让别人依赖你。神之所以为神，不在于人们装饰其雕像，而在于人们诚心诚意地崇拜他。智者宁愿他人时刻需要自己，而非感激自己。保持他人的希求是智慧的，期望别人的感激是愚蠢的；期盼让人牢记，而感激使人忘却。受人依赖，比受人恭敬更有益。人解了渴之后，往往转身离开井边；橘子一旦榨干，便会被人从金盘子中扔到垃圾筐里。当人们对你的依赖消失，良好的品行和尊敬也会随着消失。努力保持人们对你的渴求之心，且不使其得到完全满足，这是最重要的人生经验之一。此法让你变得不可或缺，甚至连王座上的君主也永远需要你。但是不要做得太过分，以免误入歧途，也不要为了一己之私而让别人陷入病入膏肓的绝境。
create a feeling of dependence. not he that adorns but he that adores makes a divinity. the wise man would rather see men needing him than thanking him. to keep them on the threshold of hope is diplomatic, to trust to their gratitude boorish; hope has a good memory, gratitude a bad one. more is to be got from dependence than from courtesy. he that has satisfied his thirst turns his back on the well, and the orange once sucked falls from the golden platter into the waste-basket. when dependence disappears, good behaviour goes with it as well as respect. let it be one of the chief lessons of experience to keep hope alive without entirely satisfying it, by preserving it to make oneself always needed even by a patron on the throne. but let not silence be carried to excess lest you go wrong, nor let another's failing grow incurable for the sake of your own advantage.
