Quotes About Manipulation

What we are looking for, I am afraid, is neither a true leader nor a true Messiah, but a false Messiah - a man who will give us over-simplified answers, who will justify our ways, who will castigate our enemies, who will vindicate our selfishness as a way of life and make us comfortable within our prejudices and preconceptions.

When a man's position in life depends upon his having a certain opinion, that's the opinion he will have.

I think it's a terrible shame that politics has become show business.

Countess Judith kept her husband's head in a box. At night it perched on the pillow by her side, at meals it sat on the board by her plate, and her household feared it almost as much as they feared her. She talked to it, they whispered among themselves, and who was to say it didn't answer.

Her whole life, Crystal's mother had given her nothing but ultimatums. Conditional love. Love with strings.

Most people are manipulated by the approval of others, the paycheck that supports them, and the lifestyle that has handcuffed them to the brass ring of perceived success. On this path we eventually live like slaves to a man-made system. We chase the goals of others instead of pursuing our own dreams. We anesthetize our despair with the next purchase, pill, or plunder.

Social climbers are a bit like rats. You know you should avoid them, but, somehow one or two manage to sneak into your life anyhow.

The Left Elite only pretend to be concerned about what's best for everyone else because it is the most effective way to manipulate you and your children into their abyss.

Frightened people are obedient–not just physically, but intellectually and emotionally.

She fits the clinical definition. No conscience, no empathy, pathological liar, manipulative, charming, intuitive, attention-seeking, easily bored, narcissistic, turns very nasty when she's thwarted in any way…

Plenty of people have told me—and several of them even meant it as a compliment—that I have a God-given talent for fucking with people's minds; and what you can do to strangers is nothing compared to what you can do to your very own family.

This watching through cool intent eyes and delicately adjusting one factor or another till a man's fundamental instinct for self-preservation cracks, is savagery in its most pure, most polished and most highly evolved form.

I could get a fedora and a trench coat and a wisecracking sense of humor; she could sit poised at hotel bars with a slinky red dress and a camera in her lipstick, to snare cheating businessmen…. I almost laughed out loud.

He strikes me as a psychopath, and they lie easier than they tell the truth.

a cipher, composed entirely of the jumbled reflections of what he thinks other people want to see.

The place felt like a weapon expertly crafted to strip you of all humanity, hollow you to a shell creature that would do anything it was told for the slim chance of someday getting out into the living world again.

We're ruled by venal little usurpers, all of us, and they make meaninglessness everywhere they go.

There are no such enemies So dire as good people, They will rob you, mournfully, And condemn you, weeping, They'll invite you to their home, Welcome you profusely, Ask you all about yourself, To mock and abuse you, Later, mock at you and jeer, To grab you for sure... Without enemies on earth Somehow one can endure. But those good people yet will Everywhere beset you, Even in the other world They will not forget you.

Proximity to power has an unsurprising ability to mutate a politician's spinal cord into bright yellow jelly.

Not at all," I said. "I think she'd be elegant beyond measure, and deceive you completely in the ballroom." "And would make a most excellent villain. Perhaps I should write about her." Monsieur Leblanc tilted his head and looked into the distance, as if deep in thought. "Only

Has not the country become independent? Be sure, though, that they will direct our affairs from afar. This is because they have left behind them people who think as they do.

No hay nada más peligroso que un actor que no se dedica abiertamente a ser actor. Los tiranos más brillantes y malignos han sido estupendos charlatanes.

who do you honestly believe rules any nation? The apparent rulers, or the real ones behind the scenes who manipulate a nation's finances for their own benefit? Mr. Lincoln is as helpless as you and I. He can only, unfortunate man, give his people slogans, and slogans, it would appear, are what the people want. I have yet to hear of a nation that ever rejected a war.

la clase media sirve para algo, es para trabajar y pagar impuestos con los que podamos sobornar a la plebe de Roma y tenerla contenta y dócil. Es cierto que los plebeyos de Roma son como animales, pero son muchos y necesitamos sus votos para alcanzar el poder. Que la clase media nos sirva hasta el final, porque los nuevos ciudadanos no piensan más que en el trabajo, la industria, el ahorro y otras preocupaciones vulgares por el estilo.»