The 48 Laws of Power

The 48 Laws of Power is a 1998 book by Robert Greene. The book shares thematic elements with Niccolò Machiavelli's The Prince and has been compared to Sun-Tzu's classic treatise The Art of War.

The Laws

• 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 Cost
• 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 and 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 to 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 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. 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 Cultlike 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 for Change, but Never Reform too much at Once
• Law 46 Never appear Perfect
• Law 47 Do not go Past the Mark you Aimed for; In Victory, Learn when to Stop
• Law 48 Assume Formlessness

Your joy is your sorrow unmasked. (On Joy and Sorrow)

Your joy is your sorrow unmasked.
And the selfsame well from which your laughter rises was oftentimes filled with your tears.
And how else can it be?

The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain.
Is not the cup that hold your wine the very cup that was burned in the potter's oven?
And is not the lute that soothes your spirit, the very wood that was hollowed with knives?

When you are joyous, look deep into your heart and you shall find it is only that which has given you sorrow that is giving you joy.

When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight.

Some of you say, "Joy is greater than sorrow," and others say, "Nay, sorrow is the greater."

But I say unto you, they are inseparable.
Together they come, and when one sits alone with you at your board, remember that the other is asleep upon your bed.

Verily you are suspended like scales between your sorrow and your joy.

Only when you are empty are you at standstill and balanced.

When the treasure-keeper lifts you to weigh his gold and his silver, needs must your joy or your sorrow rise or fall.

~Khalil Gibran

Yesterday I Lived Bewildered

Yesterday I lived bewildered, in illusion. But now I am awake, flawless and serene, beyond the world. From my light the body and the world arise. So all things are mine, or nothing is.

- Ashtavakra Gita

Simplicity

That simplicity is the ultimate sophistication. What we meant by that was when you start looking at a problem and it seems really simple with all these simple solutions, you don't really understand the complexity of the problem. And your solutions are way too oversimplified, and they don't work. Then you get into the problem, and you see it's really complicated. And you come up with all these convoluted solutions. That's sort of the middle, and that's where most people stop, and the solutions tend to work for a while. But the really great person will keep on going and find, sort of, the key, underlying principle of the problem. And come up with a beautiful elegant solution that works.

- S. Jobs (in "The Perfect Thing" by Steven Levy, pg. 67-68)

Computer

A computer is like a violin. You can imagine a novice trying first a phonograph and then a violin. The latter, he says, sounds terrible. That is the argument we have heard from our humanists and most of our computer scientists. Computer programs are good, they say, for particular purposes, but they aren't flexible. Neither is a violin, or a typewriter, until you learn how to use it.

- M. Minsky (in "Why Programming Is a Good Medium for Expressing Poorly-Understood and Sloppily-Formulated Ideas"