Quotes About Influence

It's a bad town unless you're on top of it

On the contrary. When a man speaks he's merely tradition. He has at best a few thousand years back of him. But woman, why, she is the miraculous mouthpiece of posterity.

You used to say a man knows things and when he stops knwing things he's like anybody else, and the thing is to get power before he stops knowing things.

Any rich, unprogressive old party with that particularly grasping, acquisitive form of mentality known as financial genius can own a paper that is the intellectual meat and drink of thousands of tired, hurried men, men too involved in the business of modern living to swallow anything but predigested food. For two cents the voter buys his politics, prejudices, and philosophy.

She's got an indiscreet voice,' I remarked. 'It's full of——' I hesitated. 'Her voice is full of money,' he said suddenly.

I did not think- I was a battleground for the thoughts of many men; rather was I one of those desirable but impotent countries over which the great powers surge back and forth.

Any rich, unprogressive old party with that particularly grasping, acquisitive form of mentality known as financial genius can own a paper that is the intellectual meat and drink of thousands of tired, hurried men, men too involved in the business of modern living to swallow anything but predigested food. (201)

there seemed to be some necessity of taking all or nothing; it was as if for the remainder of his life he was condemned to carry with him the egos of certain people, early met and early loved, and to be only as complete as they were complete themselves.

A man can be twice young in the life of his sons only.

Tom Buchanan compelled me from the room as though he were moving a checker to another square.

I first read The Great Gatsby as a teenager; I imagine this is when most Americans encounter F. Scott Fitzgerald's seminal work.

For two cents the voter buys his politics, prejudices, and philosophy.

With the influence of the dress her personality had also undergone a change. The intense vitality that had been so remarkable in the garage was converted into impressive hauteur. Her laughter, her gestures, her assertions became more violently affected moment by moment, and as she expanded the room grew smaller around her, until she seemed to be revolving on a noisy, creaking pivot through the smoky air.

Either you think - or else others have to think for you, pervert and discipline your natural tastes, civilize and sterilize you.

Oh, Clara!' Amory said; 'what a devil you could have been if the Lord had just bent your soul a little the other way!

Well, Rosalind has still to meet the man she can't outdistance. Honestly, Alec, she treats men terribly. She abuses them and cuts them and breaks dates with them and yawns in their faces--and they come back for more. They love it. They hate it. She's a--she's a sort of vampire, I think--and she can make girls do what she wants usually--only she hates girls.

People try so hard to believe in leaders now, pitifully hard. But we no sooner get a popular reformer or politician or soldier or writer or philosopher—a Roosevelt, a Tolstoi, a Wood, a Shaw, a Nietzsche, than the cross-currents of criticism wash him away.

Don't you know you can't do anything about people?

The 'belle' had become the 'flirt', the 'flirt' had become the 'baby vamp'.

With the influence of a dress her personality had also undergone a change.

A good style simply doesn't form unless you absorb half a dozen top flight authors every year. Or rather it forms but, instead of being a subconscious amalgam of all that you have admired, it is simply a reflection of the last writer you have read, a watered-down journaleese.

I was entirely unconvinced about anything, except that some people were strong and attractive and could do what they wanted, and others were caught and disgraced.

It's up to us who are the dominant race to watch out or these other races will have control of things.

I think that voice held him most with its fluctuating feverish warmth because it couldn't be over-dreamed.