Quotes About Manipulation

if you torture the data long enough, it will confess to anything

Knowing how the environment is pulling your strings and playing you is critical to making responsive rather than reactive moves.

any formalized practices by human beings designed to achieve particular ends by the control, manipulation and direction of supernatural power or of spiritual power concealed within the natural world'.

using pressure points to unlock his grip.

Few men have gained power, or retained it, by using, in Lenin's words, "the methods of a finishing school for young ladies.

Sociopaths don't accept blame and often blame others for acts they obviously committed.

Of course Lily had agreed. She would have agreed to virtually anything Sharon requested, to please her, to allay her fears. Always there was something satisfying, even exciting, about a secret with someone both strong-willed and helpless-seeming like Sharon.

If I am loved," Father Damien went on, "it is a merciless and exacting love against which I have no defense. If I am not loved, then I am being pitilessly manipulated by a force I cannot withstand, either, and so it is all the same. I must do what I must do. Go in peace.

No. I don't see," said Patrice flatly. But she did see. Jack would have tampered with her slightly, just enough so that when somebody else came along she'd have that shame, then more shame, until she got lost in shame and wasn't herself.

I found I could not read just any book. It had gotten so I could see through books – the little ruses, the hooks, the setup in the beginning, the looming weight of a tragic ending, the way at the last page the author could whisk out the carpet of sorrow and restore a favorite character. I needed the writing to have a certain mineral density. It had to feel naturally meant, but not cynically contrived. I grew to dislike manipulations.

whenever they get a chance, never fear, people make you waste hours and months ... they use you as a wall to bounce their bullshit off of ... blah! and blah! and blahblahblah! ... you put up with it for an hour, you'll need two weeks to recover ... blah! blah!

I tell you, little man, life's fall guys, beaten, fleeced to the bone, sweated from time immemorial, I warn you, that when the princes of this world start loving you, it means they're going to grind you up into battle sausage...

This world, I assure you, is only a vast device for kidding the world!

Cuando a los grandes de este mundo les da por amaros, es que van a convertiros en carne de cañón

allemaal hetzelfde, waar je ook komt! welk regime ook, welke filosofie, sekte, kleur!... elk excuus is goed!... ze stormen toe, in zwermen! en dan is't te laat!... dan vreten ze je op!

Os lo aseguro, buenas y pobres gentes, gilipollas, infelices, baqueteados por la vida, desollados, siempre empapados en sudor, os aviso, cuando a los grandes de este mundo les da por amaros, es que van a convertiros en carne de cañón... Es la señal... Infalible.

As Dr. Robert Hare stated on page one of Without Conscience, "Everybody has met these people, been deceived and manipulated by them, and forced to live with or repair the damage they have wrought. These often charming—but always deadly—individuals have a clinical name: psychopaths. Their hallmark is a stunning lack of conscience; their game is self-gratification at the other person's expense. Many spend time in prison, but many do not. All take far more than they give.

Abusers are weak. They trap women who have gigantic hearts, who want to help these poor, sad wounded birds.

Mrs. Gibson has got her way all her life by leaving things to people's consciences.

You sometimes see in a wind a piece of paper blowing about anyhow. Suppose the piece of paper could make the decision: 'Now I want to go this way.' I say: 'Queer, this paper always decides where it is to go, and all the time it is the wind that blows it. I know it is the wind that blows it.' That same force which moves it also in a different way moves its decisions.

ieri, pare che faceste all'altalena, e su, e giù, e io nel mezzo ad aggiustarmi e ad aggiustarvi a punto. Ah! avete creduto di giocarvi me, la mia vita? Avete fallito il colpo, cari miei! Io ho giocato voi.

There is one point, however, on which I wish you would give me a little enlightenment, and that is, how you can rest quietly when you reflect that there is someone who is doing his utmost to persuade others that you are as he sees you, endeavoring firmly to establish you in the estimation of others in accordance with his judgment of you, and to prevent others from seeing and judging you in any other manner?

You touch, I kill.

In fact, it seemed to me that every single item on the news – concerning economic doom and political hypocrisy and social breakdown – was not "news" at all. What I could hear was just a series of utterly transparent ploys to frighten and alarm the listeners – and frighten them, moreover, about the wrong things. The