Quotes About Influence

When you know what something is, you have power over it.

Rich and famous and doing good," mused Schlichtmann. "Rich isn't so difficult. Famous isn't so difficult. Rich and famous together aren't so difficult. Rich, famous, and doing good--now, that's very difficult.

Everything Richard Aufiero knew about lawyers he'd learned from television and the movies.

Ever boy deserves a father.

Besides, lead someone down an unknown road and soon there're completely lost without you. I just have to keep the others from interfering for a short while. Any suggestions? -Kill them. -Kill them. -Kill them. -Kill them. -Hmmm. Okay.

For you to die, you would have to be forgotten and no one forgets a founder of a nation.

an old French recording of Ida Presti, possibly the greatest guitarist who ever lived

Either live in thrall to statistics or make them your friends.

Then, the stunningly white cubes that make up the Getty Museum. It's an architectural masterpiece funded by a venal billionaire's trust, housing third-rate art. Pure L.A.: might makes right and packaging is all. Traffic

We are who we are in relation to others.

Bill Bennett really became an idol for me. I listened to him every morning from 6 to 9 for, oh, years.

You look good. Not because of that designer bag you carry, That designer bag looks good because of you.

after all, a great power is a great power, it doesn't become one by chance, and doesn't remain one by chance, either.

If people stop having secrets they stop having power.

Sometimes shame is a more powerful engine than rage.

But there never was a country, no matter how noble or well-intentioned, that wasn't infected by a greedy and power-hungry few.

And that made him wonder if a person who is forced into bad situations over and over again when they're too weak or helpless to do anything about it will eventually make bad choices of their own simply because they've become habituated to them.

Dubya was their public face, and may not have even known it. He's a Texas jokester who couldn't manage a Wal-Mart and the Inner Circle put him in the Oval Office for two terms while they moved behind the scenes." "What about the current administration?" asked Gault. "The Inner Circle doesn't have the same kind of control over this president, which is why they are trying to weaken him and discredit his accomplishments.

The value of choice is not in the size of the action but in its effect

They're politicians, and politics is about leverage, not about the truth.

Of course, we could do simulations with random number generators and make statistical predictions about long-term outcomes. But suppose that what looks to us like a random event is really controlled by forces outside our perceptible sphere?

Are we creating spectators of the kingdom or participators and servants for the kingdom?" (The Youth Builder, 2001, Gospel Light, page 136)

Here's an important principle to keep in mind: Every leader should serve, but not everyone who serves can lead.

The only way out of this mess, of course, is to take steps to ensure that you control the idiots that you become. To take your chain gang, hand in hand, and lead them. The best way to do this is with a list.