Quotes About Influence

You can be, should be, and need to be involved in the world. It truly needs you.

In short, somewhere inside you there is a Machiavelli. Yes, he is a ruthless manipulator; but no prince, especially a kind one, would stay in power long without at least one advisor with as remorseless a point of view as that of the enemies a prince will surely have. The trick is to listen well but keep Machiavelli in his place.

Further, we are so responsive to our environments that we can be somewhat like chameleons when around others, doing whatever it takes to fit in.

You were born to be among the advisors and thinkers, the spiritual and moral leaders of your society. There is every reason for pride.

Watch for the phrase that was almost your "middle name"—the one they would put on your gravestone if given half a chance.

Think about the impact on you of not being ideal for your culture. It has to affect you—not only how others have treated you but also how you have come to treat yourself.

We all go out programmed in some way: to please and cling to the first kind person who promises to love and protect us; to find the perfect parent and worship that person totally; to be extremely careful of attaching to anyone; to attach to someone just like the person who did not want us the first time (to see if we can change them this time) or who insisted we never grow up; or just to find another safe harbor like the one we enjoyed as children.

One general rule is that when we have no control over stimulation, it is more upsetting, even more so if we feel we are someone's victim.

The world needs to coax more such folks into public positions. But if they don't coax us, we had better volunteer now and then.

He expressed himself clearly, in complete sentences, no "uhs," "ums," "y'knows," "likes," or the dreaded "Know what I'm sayin'?" His supremely confident attitude was overpowering. He clearly knew what he wanted and where he was going to get it. When Jack was in LeRoux's presence, it didn't occur to him not to obey.

I forged the thunderbolts and she fired them," is how [Elizabeth Cady] Stanton described their [hers and Susan B. Anthony's] work together.

He who influences the thought of his times influences the times that follow.

The man who craves disciples and wants followers is always more or less of a charlatan. The man of genuine worth and insight wants to be himself; and he wants others to be themselves, also.

We awaken in others the same attitude of mind we hold toward them.

The graveyards are full of people the world could not do without.

Most people will be surprised (and horrified) to know that the epigraph for this chapter was taken from a quote found in a 1960 CIA study on brainwashing. The full quote is: "We know now that men can be made to do exactly anything.…It's all a question of finding the right means. If only we take enough trouble and go sufficiently slowly, we can make him kill his aged parents and eat them in a stew."1

The Twist was a guided missile, launched from the ghetto into the very heart of suburbia. The Twist succeeded, as politics, religion, and law could never do, in writing in the heart and soul what the Supreme Court could only write on the books.

Revolutionary power grows out of the lips of a pussy

Knowledge—by itself—is an intervention. Our presence changes the way the natives see the world. According to her, there is no way to study these people without causing change." "The Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle,

The influence of a beautiful, helpful, hopeful character is contagious and may revolutionize a whole town.

Eleanor Herman

O do not be born a woman, if you want your own way. —Lucrezia de' Medici O

Over time, these writings of the early church fathers and the decrees of popes and church councils became accepted truth in the same way the Bible was.

I wanted to be an actress. I think it had a lot to do with being a kid and watching how every time my dad would stand up to talk people would applaud... that was pretty cool.