Power Law 1: Never Eclipse Your Superior’s Brilliance

  1. While trying to please them or leave a deep impression, do not overtly display your talents, lest it backfire—triggering their fear and anxiety.

Power Law 2: Never Trust Friends Too Easily; Learn to Utilize Your Enemies

  1. If you hire a former enemy, they will be more loyal than a friend because they will be more eager to prove themselves to you.
  2. Beware your friends! They betray you faster because they are more prone to developing jealousy. They will also be spoiled and become tyrannical.

Power Law 3: Conceal Your Intentions

  1. Make yourself unpredictable and elusive. If they cannot grasp your intentions, they cannot prepare in advance. Mislead them down a deep path. Cast heavy smokescreens to confuse them.

Power Law 4: Speak Less Than Necessary

  1. If you want to attract attention through words, the more you speak, the more mediocre you appear, and the less control you seem to have over the overall situation.
  2. When speaking about mundane things, if you are ambiguous and off-topic, like a riddle, it will actually make people feel it is very novel.
  3. Powerful people often establish authority and subdue others by speaking sparingly. The more you speak, the more likely you are to say something foolish.

Power Law 5: Defend Your Reputation at All Costs

  1. Reputation is the cornerstone of power. With reputation alone, you can intimidate others and win victories. Once your reputation is damaged, you will find yourself in a state of helplessness, surrounded by enemies.
  2. Learn to dig into the corners of your enemy’s reputation to destroy them. Once the opponent’s reputation is damaged, you merely need to stand by and watch, letting public opinion seal their fate.

Power Law 6: Be Noticeable at All Costs

  1. Make yourself appear more majestic, brilliant, and mysteriously alluring than the ordinary masses, firmly capturing everyone’s attention.

Power Law 7: Let Others Work for You; Claim the Credit

  1. Your assistants will be forgotten, but you will be remembered. Never do things yourself that others can do for you.

Power Law 8: Let Others Walk into Your Trap—Use Bait When Necessary

  1. When you force others to take action, you seize the initiative and control of the situation.

Power Law 9: Win by Action, Not by Debate

  1. Even if your arguments force others’ views to change temporarily,
  2. You don’t need to say much; actions are more convincing, more likely to gain support, and more powerful.

Power Law 10: Avoid Unhappy and Unfortunate People

  1. Emotional states are highly contagious, just like diseases. Perhaps you feel you are helping a drowning person, but you are only inviting disaster upon yourself.
  2. The unfortunate are sometimes unfortunate due to their own actions, and they will pass that misfortune on to you. You should stay away from them and associate with happy and lucky people.

Power Law 11: Learn to Maintain Others’ Dependence on You

  1. You must always make yourself needed and desired by others. The more others depend on you, the freer you are. As long as others’ happiness and success rely on you, you can be fearless. Do not teach them everything, or they will shake you off and act on their own.

Power Law 12: Use Selective Honesty and Generosity to Disarm Your Opponent

  1. By selectively being honest, you open a gap in the opponent’s heavily guarded defenses, allowing you to deceive and manipulate them at will. Offer a timely gift—like the Trojan Horse—to make it easier for you to achieve your goal.

Power Law 13: When Asking for Help, Appeal to Their Self-Interest, Never to Pity or Gratitude

Power Law 14: Adopt the Persona of a Friend to Conduct Espionage

  1. A better method is to act as the spy yourself. In polite social settings, learn to probe and investigate, asking roundabout questions to make people reveal their weaknesses and intentions.

Power Law 15: Completely Eradicate Your Enemy

Power Law 16: Use Absence to Gain Respect and Elevate Your Prestige

  1. The more frequently you appear or the more news there is about you, the more ordinary you seem. If your position in a team is already stable, temporarily stepping back will make people talk about you more, and even admire you more. You must learn when to temporarily leave to elevate your value through absence.

Power Law 17: Make Others Tremble by Creating an Unpredictable Atmosphere

  1. Humans are habitually curious creatures, always hoping to deduce something familiar from others’ actions. If others can predict your actions, they feel a sense of control over the situation. To reverse this, deliberately make them feel confused. This will make others anxious, and they will strive to fathom your behavior. When this strategy is pushed to its extreme, it will have a terrifying and intimidating effect.

Power Law 18: Don’t Build a Fortress for Self-Defense—Isolation is Dangerous

  1. The best way is to mingle among the crowd, find allies, and blend in. The crowd is the best shield.
  2. Isolation cuts off your valuable sources of information, making you highly visible and an easy target for attack.

Power Law 19: Know Who You Are Dealing With—Never Choose the Wrong Target

  1. If you trick certain people once with a scheme or tactic, they will seek revenge for life. These people are wolves in sheep’s clothing. You must choose your opponent or victim extremely carefully, never offending or deceiving the wrong party.

Power Law 20: Don’t Depend on Anyone

  1. Only fools rush to choose which side to stand on.
  2. Maintain your independence, and you can calmly control them—watching the fight from afar, letting them attack each other, and then running to beg you.

Power Law 21: Pretend to Be Dumber Than Your Opponent—Win by Deception

  1. The strategy is to make your opponent feel that they are very smart—not just smart, but smarter than you. Once they believe this, they will never suspect you have hidden motives.

Power Law 22: Employ the Strategy of Surrender: Gradually Convert Weakness into Strength

  1. Do not give them the satisfaction of fighting and defeating you—surrender first.

Power Law 23: Consolidate Your Power

  1. Find rich deposits and dig deep; the harvest will be much greater than shallow digging here and there. Depth and intensity must surpass width and breadth.
  2. When seeking power resources to elevate yourself, find the key sponsors. This is like finding a cow that will provide milk for you long-term.

Power Law 24: Play the Role of the Perfect Courtier

  1. The perfect courtier is always capable and adaptable. They master the art of indirect advancement, flattering and serving the powerful, while simultaneously displaying their power in the most indirect, subtle, and elegant way.

Power Law 25: Reshape Your Image

  1. Always pay attention to your image and become the master of your own image; do not let others define it for you.
  2. Do not readily accept the role society imposes on you. Reshape a new identity that is both eye-catching and not tiresome to the audience.

Power Law 26: Maintain Personal Integrity and Purity

  1. You must maintain your spotless image. When necessary, you can use others as scapegoats or pawns to conceal your unspeakable actions.

Power Law 27: Manipulate the Weaknesses People Need to Believe In, Creating a Following

  1. First, your words should strive to be vague, but they must contain promises. Emphasize fervor over rationality and clear thinking. Provide rituals that your followers can perform and demand that they sacrifice for your benefit. In the absence of organized religion or a lofty goal, the belief system you build will bring you unexpected power.
  2. People have an irresistible, intense need for belief.

Power Law 28: Be Bold in Action

  1. If you are unsure how to execute a plan, do not hesitate to try. Your doubt and hesitation will affect the execution of your plan. Cowardice is dangerous; it is best to act boldly and take a shot.
  2. Everyone admires the bold and fearless; no one respects or admires the timid.

Power Law 29: Consider Everything, Plan to the End

  1. Your plan must have a beginning and an end; you must consider the issues around the outcome.
  2. Only by thinking long-term can you dominate destiny and determine the future.

Power Law 30: Make the Achievement Seem Effortless

  1. During the process of achieving success, the actions must appear natural and easy. You must conceal the hard work, the effort, and all the clever tricks used.
  2. The secret to success is your winning technique; do not teach it to anyone, or you will become the victim of your own technique.
  3. Avoid letting others know that you are working tirelessly.

Power Law 31: Control the Choice: Let Others Play the Cards You Deal

  1. The best deception is to make the victim believe they have a choice, making them feel they control the situation, when in reality, they are merely your puppet. Offer the victim options that benefit you; no matter how they choose, you will benefit.

Power Law 32: Utilize People’s Dreams

  1. People often evade the truth of reality because the truth is ugly and unpleasant. Do not present the truth unless you are prepared for the massive anger of the people after the dream is shattered.

Power Law 33: Find Everyone’s Flaw

  1. These flaws often signify a lack of security, inability to control emotions and desires, or a small secret pleasure. In any case, once found, it will become your winning technique to turn the tide.
  2. You are dealing with people who conceal their weaknesses; as long as you find their weakness, you will utterly dismantle them.
  3. Pay attention to various postures and unconscious signals.
  4. If you realize someone has a need to be loved, publicly flatter and praise them.
  5. Pretending to be interested is the most important start. Adopting a posture of attentive listening will encourage them to start confiding.
  6. Find the helpless child.
  7. Understanding their childhood needs gives you a powerful key to finding their weakness.
  8. Look for contrasts.
  9. Public behavior often hides the opposite character.
  10. Those who boast often are cowards; beneath a proper exterior often hides a lustful soul; those who are neurotic often enjoy adventure and excitement, while the shy secretly crave attention.
  11. Look beyond the exterior to the deep layers; you will find that a person’s weakness is often the opposite of what they show you.
  12. Find the vulnerable link.
  13. There must be a weak link in the chain; you must find the one who will yield under pressure.
  14. Fill the void.
  15. For unhappy people, find the root of their suffering. Filling their emotional void will become a major source of your power.
  16. Utilize emotions that others cannot control.

Power Law 34: Make Others Treat You Like a Monarch—First, Act Like One

  1. In the long run, appearing crude or low-class will lead others to look down on you, or even disrespect you.
  2. Your behavior and demeanor must constantly exhibit the bearing of a monarch and confidence in power, making others believe that you are the one destined to wear the crown and become king.

Power Law 35: Learn the Art of Controlling Time

  1. You must make others feel that you are always patient, as if you know that everything will naturally come to fruition.
  2. A hurried demeanor reveals that you lack control over yourself and cannot control time.

Power Law 36: Scorn What You Cannot Have; Ignoring It is the Best Revenge

  1. The more energy you invest in an enemy, the stronger they become. If there is something you love dearly but cannot obtain, show it complete disdain. The less interest you show, the more superior you appear.

Power Law 37: Create Unforgettable External Displays

  1. Use external displays to dazzle the crowd, so that no one notices exactly what you are doing.
  2. Eye-catching portraits and grand symbolic postures will cultivate an atmosphere of power, and the crowd will inevitably respond to it.
  3. Enhance your charisma with striking images and radiant features, making others feel that your presence is extraordinary.

Power Law 38: Ideas Can Be Free, But Actions Must Conform to the Masses

  1. Your creativity can only be shared with friends who are tolerant of your character and who will appreciate your uniqueness.
  2. If you show signs of resisting the times, flaunting your unconventional ideas and non-traditional ways of thinking, people will assume you are merely trying to attract attention and look down on them.

Power Law 39: Stir the Pool to Catch Fish

  1. Anger and loss of control are counterproductive strategically; therefore, you must always remain calm and objective. If you can provoke the enemy while remaining calm yourself, you have gained a decisive advantage.

Power Law 40: Scorn the Free Lunch

  1. Things offered for free are dangerous; they usually contain a trick or hide a potential obligation; therefore, valuable things are worth paying for.
  2. Paying full price is the smartest move, because excellence means no cutting corners.

Power Law 41: Try to Avoid Inheriting the Legacy of Great Figures

  1. If you inherit the legacy of a great figure or a famous parent, it means you must achieve more than twice their accomplishments to surpass them in the public eye.
  2. Change direction and build your own reputation and identity.

Power Law 42: Attack the Shepherd, and the Sheep Will Scatter

  1. Trouble often traces back to individual individuals—people who like to exaggerate, subordinates who are arrogant and unreasonable.
  2. Only by isolating or banishing them can you reduce their influence. By directly attacking the source of trouble, the blindly following masses will scatter.

Power Law 43: Focus on Others’ Emotions and Souls

  1. The successful way to seduce others is to manipulate their psychology and weaknesses, softening the resistance by working on their emotions, and making a big deal out of what they love and fear.

Power Law 44: Use the Mirror Effect to Disarm and Enrage Your Enemy

  1. Tempt them with illusion, making them believe that you recognize their value.
  2. Enrage them by imitation, leaving them confused; or hold up a mirror to examine the enemy’s soul.
  3. When we focus all our attention on our own reflection, it feels as if others are looking at us.
  4. Imitating and reflecting others’ behavior makes them feel uneasy and annoyed. The opponent feels mocked, as if they have become a soulless image.
  5. They feel powerless because you perfectly reflect their desires and wishes.
  6. The narcissism effect of the daffodil.
  7. Peek into the depths of others’ souls, see through their deep desires, values, and tastes, and then reflect everything back to them, making you “themselves” in their minds.
  8. During the French Revolution, he was a radical Jacobin; after the Reign of Terror, he became a moderate republican; and under Napoleon’s rule, he became a supporter of imperial power. Napoleon used digging up ministers’ secrets as a secret weapon, and Fouché could also seize the secrets of Napoleon and others.
  9. Your actions make others feel that you share their thoughts and goals.
  10. If they doubt your motives, the mirror will be your primary shield, defending against them seeing through you.
  11. This trick will completely enrage them and make them live in constant anxiety.
  12. “One mouse can eat a hundred tons of iron bars, one owl can carry a child, what else is surprising?” When the friend heard this, he understood the merchant’s intention and begged for mercy, compensating at the original price. The son also returned to his side.
  13. You must understand that everyone is wrapped in a shell of narcissism. If you want to impose your ideas on others, an invisible wall will be erected, and the obstacles will increase. But if you reflect them like a mirror, you will tempt them into narcissistic ecstasy.

Power Law 45: Advocate for Reform, But Don’t Reform Too Much at Once

  1. People are creatures of habit. Too much innovation brings trauma, leading to resistance.
  2. If change is forced by circumstances, let the process of change feel gentle, making everyone feel that this is merely an improvement upon the past.

Power Law 46: Don’t Appear Too Perfect

  1. The most dangerous thing is appearing flawless. Jealousy will breed silent enemies.
  2. Let others dissolve their jealousy into your small flaws, making you seem more human and approachable.
  3. Only gods and the dead can achieve a state of perfection without being punished by others.

Power Law 47: Don’t Exceed Your Target; Learn to Stop at the Right Time in Victory

  1. Under the excitement of victory, arrogance and overconfidence will push you beyond the original goal.
  2. Once you go too far, the enemies you create will be more numerous than the opponents you defeated.
  3. Set a goal, and when the chariot of victory arrives, stop immediately.
  4. When you succeed, remember that when retreating from victory, you must always be cautious.
  5. The moment of victory is the most intoxicating, but it is also the most dangerous.

Power Law 48: Conform to Change, Triumph Invisibly Over the Tangible

  1. The best way to protect yourself is to flow like water and have no fixed shape.
  2. Never bet on stability or permanence, because everything in the world is in constant flux.