliberately appearing inconsistent, and acting odd in the subtlest of ways. The people around you will then magnify that aura by constantly trying to interpret you.
Do something that cannot be easily explained or interpreted
Law 7: Get others to do the work for you, but always take the credit
Delegate tasks to others and let them do the work for you.
Use their knowledge to your advantage.
People will forget those who worked for you but will always remember you.
Law 8: Make other people come to you; use bait if necessary
For negotiations or meetings, it is always wise to lure others into your territory or the territory of your choice.
You have your bearings while they see nothing familiar and are subtly placed on the defensive.
Law 9: Win through your actions, never through argument
Actions speak louder than words.
Focus on winning through your actions rather than trying to win an argument.
Actions speak louder than words, and a smile says, ‘I like you. You make me happy. I am glad to see you.’ That is why dogs make such a hit. They are so glad to see us that they almost jump out of their skins. So, naturally, we are glad to see them. – Dale Carnegie
Law 10: Infection: Avoid the unhappy or the unlucky
Don’t argue, try to help, or send the person to your friends if you think you may be around an infector; otherwise, you risk becoming involved.
Run from the infector or face consequences.
Law 11: Learn to keep people dependent on you
Always keep people dependent on you; they will never try to cross you.
Never let them learn how to depend on themselves.
Law 12: Use selective honesty and generosity to disarm your victim
Perform one honest gesture to cover your dishonest acts.
If you’re generous, you will disarm those suspicious of your actions.
The essence of deception is distraction. – Robert Greene
Law 13: When asking for help, appeal to people’s self-interest, never their mercy or gratitude
If you need help, ensure your request includes how the helper will benefit.
People are more likely to respond well if they know they will benefit.
Law 14: Pose as a friend, work as a spy
Pretend to be friends with someone to get close to them and learn their secrets.
Then, use that information against them.
Law 15: Crush your enemy totally
When you have the chance, destroy your enemies.
Show them no mercy, and they’ll be less likely to try to cross you in the future.
Law 16: Use absence to increase strength and honor
The more you are seen and heard from, the more familiar you appear.
If you are already established in a group, temporarily withdrawing from it will make you more talked about and admired.
At the start of an affair, you need to heighten your presence in the eyes of the other.
If you present yourself early enough, you may be remembered.
But once your lover’s emotions are engaged, and the feeling of love has crystallized, absence inflames and excites.
Giving no reason for your absence excites me even more.
Law 17: Keep others in suspended terror, cultivate an air of unpredictability
“A warning: Unpredictability can work against you sometimes, especially if you are in a subordinate position. There are times when it is better to let people feel comfortable and settled around you than to disturb them. Too much unpredictability will be seen as a sign of indecisiveness, or even of some more serious psychic problem. Patterns are powerful, and you can terrify people by disrupting them. Such power should only be used judiciously.” – Robert Greene
Law 18: Do not build a fortress to protect yourself; isolation is dangerous
Isolating yourself from the world will deny you access to valuable information.
As a result, you will be vulnerable to enemy attacks.
Law 19: Know who you’re dealing with, do not offend the wrong person
You should be careful when choosing your opponents.
Some people are not worth the trouble.
Law 20: Do not commit to anyone
Part 1 – Do not commit to anyone, but be courted by all.
When you hold yourself back, you incur not anger but a kind of respect. You instantly seem powerful because you make yourself ungraspable rather than succumbing to the group or to the relationship, as most people do.
People who rush to the support of others tend to gain little respect in the process, for their help is so easily obtained, while those who stand back find themselves besieged with supplicants.
Part 2 – Do not commit to anyone; stay above the fray.
You have only so much energy and so much time.
Your strength is depleted by every moment you spend worrying about other people’s problems.
Law 21: Play a sucker to catch a sucker, seem dumber than your mark
Law 22: Use the surrender tactic: transform weakness into power
People trying to show their authority are easily deceived by the surrender tactic.
It is always our first instinct to react, to meet aggression with some other kind of aggression.
But the next time someone pushes you, and you start to react, try this.
Do not resist or fight back, but yield, turn the other cheek, and bend.
Committing to one side deprives you of the time and advantage of waiting
Law 23: Concentrate your forces
Don’t let your energy and efforts go to waste.
Concentrate all your resources on one power source at a time.
Law 24: Play the perfect courtier
Political dexterity has an art of indirection (flattery, yielding to superiors, asserting power over others in oblique, graceful manners, applying laws of courtiership The laws of court politics:
- Avoid ostentation
- Practice nonchalance — act with ease and grace to achieve your accomplishments
- Be frugal or tactical with flattery
- Arrange to be noticed — style and image
- Alter your style and language according to the person you are dealing with
- Never be the bearer of bad news
- Never affect friendliness and intimacy with your master — it is their perogative
- Never criticize those above you directly
- Be frugal in asking those above you for favors — nothing irritates them more than rejecting someone’s request, stirring up guilt and resentment
- Never joke about appearances or tastes, two highly sensitive areas
- Do not be the court cynic — express modest admiration for the good work and achievements of others, paradoxically calling attention to your own
- Be self observant
- Master your emotions
- Fit the spirits of the times
- Be the source of pleasure
Law 25: Re-Create Yourself
Never be comfortable with the role that society assigns you.
Do you dream of being among the best?
Keep on reinventing your game to win people over.
Playing with appearances and mastering arts of deception are among the aesthetic pleasures of life. – Robert Greene
Law 26: Keep your hands clean
Don’t get your hands dirty with the details of power.
Let others do the work for you. T
This way, you can distance yourself from any blame.
Law 27: Play on people’s need to believe to create a cult-like following
Five rules of cult making
- Keep it vague, keep it, simple
- Emphasize the visual and sensational over the intellectual
- Borrow the forms of organized religion to structure the group
- Disguise your source of income
- Set up an us vs. them dynamic
People want to believe in something.
Use this to your advantage and create a following of people that believe in you.
They will be willing to do anything for you.
Law 28: Enter action with boldness
Boldness and hesitation: The bolder lie, the better.
Lions circle the hesitant prey.
Boldness strikes fear; fear creates authority.
Going halfway with half, a heart digs a deeper grave.
Hesitation creates gaps; boldness obliterates them.
Audacity separates you from the herd.
When you are as small and obscure as David was, you must find a Goliath to attack. The larger the target, the more attention you gain.
The problems created by an audacious move can be disguised, even remedied, by more and greater audacity.
Law 29: Plan all the way to the end
You need to think long-term if you want to stay in power.
Consider all the possible outcomes of your actions and plan accordingly.
The ending is everything.
The end of the action determines who gets the glory, the money, and the prize.
Your conclusion must be clear, and you must keep it always in mind.
Law 30: Make your accomplishments seem effortless
No notes.
Law 31: Control the options, get others to play with the cards you deal
The best deceptions are the ones that seem to give the other person a choice: Your victims feel 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.
You give people a sense of how things will fall apart without you, and you offer them a “choice”: I stay away, and you suffer the consequences, or I return under circumstances that I dictate.
Color the choices, propose three or four choices of action for each situation, and present them in such a way that the one he preferred always seemed the best solution compared to the others.
Force the resister, Push them to “choose” what you want them to do by appearing to advocate the opposite.
Law 32: Play to people’s fantasies
The truth is often avoided because it is ugly and unpleasant. Never appeal to truth and reality 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 like oases in the desert: Everyone flocks to them. There is great power in tapping into the fantasies of the masses.
Law 33: Discover each man’s thumbscrew
Everyone has a weakness, a gap in the castle wall. That weakness is usually an insecurity, an 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: Be royal in your own fashion. Act like a king to be treated like one
You must act like a leader so that people will treat you like one.
If they believe you’re an influential figure, they will follow your lead.
Law 35: Master the art of timing
The timing of your actions is just as important as the actions themselves.
Learn to read the situation and act accordingly.
This way, you can take advantage of opportunities as they arise.
Law 36: Disdain things you cannot have, ignoring them is the best revenge
By acknowledging a petty problem you give it existence and credibility. The more attention you 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.
You choose to let things bother you.
Law 37: Create compelling spectacles
A spectacle will draw people in.
If you can create an event that’s grandiose and over-the-top, it will enthrall people.
As a result, you’ll be able to control their attention and get them to do what you want.
Law 38: Think as you like but behave like others
If Machiavelli had had a prince for disciple, the first thing he would have recommended him to do would have been to write a book against Machiavellism.
If you make a show of going against the times, flaunting your unconventional ideas and 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. ― Robert Greene
Law 39: Stir up waters to catch fish
Anger and emotion are strategically counterproductive. You must always stay calm and objective. But if you can make your enemies angry while staying calm yourself, you gain a decided advantage.
Law 40: Despise the free lunch
Don’t accept things that people give to you for free.
People will think they have power over you if you do.
You won’t be able to exert your authority as easily.
Law 41: Avoid stepping into a great man’s shoes
Don’t try to fill the shoes of someone more powerful than you.
You will never be able to live up to their standards, and people will see you as an imposter.
It’s better to create your own path to power.
Law 42: Strike the shepherd and the sheep will scatter
Trouble can often be traced to a single strong individual – the stirrer, the arrogant underling, the 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.
43: Work on the hearts and minds of others
The key to persuasion is gently softening and breaking people down.
Coercion creates a reaction that will eventually work against you. You must seduce others into 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.
44: Disarm and infuriate with the mirror effect
The mirror reflects reality, but it is also the perfect tool for deception: When you mirror your 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.
45: Preach the need to change, but never reform too much at once
If change is necessary, make it feel like a gentle improvement on the past.
Everyone understands the need for change in the abstract, but on the day-to-day level people are 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.
46: Never appear too perfect
Appearing better than others is always dangerous, but most dangerous of all is to appear to have 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.
47: Do not go past the mark you aimed for. In victory, know when to stop
If you overstep your bounds, people will think you’re trying to take too much power.
They’ll rebel against you.
So, stop once you’ve achieved your goal.
48: Assume formlessness
By taking shape and having a visible plan, you open yourself to attack. Keep yourself adaptable and on the move instead of taking a form for your enemy to grasp. 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.
When you show yourself to the world and display your talents, you naturally stir all kinds of resentment, envy, and other manifestations of insecurity… you cannot spend your life worrying about the petty feelings of others” ― Robert Greene