Tag: betrayal

Law 14 from The 48 Laws of Power by Robert Greene; Pose as a friend, work as a spy (Full Text)

Sounds bad, eh?

Well…

Well, it is, at least it is not something that I myself would want to do. But that is just me. But I can tell you all something that is important; there are many crafty, clever, and evil people who follow this rule to the letter.

I can include an ex-business partner who only wanted to get into my wife’s pants (or skirt), a couple of work colleagues who would perform run-arounds to disparage me in their pursuit for career growth, and a couple of family members that have an unsavory two-faced attitude about life.

So to best prepare you for these individuals, you must understand how they think and how their Modus Operandi works.

Thus this article…

LAW 14

POSE AS A FRIEND, WORK AS A SPY

JUDGMENT

Knowing about your rival is critical. Use spies to gather valuable information that will keep you a step ahead. Better still: Play the spy yourself. In polite social encounters, learn to probe. Ask indirect questions to get people to reveal their weaknesses and intentions. There is no occasion that is not an opportunity for artful spying.

OBSERVANCE OF THE LAW

Joseph Duveen was undoubtedly the greatest art dealer of his time—from 1904 to 1940 he almost single-handedly monopolized America’s millionaire art-collecting market. But one prize plum eluded him: the industrialist Andrew Mellon. Before he died, Duveen was determined to make Mellon a client.

Duveen’s friends said this was an impossible dream.

Mellon was a stiff, taciturn man.

The stories he had heard about the congenial, talkative  Duveen rubbed him the wrong way—he had made it clear he had no desire to meet the man.

Yet Duveen told his doubting friends, “Not only will Mellon buy from me but he will buy only from me.”

For several years he tracked his prey, learning the man’s habits, tastes, phobias.

To do this, he secretly put several of Mellon’s staff on his own payroll, worming valuable information out of them.

By the time he moved into action, he knew Mellon about as well as Mellon’s wife did.

In 1921 Mellon was visiting London, and staying in a palatial suite on the third floor of Claridge’s Hotel.

Duveen booked himself into the suite just below Mellon’s, on the second floor.

He had arranged for his valet to befriend Mellon’s valet, and on the fateful day he had chosen to make his move, Mellon’s valet told Duveen’s valet, who told Duveen, that he had just helped Mellon on with his overcoat, and that the industrialist was making his way down the corridor to ring for the lift.

Duveen’s valet hurriedly helped Duveen with his own overcoat.

Seconds later, Duveen entered the lift, and lo and behold, there was Mellon.

“How do you do, Mr. Mellon?” said Duveen, introducing himself. “I am on my way to the National Gallery to look at some pictures.”

How uncanny—that was precisely where Mellon was headed.

And so Duveen was able to accompany his prey to the one location that would ensure his success.

He knew Mellon’s taste inside and out, and while the two men wandered through the museum, he dazzled the magnate with his knowledge.

Once again quite uncannily, they seemed to have remarkably similar tastes.

Mellon was pleasantly surprised: This was not the Duveen he had expected.

The man was charming and agreeable, and clearly had exquisite taste.

When they returned to New York, Mellon visited Duveen’s exclusive gallery and fell in love with the collection.

Everything, surprisingly enough, seemed to be precisely the kind of work he wanted to collect.

For the rest of his life he was Duveen’s best and most generous client.

Interpretation

A man as ambitious and competitive as Joseph Duveen left nothing to chance.

What’s the point of winging it, of just hoping you may be able to charm this or that client?

It’s like shooting ducks blindfolded.

Arm yourself with a little knowledge and your aim improves.

Mellon was the most spectacular of Duveen’s catches, but he spied on many a millionaire.

By secretly putting members of his clients’ household staffs on his own payroll, he would gain constant access to valuable information about their masters’ comings and goings, changes in taste, and other such tidbits of information that would put him a step ahead.

A rival of Duveen’s who wanted to make Henry Frick a client noticed that whenever he visited this wealthy New Yorker, Duveen was there before him, as if he had a sixth sense.

To other dealers Duveen seemed to be everywhere, and to know everything before they did.

His powers discouraged and disheartened them, until many simply gave up going after the wealthy clients who could make a dealer rich.

Such is the power of artful spying: It makes you seem all-powerful, clairvoyant.

Your knowledge of your mark can also make you seem charming, so well can you anticipate his desires.

No one sees the source of your power, and what they cannot see they cannot fight.

Rulers see through spies, as cows through smell, Brahmins through scriptures and the rest of the people through their normal eyes. 

Kautilya, Indian philosopher third century B. C.

KEYS TO POWER

In the realm of power, your goal is a degree of control over future events. Part of the problem you face, then, is that people won’t tell you all their thoughts, emotions, and plans.

Controlling what they say, they often keep the most critical parts of their character hidden—their weaknesses, ulterior motives, obsessions.

The result is that you cannot predict their moves, and are constantly in the dark.

The trick is to find a way to probe them, to find out their secrets and hidden intentions, without letting them know what you are up to.

This is not as difficult as you might think.

A friendly front will let you secretly gather information on friends and enemies alike.

Let others consult the horoscope, or read tarot cards: You have more concrete means of seeing into the future.

The most common way of spying is to use other people, as Duveen did. The method is simple, powerful, but risky: You will certainly gather information, but you have little control over the people who are doing the work.

Perhaps they will ineptly reveal your spying, or even secretly turn against you.

It is far better to be the spy yourself, to pose as a friend while secretly gathering information.

The French politician Talleyrand was one of the greatest practitioners of this art.

He had an uncanny ability to worm secrets out of people in polite conversation.

A contemporary of his, Baron de Vitrolles, wrote,

“Wit and grace marked his conversation. He possessed the art of concealing his thoughts or his malice beneath a transparent veil of insinuations, words that imply something more than they express. Only when necessary did he inject his own personality.”

The key here is Talleyrand’s ability to suppress himself in the conversation, to make others talk endlessly about themselves and inadvertently reveal their intentions and plans.

Throughout Talleyrand’s life, people said he was a superb conversationalist—yet he actually said very little.

He never talked about his own ideas; he got others to reveal theirs.

He would organize friendly games of charades for foreign diplomats, social gatherings where, however, he would carefully weigh their words, cajole confidences out of them, and gather information invaluable to his work as France’s foreign minister.

At the Congress of Vienna (1814-1815) he did his spying in other ways: He would blurt out what seemed to be a secret (actually something he had made up), then watch his listeners’ reactions.

He might tell a gathering of diplomats, for instance, that a reliable source had revealed to him that the czar of Russia was planning to arrest his top general for treason.

By watching the diplomats’ reactions to this made-up story, he would know which ones were most excited by the weakening of the Russian army—perhaps their governments had designs on Russia?

As Baron von Stetten said, “Monsieur Talleyrand fires a pistol into the air to see who will jump out the window.”

If you have reason to suspect that a person is telling you a lie, look as though you believed every word he said. This will give him courage to go on; he will become more vehement in his assertions, and in the end betray himself. Again, if you perceive that a person is trying to conceal something from you, but with only partial success, look as though you did not believe him. The opposition on your part will provoke him into leading out his reserve of truth and bringing the whole force of it to bear upon your incredulity.



ARTHUR SCHOPENHAUER, 1788-1860

During social gatherings and innocuous encounters, pay attention.

This is when people’s guards are down.

By suppressing your own personality, you can make them reveal things.

The brilliance of the maneuver is that they will mistake your interest in them for friendship, so that you not only learn, you make allies.

Nevertheless, you should practice this tactic with caution and care.

If people begin to suspect you are worming secrets out of them under the cover of conversation, they will strictly avoid you.

Emphasize friendly chatter, not valuable information.

Your search for gems of information cannot be too obvious, or your probing questions will reveal more about yourself and your intentions than about the information you hope to find.

A trick to try in spying comes from La Rochefoucauld, who wrote,

“Sincerity is found in very few men, and is often the cleverest of ruses— one is sincere in order to draw out the confidence and secrets of the other.”

By pretending to bare your heart to another person, in other words, you make them more likely to reveal their own secrets.

Give them a false confession and they will give you a real one.

Another trick was identified by the philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer, who suggested vehemently contradicting people you’re in conversation with as a way of irritating them, stirring them up so that they lose some of the control over their words.

In their emotional reaction they will reveal all kinds of truths about themselves, truths you can later use against them.

Another method of indirect spying is to test people, to lay little traps that make them reveal things about themselves.

Chosroes II, a notoriously clever seventh-century king of the Persians, had many ways of seeing through his subjects without raising suspicion.

If he noticed, for instance, that two of his courtiers had become particularly friendly, he would call one of them aside and say he had information that the other was a traitor, and would soon be killed.

The king would tell the courtier he trusted him more than anyone, and that he must keep this information secret.

Then he would watch the two men carefully.

If he saw that the second courtier had not changed in his behavior toward the king, he would conclude that the first courtier had kept the secret, and he would quickly promote the man, later taking him aside to confess,

“I meant to kill your friend because of certain information that had reached me, but, when I investigated the matter, I found it was untrue.”

If, on the other hand, the second courtier started to avoid the king, acting aloof and tense, Chosroes would know that the secret had been revealed.

He would ban the second courtier from his court, letting him know that the whole business had only been a test, but that even though the man had done nothing wrong, he could no longer trust him.

The first courtier, however, had revealed a secret, and him Chosroes would ban from his entire kingdom.

It may seem an odd form of spying that reveals not empirical information but a person’s character.

Often, however, it is the best way of solving problems before they arise.

By tempting people into certain acts, you learn about their loyalty, their honesty, and so on.

And this kind of knowledge is often the most valuable of all: Armed with it, you can predict their actions in the future.

Image:

The Third Eye of the Spy. In the land of

the two-eyed, the third eye gives you the omniscience

of a god. You see further than others, and you see deeper into them. Nobody is

safe from the eye but you.

Authority:

Now, the reason a brilliant sovereign and a wise general conquer the enemy whenever they move, and their achievements surpass those of ordinary men, is their foreknowledge of the enemy situation. This “foreknowledge” cannot be elicited from spirits, nor from gods, nor by analogy with past events, nor by astrologic calculations. It must be obtained from men who know the enemy situation—from spies. 

(Sun-tzu, The Art of War, fourth century B.C.)

REVERSAL

Information is critical to power, but just as you spy on other people, you must be prepared for them to spy on you.

One of the most potent weapons in the battle for information, then, is giving out false information.

As Winston Churchill said,

“Truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies.”

You must surround yourself with such a bodyguard, so that your truth cannot be penetrated.

By planting the information of your choice, you control the game.

…

In 1944 the Nazis’ rocket-bomb attacks on London suddenly escalated.

Over two thousand V-1 flying bombs fell on the city, killing more than five thousand people and wounding many more.

Somehow, however, the Germans consistently missed their targets.

Bombs that were intended for Tower Bridge, or Piccadilly, would fall well short of the city, landing in the less populated suburbs.

This was because, in fixing their targets, the Germans relied on secret agents they had planted in England.

They did not know that these agents had been discovered, and that in their place, English-controlled agents were feeding them subtly deceptive information.

The bombs would hit farther and farther from their targets every time they fell.

By the end of the campaign they were landing on cows in the country.

By feeding people wrong information, then, you gain a potent advantage.

While spying gives you a third eye, disinformation puts out one of your enemy’s eyes.

A cyclops, he always misses his target.

Conclusion

Do not be a fake friend. What ever advantage that it might provide to you, will be offset by an equal degradation in your other relationships.

Don’t do it.

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Law 12 from The 48 Laws of Power by Robert Greene; Use selective honesty and generosity to disarm your victim (Full Text)

I do not advocate following this law, but you all should be made well aware of it. When you are outside of your friends and family you enter a zone of questionable trust. You do need to be somewhat guarded in your public dealings as not everyone is a friend. No matter what they say. The world is filled with all kinds of people, all involved with all kinds of agendas.

Please take note that there are others that prefer to use this technique. Be wary.

LAW 12

USE SELECTIVE HONESTY AND GENEROSITY TO DISARM YOUR VICTIM

JUDGMENT

One sincere and honest move will cover over dozens of dishonest ones. Open-hearted gestures of honesty and generosity bring down the guard of even the most suspicious people. Once your selective honesty opens a hole in their armor, you can deceive and manipulate them at will. A timely gift— a Trojan horse—will serve the same purpose.

OBSERVANCE OF THE LAW

Sometime in 1926, a tall, dapperly dressed man paid a visit to Al Capone, the most feared gangster of his time.

Speaking with an elegant Continental accent, the man introduced himself as Count Victor Lustig.

He promised that if Capone gave him $50,000 he could double it.

Capone had more than enough funds to cover the “investment,” but he wasn’t in the habit of entrusting large sums to total strangers.

He looked the count over: Something about the man was different—his classy style, his manner—and so Capone decided to play along.

He counted out the bills personally and handed them to Lustig. “Okay, Count,” said Capone. “Double it in sixty days like you said.”

Lustig left with the money, put it in a safe-deposit box in Chicago, then headed to New York, where he had several other money- making schemes in progress.

The $50,000 remained in the bank box untouched.

Lustig made no effort to double it.

Two months later he returned to Chicago, took the money from the box, and paid Capone another visit.

He looked at the gangster’s stony- faced bodyguards, smiled apologetically, and said,

“Please accept my profound regrets, Mr. Capone. I’m sorry to report that the plan failed... I failed.”

Capone slowly stood up.

He glowered at Lustig, debating which part of the river to throw him in.

But the count reached into his coat pocket, withdrew the $50,000, and placed it on the desk.

“Here, sir, is your money, to the penny. Again, my sincere apologies. This is most embarrassing. Things didn’t work out the way I thought they would. I would have loved to have doubled your money for you and for myself—Lord knows I need it— but the plan just didn’t materialize.”

Capone sagged back into his chair, confused. “I know you’re a con man, Count,” said Capone.

“I knew it the moment you walked in here. I expected either one hundred thousand dollars or nothing. But this... getting my  money back ... well.”

“Again my apologies, Mr. Capone,” said Lustig, as he picked up his hat and began to leave. “

My God! You’re honest!” yelled Capone.

“If you’re on the spot, here’s five to help you along.”

He counted out five one-thousand-dollar bills out of the $50,000. The count seemed stunned, bowed deeply, mumbled his thanks, and left, taking the money.

The $5,000 was what Lustig had been after all along.

FRANCESCO BORRI. COURTIER CHARLATAN

Francesco Giuseppe Borri of Milan, whose death in 1695 fell just within the seventeenth century ... was a forerunner of that special type of charlatanical adventurer, the courtier or “cavalier” impostor.... 

His real period of glory began after he moved to Amsterdam. 

There he assumed the title of Medico Universale, maintained a great retinue, and drove about in a coach with six horses.... Patients streamed to him, and some invalids had themselves carried in sedan chairs all the way from Paris to his place in Amsterdam. 

Borri took no payment for his consultations: He distributed great sums among the poor and was never known to receive any money through the post or bills of exchange. 

As he continued to live with such splendor, nevertheless, it was presumed that he possessed the philosophers’ stone. 

Suddenly this benefactor disappeared from Amsterdam. Then it was discovered that he had taken with him money and diamonds that had been placed in his charge.







THE POWER OF THE CHARLATAN, GRETE DE FRANCESCO, 1939

Interpretation

Count Victor Lustig, a man who spoke several languages and prided himself on his refinement and culture, was one of the great con artists of modem times.

He was known for his audacity, his fearlessness, and, most important, his knowledge of human psychology.

He could size up a man in minutes, discovering his weaknesses, and he had radar for suckers.

Lustig knew that most men build up defenses against crooks and other troublemakers.

The con artist’s job is to bring those defenses down.

One sure way to do this is through an act of apparent sincerity and honesty.

Who will distrust a person literally caught in the act of being honest?

Lustig used selective honesty many times, but with Capone he went a step further.

No normal con man would have dared such a con; he would have chosen his suckers for their meekness, for that look about them that says they will take their medicine without complaint.

Con Capone and you would spend the rest of your life (whatever remained of it) afraid.

But Lustig understood that a man like Capone spends his life mistrusting others.

No one around him is honest or generous, and being so much in the company of wolves is exhausting, even depressing.

A man like Capone yearns to be the recipient of an honest or generous gesture, to feel that not everyone has an angle or is out to rob him.

Lustig’s act of selective honesty disarmed Capone because it was so unexpected.

A con artist loves conflicting emotions like these, since the person caught up in them is so easily distracted and deceived.

Do not shy away from practicing this law on the Capones of the world.

With a well-timed gesture of honesty or generosity, you will have the most brutal and cynical beast in the kingdom eating out of your hand.

Everything turns gray when I don’t have at least one mark on the horizon. Life then seems empty and depressing. I cannot understand honest men. They lead desperate lives, full of boredom.



Count Victor Lustig, 1890-1947

KEYS TO POWER

The essence of deception is distraction.

Distracting the people you want to deceive gives you the time and space to do something they won’t notice.

An act of kindness, generosity, or honesty is often the most powerful form of distraction because it disarms other people’s suspicions.

It turns them into children, eagerly lapping up any kind of affectionate gesture.

In ancient China this was called “giving before you take”—the giving makes it hard for the other person to notice the taking.

It is a device with infinite practical uses.

Brazenly taking something from someone is dangerous, even for the powerful.

The victim will plot revenge.

It is also dangerous simply to ask for what you need, no matter how politely:

Unless the other person sees some gain for themselves, they may come to resent your neediness.

Learn to give before you take.

It softens the ground, takes the bite out of a future request, or simply creates a distraction.

And the giving can take many forms: an actual gift, a generous act, a kind favor, an “honest” admission—whatever it takes.

Selective honesty is best employed on your first encounter with someone.

We are all creatures of habit, and our first impressions last a long time.

If someone believes you are honest at the start of your relationship it takes a lot to convince them otherwise.

This gives you room to maneuver.

…

Jay Gould, like Al Capone, was a man who distrusted everyone.

By the time he was thirty-three he was already a multimillionaire, mostly through deception and strong-arming.

In the late 1860s, Gould invested heavily in the Erie Railroad, then discovered that the market had been flooded with a vast amount of phony stock certificates for the company.

He stood to lose a fortune and to suffer a lot of embarrassment.

In the midst of this crisis, a man named Lord John Gordon-Gordon offered to help.

Gordon-Gordon, a Scottish lord, had apparently made a small fortune investing in railroads.

By hiring some handwriting experts Gordon-Gordon was able to prove to Gould that the culprits for the phony stock certificates were actually several top executives with the Erie Railroad itself.

Gould was grateful.

Gordon- Gordon then proposed that he and Gould join forces to buy up a controlling interest in Erie.

Gould agreed.

For a while the venture appeared to prosper.

The two men were now good friends, and every time Gordon-Gordon came to Gould asking for money to buy more stock, Gould gave it to him.

In 1873, however, Gordon-Gordon suddenly dumped all of his stock, making a fortune but drastically lowering the value of Gould’s own holdings.

Then he disappeared from sight.

Upon investigation, Gould found out that Gordon-Gordon’s real name was John Crowningsfield, and that he was the bastard son of a merchant seaman and a London barmaid.

There had been many clues before then that Gordon-Gordon was a con man, but his initial act of honesty and support had so blinded Gould that it took the loss of millions for him to see through the scheme.

A single act of honesty is often not enough.

What is required is a reputation for honesty, built on a series of acts—but these can be quite inconsequential.

Once this reputation is established, as with first impressions, it is hard to shake.

…

In ancient China, Duke Wu of Chêng decided it was time to take over the increasingly powerful kingdom of Hu.

Telling no one of his plan, he married his daughter to Hu’s ruler.

He then called a council and asked his ministers,

“I am considering a military campaign. Which country should we invade?”

As he had expected, one of his ministers replied, “Hu should be invaded.”

The duke seemed angry, and said,

“Hu is a sister state now. Why do you suggest invading her?”

He had the minister executed for his impolitic remark.

The ruler of Hu heard about this, and considering other tokens of Wu’s honesty and the marriage with his daughter, he took no precautions to defend himself from Cheng.

A few weeks later, Chêng forces swept through Hu and took the country, never to relinquish it.

…

Honesty is one of the best ways to disarm the wary, but it is not the only one.

Any kind of noble, apparently selfless act will serve.

Perhaps the best such act, though, is one of generosity.

Few people can resist a gift, even from the most hardened enemy, which is why it is often the perfect way to disarm people.

A gift brings out the child in us, instantly lowering our defenses.

Although we often view other people’s actions in the most cynical light, we rarely see the Machiavellian element of a gift, which quite often hides ulterior motives.

A gift is the perfect object in which to hide a deceptive move.

…

Over three thousand years ago the ancient Greeks traveled across the sea to recapture the beautiful Helen, stolen away from them by Paris, and to destroy Paris’s city, Troy.

The siege lasted ten years, many heroes died, yet neither side had come close to victory.

One day, the prophet Calchas assembled the Greeks.

Image: The Trojan Horse. Your guile is hidden inside a magnificent gift that proves irresistible to your opponent. The walls open. Once inside, wreak havoc.

“Stop battering away at these walls!” he told them. “You must find some other way, some ruse. We cannot take Troy by force alone. We must find some cunning stratagem.”

The cunning Greek leader Odysseus then came up with the idea of building a giant wooden horse, hiding soldiers inside it, then offering it to the Trojans as a gift.

Neoptolemus, son of Achilles, was disgusted with this idea; it was unmanly.

Better for thousands to die on the battlefield than to gain victory so deceitfully.

But the soldiers, faced with a choice between another ten years of manliness, honor, and death, on the one hand and a quick victory on the other, chose the horse, which was promptly built.

The trick was successful and Troy fell.

One gift did more for the Greek cause than ten years of fighting.

…

Selective kindness should also be part of your arsenal of deception.

For years the ancient Romans had besieged the city of the Faliscans, always unsuccessfully.

One day, however, when the Roman general Camillus was encamped outside the city, he suddenly saw a man leading some children toward him.

The man was a Faliscan teacher, and the children, it turned out, were the sons and daughters of the noblest and wealthiest citizens of the town.

On the pretense of taking these children out for a walk, he had led them straight to the Romans, offering them as hostages in hopes of ingratiating himself with Camillus, the city’s enemy.

Camillus did not take the children hostage.

He stripped the teacher, tied his hands behind his back, gave each child a rod, and let them whip him all the way back to the city.

The gesture had an immediate effect on the Faliscans.

Had Camillus used the children as hostages, some in the city would have voted to surrender.

And even if the Faliscans had gone on fighting, their resistance would have been halfhearted.

Camillus’s refusal to take advantage of the situation broke down the Faliscans’ resistance, and they surrendered.

The general had calculated correctly.

And in any case he had had nothing to lose: He knew that the hostage ploy would not have ended the war, at least not right away.

By turning the situation around, he earned his enemy’s trust and respect, disarming them.

Selective kindness will often break down even the most stubborn foe: Aiming right for the heart, it corrodes the will to fight back.

Remember: By playing on people’s emotions, calculated acts of kindness can turn a Capone into a gullible child. As with any emotional approach, the tactic must be practiced with caution: If people see through it, their disappointed feelings of gratitude and warmth will become the most violent hatred and distrust. Unless you can make the gesture seem sincere and heartfelt, do not play with fire.

Authority:

When Duke Hsien of Chin was about to raid Yü, he presented to them a jade and a team of horses. When Earl Chih was about to raid Ch’ou- yu, he presented to them grand chariots. Hence the saying: “When you are about to take, you should give.” 

(Han-fei-tzu, Chinese philosopher, third century B.C.)

REVERSAL

When you have a history of deceit behind you, no amount of honesty, generosity, or kindness will fool people.

In fact it will only call attention to itself.

Once people have come to see you as deceitful, to act honest all of a sudden is simply suspicious.

In these cases it is better to play the rogue.

…

Count Lustig, pulling the biggest con of his career, was about to sell the Eiffel Tower to an unsuspecting industrialist who believed the government was auctioning it off for scrap metal.

The industrialist was prepared to hand over a huge sum of money to Lustig, who had successfully impersonated a government official.

At the last minute, however, the mark was suspicious.

Something about Lustig bothered him.

At the meeting in which he was to hand over the money, Lustig sensed his sudden distrust.

Leaning over to the industrialist, Lustig explained, in a low whisper, how low his salary was, how difficult his finances were, on and on.

After a few minutes of this, the industrialist realized that Lustig was asking for a bribe.

For the first time he relaxed.

Now he knew he could trust Lustig: Since all government officials were dishonest, Lustig had to be real.

The man forked over the money.

By acting dishonest, Lustig seemed the real McCoy.

In this case selective honesty would have had the opposite effect.

…

As the French diplomat Talleyrand grew older, his reputation as a master liar and deceiver spread.

At the Congress of Vienna (1814-1815), he would spin fabulous stories and make impossible remarks to people who knew he had to be lying.

His dishonesty had no purpose except to cloak the moments when he really was deceiving them.

One day, for example, among friends, Talleyrand said with apparent sincerity, “In business one ought to show one’s hand.”

No one who heard him could believe their ears: A man who never once in his life had shown his cards was telling other people to show theirs.

Tactics like this made it impossible to distinguish Talleyrand’s real deceptions from his fake ones.

By embracing his reputation for dishonesty, he preserved his ability to deceive.

Nothing in the realm of power is set in stone.

Overt deceptiveness will sometimes cover your tracks, even making you admired for the honesty of your dishonesty.

Do you want more?

I have more posts in my “48 Laws of Power” Index here…

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You’ll not find any big banners or popups here talking about cookies and privacy notices. There are no ads on this site (aside from the hosting ads – a necessary evil). Functionally and fundamentally, I just don’t make money off of this blog. It is NOT monetized. Finally, I don’t track you because I just don’t care to.

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