Quotes About Manipulation

Violence is the divine force that everyone tries to use for his own purposes and that ends by using everyone for its own—the Dionysus of The Bacchae

It would be wrong to believe that the deceivers at this game are sharply separated from the deceived, that the world is neatly divided between the cold calculators and the innocent dupes. Everybody is a little of both; you must be a dupe of your own comedy to play it with conviction. The romantic and satanic vision of the cold calculator, of the totally lucid manipulator of other people's desires, is a more sophisticated version of the narcissistic illusion.

For decades I've been told by my adversaries in the Religious Right that they only seek a "place at the table" for their Christian worldview—well, their version of Christianity, that is. But evidence has mounted recently that what they really want is something else entirely: to own the table, determine what goes on it, and force-feed everyone the same gruel they consume.

There are two kinds of statistics, the kind you look up and the kind you make up.

It was a day when I was preparing a speech to be delivered in praise of the Emporor; there would be a lot of lies in the speech and they would be applauded by those who knew that they were lies." The Confessions of St. Augustine

Tienes el poder de cambiar cualquier cosa

First: modern society, with its millions, is essentially ungovernable. The public must instead be controlled by manipulation. The men who do this manipulating, in government or not, are the true leaders, philosopher-kings. They need not manipulate all the people, only the few thousand who set the agenda. The drivers of history are not the people, in other words, nor the elite who influence the people, but the PR men who influence the elite who influence the people.

Every word was a cheat. Every thought and feeling was false. I played the game. Everything I touched, I cheapened.

Narrow, yellow eyes with no visible pupils sparkled with merriment, but the sort of merriment that came from pulling the wings off flies or the arms off experimental subjects.

There are no totally generous acts. All "acts" have an element of calculation. One black ox slaughtered on Christmas does not wipe out a year of careful manipulation of gifts given to serve your own ends. After all, to kill an animal and share the meat with people is really no more than Ju/'hoansi do for each other every day and with far less fan fare.

When you find the difference, I want you to take the thing you no longer wish to believe and push it all the way off into the distance, then move it over and pop it up on the other side so that when you look at it you know it's a lie and you're angry about it.

Look at the last image and then run it backward to the beginning so that people walk backward, so that the sounds are like playing a tape recorder backwards. In fact, if you can, spin your feelings in the reverse direction.

Lothness to displease men, makes us undo them (394).

Senator Jordan's only response had been made upon a single mimeographed sheet holding a single sentence. Distributed to all press agencies, it said: "How long will you let this man use you and trick you?" Senator

Raymond's mother's subtraction of 79 cases from 286 cases left 207 cases, the number with which she had had Johnny kick off. She had made one other small change. The Secretary's actual language had been "recommendation against permanent employment," which she had changed to read: "members of the Communist party," which Johnny had adjusted to read: "card-carrying Communists.

As private parts to the gods are we! They play with us for their sport. (Lord Melchett, Blackadder.)

Faith can be very very dangerous, and deliberately to implant it into the vulnerable mind of an innocent child is a grievous wrong.

People come to Washington believing it's the center of power. I know I did. It was only much later that I learned that Washington is a steering wheel that's not connected to the engine.

a nudge is any factor that significantly alters the behavior of Humans

people's choices are pervasively influenced by the design elements selected by choice architects.

The three social influences that we have emphasized—information, peer pressure, and priming—can easily be enlisted by private and public nudgers. As we will see, both business and governments can use the power of social influence to promote many good (and bad) causes.

How reason is just another weapon of control.

What is it within us that gives us this need not just to satisfy basic biological wants, but to extend our wills over things, to objectify them, to make them ours, to manipulate them, to keep them at a psychic distance?

He can't figure out why people do what they do. His cluelessness only makes others keener to dupe him.