Quotes About Manipulation

He'd been many things to me, Nathaniel had, most of them indescribable. But he never looked so much of a puppet as he did now. And already it had all gone wrong.

Julius Tallow gave Nathaniel an unctuous smile. "That's the kind of servant you need, Mandrake," he said. "No glibness, no chatter. Obeys without question. I'd get rid of this smooth-tongued serpent, if I were you." The panther swished its tail. "Hey, we've all got problems, chum. I'm overly talkative. You look like a field of buttercups in a suit.

Politics, as the word is commonly understood, are nothing but corruptions.

The really good liars, the true grandmasters of bullshit, are so damn convincing because they actually believe their own lies.

Dealing with backstabbers, there was one thing I learned. They're only powerful when you got your back turned.

Could I make you believe something that wasn't true?' He studied her through his eyelashes. 'You could make me believe anything at all.

It does sound too easy, doesn't it? But if a man keeps saying, "I want you," a naive girl is drawn in by the ego-trip of her own desirability. The man need not be particularly attractive in himself. It's the girl's vulnerability which traps her. A student from a co-ed school would laugh it off unless she was truly attracted

You're like Marilyn Monroe,' Ken tells me, which I take as a compliment and say a nervous "Thank You". Interrupting, he adds, 'You're all velvet and Velcro. Men want you because you're sexy and broken and when it gets too rough they can say "Hey! This toy is broken!" and toss you aside without feeling bad.

The only person he cared about was the one he thought he could mould her into.

Wenn die Partei es verlangt, ist ein wahrer Bolschewik bereit zu glauben, dass Schwarz Weiß ist und Weiß Schwarz.«

Journalists say a thing that they know is not true, in the hope that if they keep on saying it long enough it will be true.

Jugamos tres partidas, las cuales ganó Holmes, como siempre, pues su extraordinaria habilidad manual le permitía cambiar las fichas de casilla cuando le daba la gana, sin que lo advirtiese, y yo me armaba unos líos como para nombrar abogado.

El populismo es el uso demagógico de la democracia para acabar con ella.

Yo creía en una historia para el saber. Una historia que escuchara la melodía del pasado, una historia abierta a los más variados temas de la vida humana, una historia que se ocupara del pasado sin leerlo como una anticipación necesaria del presente, sin imponerle las categorías del presente y sobre todo sin convertirla en un instrumento de manipulación política.

La gente segura de sí misma sabe muy bien lo que busca en la vida. En cambio yo espero siempre que otros muevan los hilos de la trama donde participo como testigo o comparsa.

Como de costumbre, las declaraciones de los políticos eran irrelevantes: lo que de verdad importaba eran los detalles ocultos tras bambalinas, los papelillos reveladores que dejaban a la vista por descuido.

Half the work that is done in the world is to make things appear what they are not.

Flyers and leaflets dropped by Allied airplanes during the war informed only a small minority of Germans. This is no accident. Few Germans ever got hold of such fliers, since they were quickly collected by Nazi supporters and members of the Hitler Youth. In addition, the murder of Jews was never a major topic of Allied military propaganda.

For the past eight years, the right has been better at working the refs. Now the left is learning how to play the game.

Never tell a lie when you can bullshit your way through it

If such things were not so dangerous one would laugh. But one recognizes the technique. Such propaganda always begins with words, but soon it proceeds to deeds. When there are no facts to support lies, facts must be made.

If someone frankly asks for reassurance and gets it, that is an operation. If someone asks for reassurance, and after it is given turns it in some way to the disadvantage of the giver, that is a game.

When you delete a property, you're not just deleting the value of the property, you're deleting the property itself. And, if you try to use fido.dogYears after deleting it, it will evaluate to undefined.

Charlatanism of some degree is indispensable to effective leadership.