More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
Daily Law: Being lighthearted and fun is always more charming than being serious and critical. The Art of Seduction: The Charmer
People do not want truth and honesty, no matter how much we hear such nonsense endlessly repeated. They want their imaginations to be stimulated and to be taken beyond their banal circumstances. Create an air of mystery around you and your work. Associate it with something new, unfamiliar, exotic, progressive, and taboo. Do not define your message but leave it vague.
Daily Law: Try to position yourself as coming from outside, as a stranger of sorts. You represent change, difference, a breakup of routines. Make your victims feel that by comparison their lives are boring and their friends less interesting than they had thought. The Art of Seduction: Create a Need—Stir Anxiety and Discontent
Daily Law: Your own image and presence are materials you can control. The sense that you are engaged in this kind of play will make people see you as superior and worthy of imitation. The Art of Seduction: The Star
Play with Ambiguity
If you have a sweet face and an innocent air, let out hints of something dark, even vaguely cruel in your character.
Daily Law: No one is naturally mysterious, at least not for long; mystery is something you have to work at, a ploy on your part, and something that must be used early on in the seduction. The Art of Seduction: Send Mixed Signals
Know When to Withdraw Love never dies of starvation but often of indigestion. — NINON DE L’ENCLOS
It was during her absences that men fell hopelessly in love with her, and vowed to be more aggressive next time they were with her.
Daily Law: In your absence, their appreciation of you will grow. They will forget your faults, forgive your sins. The moment you return, they will chase after you as you desire. It will be as if you had come back from the dead. The Art of Seduction: Give Them Space to Fall—The Pursuer Is Pursued
Know When to Be Bold
No one is born timid; timidity is a protection we develop. If we never stick our necks out, if we never try, we will never have to suffer the consequences of failure or success.
You need to be able to play the humble saint at times; it is a mask you wear. But in seduction, take it off. Boldness is bracing, erotic, and absolutely necessary to bring the seduction to its conclusion.
Daily Law: At the final stage of a seduction, boldness eliminates any awkwardness or doubts. The Art of Seduction: Master the Art of the Bold Move
Daily Law: Pay more attention to the form of your message than to the content. Images are more seductive than words, and visuals should actually be your real message. The Art of Seduction: Soft Seduction—How to Sell Anything to the Masses
Poeticize Your Presence
In a world that is harsh and full of disappointment, it is a great pleasure to be able to fantasize about a person you are involved with. This makes the seducer’s task easy: people are dying to be given the chance to fantasize about you.
Do not spoil this golden opportunity by overexposing yourself or becoming so familiar and banal that the target sees you exactly as you are.
Daily Law: Never be ordinary or limited. In poetry (as opposed to reality), anything is possible. The Art of Seduction: Poeticize Your Presence
Most people do not want to expend the effort that goes into thinking about others and figuring out a strategic entry past their defenses. They are lazy. They want to simply be themselves, speak honestly, or do nothing, and justify this to themselves as stemming from some great moral choice.
Since the game is unavoidable, better to be skillful at it than in denial or merely improvising in the moment. In the end, being good at influence is actually more socially beneficial than the moral stance.
Becoming proficient at persuasion requires that we immerse ourselves in the perspective of oth...
This highlight has been truncated due to consecutive passage length restrictions.
I’m often asked why I talk to the reader through stories. I’m very focused on the reader. I’m always thinking when I’m writing, how are they going to absorb this information?
There’s a problem that psychologists have noted. If you’re a teacher, you assume that your students have the same knowledge you have. This makes them bad teachers.
I know that my readers don’t necessarily know what I’m talking about. If I’m talking about Carl Jung, for instance, and I just throw out jargon, the reader is not going to get it. So I have to make it understandable to the average person. In The Art of Seduction, I talk about how ...
This highlight has been truncated due to consecutive passage length restrictions.
From the time we’re kids—being carried by our parents or playing peek-a-boo—the sense of not knowing what comes next is very d...
This highlight has been truncated due to consecutive passage length restrictions.
So if I tell a story about Rockefeller to illustrate aggression, I know that as the reader is being pulled into this story, they don’t know where I’m going, or who the aggressor is in this story, or the lesson that I’m trying to derive. So they’re going to want to read. They’re going to want to g...
This highlight has been truncated due to consecutive passage length restrictions.
That’s the mistake 98 percent of people who write books out there make. They don’t think about the reader. They assume that the reader is as interested in the material as they are. You have to seduce the reader. You have to persuade them that what you have to say is worth the time. That’s why I tell stories. People make the same mistake in the social realm, in trying to persuade or influence others. If you want someone to do you’re bidding, to help you, to finance your film or whatever it is—if you come at it only thinking about what you want or deserve, it has no effect. But if you think in
...more
The Hypnotist’s Art The goal of persuasive speech is often to create a kind of hypnosis: you are distracting people, lowering their defenses, making them more vulnerable to suggestion. Learn the hypnotist’s lessons of repetition and affirmation, key elements in putting a subject to sleep. Repetition involves using the same words over and over, preferably a word with emotional content: “taxes,” “liberals,” “bigots.” The effect is mesmerizing—ideas can be permanently implanted in people’s unconscious simply by being repeated often enough. Affirmation is simply the making of strong positive
...more
Instead he told her he had found two perfect American actresses to play the part, but he wanted her opinion on which would be better. Would she view their tests? Feeling bad that she had turned down her old friend Wilder, Dietrich naturally agreed to this. But Wilder had cleverly tested two well-known actresses whom he knew would be quite terrible for the role, making a mockery of the part of a sexy German cabaret singer. The ploy worked like a charm. The very competitive Dietrich was aghast at their performances and immediately volunteered to do the part herself.
Daily Law: Your attempts at influence must always follow a similar logic: how can you get others to perceive what you want them to do as something they are choosing to do?
The Laws of Human Nature, 7: Soften People’s Resistance by Confirming Their Self-Opinion—The Law of Defensiveness
Make Them the Star of the Show
Normally we try to charm people with our own ideas, showing ourselves off in the best light. We hype our past accomplishments. We promise great things about ourselves. We ask for favors, believing that being honest is the best policy. What we do not realize is that we are putting all of the attention on ourselves. In a world where people are increasingly self-absorbed, this only has the effect of making others turn more inward in return and think more of their own interests rather than ours.
The royal road to influence and power is to go the opposite direction: Put the focus on others. Let them do the talking. Let them be the stars of the show. Their opinions and values are worth emulating. The causes they support are the noblest.
Daily Law: In conversation, try getting others to do 70 percent of the talking without them noticing, and see the effect.
Express what others are afraid to express and they will see great power in you. Say what they want to say but cannot.
Daily Law: Learn how to channel your emotions. Nothing is more charismatic than the sense that someone is struggling with great emotion rather than simply giving in to it.
Daily Law: Demonstrate, do not explicate. The 48 Laws of Power, Law 9: Win through Your Actions, Never through Argument
Consider Their Self-Interest
The quickest way to secure people’s minds is by demonstrating, as simply as possible, how an action will benefit them. Self-interest is the strongest motive of all:
Daily Law: Show people what’s in it for them.
The 48 Laws of Power, Law 43: Work on the Hearts and Minds of Others
Avoid Argument Never argue. In society nothing must be discussed; give only results. — BENJAMIN DISRAELI
The Arguer does not understand that words are never neutral, and that by arguing with a superior he impugns the intelligence of one more powerful than he. He also has no awareness of the person he is dealing with.
Since each man believes that he is right, and words will rarely convince him otherwise, the arguer’s reasoning falls on deaf ears. When cornered, he only argues more, digging his own grave. Once he has made the other person feel insecure and inferior in his beliefs, the eloquence of Socrates could not save the situation.
Daily Law: You must be careful to always try to demonstrate the correctness of your ideas indirectly.
The Moral Effect
Quite simply, you teach others a lesson by giving them a taste of their own medicine.
In the Moral Effect, you mirror what other people have done to you, and do so in a way that makes them realize you are doing to them exactly what they did to you.
