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.
—Arthur Schopenhauer
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. 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.
Daily Law: Suppress yourself in conversation. Let others talk endlessly.
The 48 Laws of Power
, Law 14: Pose as a Friend, Work as a Spy