Quotes About Influence

Chinese problems, even if they affected no one outside China, would be of vast importance, since the Chinese are estimated to constitute about a quarter of the human race. In fact, however, all the world will be vitally affected by the development of Chinese affairs, which may well prove a decisive factor, for good or evil, during the next two centuries. This makes it important, to Europe and America almost as much as to Asia

The laws of social dynamics are—so I shall contend—only capable of being stated in terms of power in its various forms. In order to discover these laws, it is necessary first to classify the forms of power, and then to review various important historical examples

The men who cause social changes are, as a rule, men who strongly desire to do so. Love of power, therefore, is a characteristic of the men who are causally important

Authoritative education, we may add, produces the slave type as well as the despotic type, since it leads to the feeling that the only possible relation between two human beings who cooperate is that in which one issues orders and the other obeys them.

There are those who believe that almost any group of men, when once it has seized the machinery of the State, can, by means of propaganda, secure general acquiescence.

He had a great intellectual influence upon my generation, though in retrospect I do not think it was a very good one.

most holders of authority were bigoted, illogical and not to be taken seriously. I

A bad teacher will will aim at imposing his opinion, and turning out a set of pupils all of whom will give the same definite answer on a doubtful point

There is no arguing with a mood; it can be changed by some fortunate event, or by a change in our bodily condition, but it cannot be changed by argument.

The quarrel between Hume and Rousseau is symbolic: Rousseau was mad but influential; Hume was sane but had no followers.

The typical Westerner wishes to be the cause of as many changes as possible in his environment; the typical Chinaman wishes to enjoy as much and as delicately as possible.

American Conservatives maintain that the finished character of a grown man is mainly due to congenital characteristics, while American Radicals maintain, on the contrary, that education is everything and heredity nothing. I cannot agree with either of these two extreme positions, nor

An individual may be influenced: A. By direct physical power over his body, e.g. when he is imprisoned or killed; B. By rewards and punishments as inducements, e.g. in giving or withholding employment; C. By influence on opinion, i.e. propaganda in its broadest sense. Under this last head I should include the opportunity for creating desired habits in others

If you wish a man to commit some abominable crime, from which he would naturally recoil in horror, you first teach him loyalty to a gang of arch-criminals, and then make his crime appear to him as exemplifying the virtue of loyalty.

the circumstances of men's lives do much to determine their philosophy, but, conversely, their philosophy does much to determine their circumstances.

Under the influence of great fear, almost everybody becomes superstitious.

When two things have frequently existed in close temporal contiguity, either comes in time to cause the other.

Denys (Finch-Hatton) has been written about before and he will be written about again. If someone has not already said it, someone will say that he was a great man who never achieved greatness, and this will not only be trite, but wrong; he was a great man who never achieved arrogance.

But memory is a drug. Memory can hold you against your strength and against your will...

Missugused tavalised asjad võivad alguse saada kahe inimese kohtumisest ühel kõrgendiku maalapil? Kuidas saab muuta elu kulgu kõigest ühe tolmusel teel lausutud sõnaga, kui too tee ise on kõigest kui nõelaga veetud kriips, üürike ajas ja nõrguke Aafrika mägedest krobelisel koorel? Kuhu mujale kui tuulde võiks too sõna õigupoolest lennata?

I could sit in a cabin overcrowded with petrol tanks and set my course for North America, but the knowledge of my hands on the controls would be Tom's knowledge. His words of caution and words of guidance, spoken so long ago, so many times, on bright mornings over the veldt or over a forest, or with a far mountain visible at the tip of our wing, would be spoken again, if I asked.

It's what we believe about ourselves that determines how others see us.

How encouraging to remember that the Spirit of God is more powerful than the spirit of wickedness! As 1 John 4:4 reminds us, "You, dear children, are from God and have overcome them, because the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world.

Satan knows that the nature of humankind is to act out of how we feel rather than what we know. One of our most important defenses against satanic influence will be learning how to behave out of what we know is truth rather than what we feel.