Quotes About Influence

Sports and politics don't mix.

We need leaders, not corporate types who think managing is leading.

Seventy years after Marx's death, one third of the human race lived under regimes ruled by communist parties which claimed to represent his ideas and realise his aspirations.

On the whole, however, it was accepted that money not only talked, but governed. All the industrialist had to get to be accepted among the governors of society was enough money.

Charlatanism of some degree is indispensable to effective leadership.

The benevolent despot who sees himself as a shepherd of the people still demands from others the submissiveness of sheep.

The only way to predict the future is to have power to shape the future.

Power corrupts the few, while weakness corrupts the many.

Those in possession of absolute power can not only prophesy and make their prophecies come true, but they can also lie and make their lies come true.

Our sense of power is more vivid when we break a man's spirit than when we win his heart.

It is the malady of our age that the young are so busy teaching us that they have no time left to learn.

All leaders strive to turn their followers into children.

The real persuaders are our appetites, our fears and above all our vanity. The skillful propagandist stirs and coaches these internal persuaders.

When people are free to do as they please, they usually imitate each other.

For a few years when I was at Cleveland Clinic, it was on the top ten U.S. News list for geriatric medicine even though we didn't even have a geriatrics department!

If you don't learn how to practice power, someone else will do it for you—in your name, on your turf, with your voice, and often against your interests.

oo many people are profoundly illiterate in power (TED Talk: Why ordinary people need to understand power). As a result, it's become ever easier for those who do understand how power operates in civic life to wield a disproportionate influence and fill the void created by the ignorance of the majority.

Every person and institution with power in our society today has it because we give it to them.

What I think you think about what I want creates storms of behaviour that change what is.

The average American is heard only if wealthy donors happen to be saying the same thing.

Rather than saying our leaders aren't leading, we can, using this distinction, say instead that the people with authority aren't exercising any leadership.

Leadership is also quite different from just doing your job well.

one of the most powerful definitions of leadership: "Leadership is taking the initiative for the benefit of others.

The rich world of his ancestors set the standards for Dietrich Bonhoeffer's own life. It gave him a certainty of judgment and manner that cannot be acquired in a single generation.