The 33 Strategies of War

by Robert Greene

First, it is wise to pick a fight with an enemy that you can portray as authoritarian, hypocritical, and power-hungry. Using all available media, you strike first with a moral offensive against the opponent’s points of vulnerability. You make your language strong and appealing to the masses, and craft it, if you can, to give people the opportunity to express a hostility they already feel. You quote your enemies’ own words back at them to make your attacks seem fair, almost disinterested. You create a moral taint that sticks to them like glue. Baiting them into a heavy-handed counterattack will win you even more public support. Instead of trumpeting your own goodness—which would make you seem smug and arrogant—you show it through the contrast between their unreasonable actions and your own crusading deeds. Aim at them the most withering charge of all—that they are after power, while you are motivated by something higher and selfless.