Quotes About Influence

A ruler must learn to persuade and not to compel.

If you think of yourselves as helpless and ineffectual, it is certain that you will create a despotic government to be your master. The wise despot, therefore, maintains among his subjects a popular sense that they are helpless and ineffectual.

One uses power by grasping it lightly. To grasp too strongly is to be taken over by power, and thus to become its victim.

The power to destroy a thing is the absolute control over it.

Religion, too, is a weapon. What manner of weapon is religion when it becomes the government?

If all those around you believe some particular thing, you will soon be tempted to share in that belief.

What is important for a leader is that which makes him a leader. It is the needs of his people.

The problem of leadership is inevitably: Who will play God? Muad'Dib

Small souls who seek power over others first destroy the faith those others might have in themselves.

What is the son but an extension of the father?

A leader, you see, is one of the things that distinguishes a mob from a people. He maintains the level of individuals. Too few individuals, and a people reverts to a mob.

We tend to become like the worst in those we oppose.

I wrote the Dune series because I had this idea that charismatic leaders ought to come with a warning label on their forehead: May be dangerous to your health. One of the most dangerous presidents we had in this century was John Kennedy because people said Yes Sir Mr. Charismatic Leader what do we do next? and we wound up in Vietnam. And I think probably the most valuable president of this century was Richard Nixon. Because he taught us to distrust government and he did it by example.

All governments suffer a recurring problem: Power attracts pathological personalities. It is not that power corrupts but that it is magnetic to the corrupt-able. Such people have a tendency to become drunk on violence, a condition to which they are quickly addicted.

motivating people, forcing them to your will, gives you a cynical attitude toward humanity. It degrades everything it touches.

She asked me to tell her what it is to rule," Paul said. "And I said that one commands. And she said I had some unlearning to do." She hit a mark there right enough, Hawat thought. He nodded for Paul to continue. "She said a ruler must learn to persuade and not to compel. She said he must lay the best coffee hearth to attract the finest men.

Politics: the art of appearing candid and completely open while concealing as much as possible.

To use raw power is to make yourself infinitely vulnerable to greater powers.

The terrain enforced its own rhythms.

He understood terrible purposes. They drove against all odds. They were their own necessity. Paul felt that he had been infected with terrible purpose. He did not know yet what the terrible purpose was.

All rebels are closet aristocrats. That's why I can convert them so easily.

Those who would repeat the past must control the teaching of history. —Bene Gesserit Coda

My mind controls my reality.

In politics, the tripod is the most unstable of all structures.