Finally, you must learn always to take the indirect route to power. Disguise your cunning. Like a billiard ball that caroms several times before it hits its target, your moves must be planned and developed in the least obvious way. By training yourself to be indirect, you can thrive in the modern court, appearing the paragon of decency while being

Self-interest is the lever that will move people. Once you make them see how you can in some way meet their needs or advance their cause, their resistance to your requests for help will magically fall away.

Daizen’s example provides the paradigm for every favor done between friends and peers: never impose your favors. Search out ways to make yourself the cat’s-paw, indirectly extricating your friends from distress without imposing yourself or making them feel obligated to you.

Never take your position for granted and never let any favors you receive go to your head.

Authority: Avoid outshining the master.

Even an ugly recent history will seem preferable to an empty space.

Understand this: The world wants to assign you a role in life. And once you accept that role you are doomed. Your power is limited to the tiny amount allotted to the role you have selected or have been forced to assume. An actor, on the other hand, plays many roles. Enjoy that protean power, and if it is beyond you, at least forge a new identity,

Power is essentially amoral and one of the most important skills to acquire is the ability to see circumstances rather than good or evil.

As Nietzsche wrote, “The value of a thing sometimes lies not in what one attains with it, but in what one pays for it—what it costs us.” Perhaps you will attain your goal, and a worthy goal at that, but at what price? Apply this standard to everything,