Quotes About Manipulation

If the man is abusive, of course he is going to deny it, partly to protect himself and partly because his perceptions are distorted. If he were ready to accept responsibility for his actions in relationships, he wouldn't be abusive.

Most people have an impulse to dump bad feelings on some undeserving person, as a way to relieve—temporarily—sadness or frustration. (..) The abusive man (..) considers himself entitled to use his partner as a kind of human garbage dump where he can litter the ordinary pains and frustrations that life brings us. She is always an available target.

some abusers are rarely home at all, using the house only as a base for periodic refueling.

When you are left feeling hurt or confused after a confrontation with your controlling partner, ask yourself: What was he trying to get out of what he just did? What is the ultimate benefit to him? Thinking through these questions can help you clear your head and identify his tactics.

The typical abusive man works to maintain a positive public image (..) Most abusive men put on a charming face for their communities, creating a sharp split between their public image and their private treatment of women and children. He may be (..) assaultive toward his partner or children but nonviolent and nonthreatening with everyone else. (..) The pain of this contrast can eat away at a woman.

A man who chronically mistreats you is a terrible source of information about who you are. His vision is too distorted, too self-centered, and too self-serving to have any useful clarity, especially when the subject is you.

The outcome of the way he argues is that he escapes ever accepting responsibility for what he does. To his unethical way of thinking, you are the cause of everything he does.

Deference refers to the abuser's entitlement to have his tastes and opinions treated as edicts.

YOUR ABUSIVE PARTNER DOESN'T HAVE A PROBLEM WITH HIS ANGER; HE HAS A PROBLEM WITH YOUR ANGER.

But abuse is not a battle that you win by being better at expressing yourself. You win it by being better at sarcasm, put-downs, twisting everything around backward, and using other tactics of control—an arena in which my clients win hands down over their partners, just as they do in a violent altercation. Who can beat an abuser at his own game?

An abusive man is at his most punishing when the woman moves toward health, independence, and social connection.

A lie is like a snow-ball; the longer it is rolled, the larger it is.

All men, every last one of them, were terribly fond of pretty women. Any cheeky housemaid could wrap any man, even a decent one, around her little finger.

If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you.

It's easy to have faith when we get everything we want from God, everything we pray for. But when we don't, we have to decide if we want His will or our own. We can't manipulate God by a display of faith or by our actions. Only idols can be manipulated. God is sovereign, and He will do what He do what He wills, for His purpose. And those purposes are often hidden

I suspect this is always the way with conmen: they don't even have to construct a whole story, their victims fill in the gaps, reconcile the irreconciliables – their victims do most of the work.

As Lynn writes: "What angers me is the loss of control. At any moment someone could come to me, be dressed the right way and use the right code, and I no longer have free will. I will do anything that person requests. I hate them for that. Nothing else is as bad as known that I am always out of control; knowing that I am still a laboratory experiment, a puppet whose strings are hidden from ever but my handlers, and I don't yet know how to break free. p216

According to Procopius, Justinian and Theodora made it a regular policy to pretend to disagree in matters of state and to side with different parties, while really they always worked hand in glove with each other, betrayed their associates freely to each other, and thus learned the secrets of their enemies.

Today, Darlan gives me Algiers and I cry 'Vive Darlan!' If Quisling gives me Oslo, I will cry 'Vive Quisling!' Let Laval give me Paris tomorrow, and I will cry 'Vive Laval!

I ain't a street busker, I'm a microphone hustler, manipulating lyrics I'm a lyrical shuffler.

The exhausting manipulation and control it takes to protect an identity based on circumstances will crush our hearts and hide the best of who we are behind a wall of insecurity.

Giving with strings of secret expectations attached is the greatest invitation to heartbreak. That's not love. That's manipulation.

Giving with strings of secret expectations attached is the greatest invitation to heartbreak. That's not love. That's manipulation. And it's all so unrealistic.

There's no weapon that slays its victim so surely (if well aimed) as praise.