Law 1: Never outshine the master
Law 2: Never put too much trust in friends, learn how to 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 notbuild 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 that 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: Do not go past the mark you aimed for: in victory, learn when to stop
Law 48: Assume formlessness.