Quotes About Influence

If you grow up in a household where there are books, where you are read to, where parents, siblings, aunts, uncles, and cousins read for their own pleasure, naturally you learn to read. If no one close to you takes joy in reading, where is the evidence that it's worth the effort?

I remind myself that madmen really exist. Sometimes they achieve the highest levels of political power in modern industrial nations.

We are privileged to live in, and if we are lucky to influence, one of the most critical epochs in the history of the human species.

Our politics, economics, advertising, and religions (New Age and Old) are awash in credulity. Those who have something to sell, those who wish to influence public opinion, those in power, a skeptic might suggest, have a vested interest in discouraging skepticism

It is not the function of our government to keep the citizen from falling into error; it is the function of the citizen to keep the government from falling into error. U.S. SUPREME COURT JUSTICE ROBERT H. JACKSON, 1950

She came to admire him so much that his love for her affected her own self-esteem: She liked herself better because of him.

And were the vision of Democritus to have been adopted by Western civilization, instead of being cast aside for the pale views of Plato and Aristotle, we would be vastly further ahead today, in

Trends working at least marginally towards the implantation of a very narrow range of attitudes, memories, and opinions include control of major television networks and newspapers by a small number of similarly motivated powerful corporation and individuals, the disappearance of competitive daily newspapers in many cities, the replacement of substantive debate by sleaze in political campaigns, and episodic erosion of the principal of the separation of powers.

If people knew how many people, especially the very rich and powerful ones, went to psychics, their jaws would drop through the floor

Before women got the vote, there were no nuclear weapons);

Parte del proceso de toma de decisiones que influyen en el futuro de nuestra civilización está sencillamente en manos de charlatanes.

La comprensión del cambio climático puede tener profundas consecuencias básicas, porque el hombre está ejerciendo tremenda influencia en el medio ambiente de la Tierra, a menudo en formas que revelan mediocres caminos de pensamiento, malas comprensiones y conveniencias individuales y beneficios económicos a corto plazo, entre los habitantes del planeta.

Los que tienen algo que vender, los que desean influir en la opinión pública, los que mandan, podría sugerir un escéptico, tienen un interés personal en no fomentar el escepticismo.

This planet is run by crazy people. Remember what they have to do to get where they are. Their perspective is so narrow, so... brief. A few years. In the best of them a few decades. They care only about the time they are in power.

Who is really in charge of this planet?

The visions we offer our children shape the future. It matters what those visions are. Often they become self-fulfilling prophecies. Dreams are maps. Should I do something with this?

Dicho de otro modo, cualquier predisposición a la creencia religiosa puede verse poderosamente influida por la cultura indígena, viva uno donde viva. Especialmente si los niños están expuestos desde muy pequeños a una serie concreta de doctrinas, música, arte y ritual, es algo tan natural para ellos como respirar, motivo por el cual las religiones hacen tantos esfuerzos para atraer a los más jóvenes.

Some portion of the decision-making that influences the future of our civilization is plainly in the hands of charlatans.

An extraterrestrial being, newly arrived on Earth—scrutinizing what we mainly present to our children in television, radio, movies, newspapers, magazines, the comics, and many books—might easily conclude that we are intent on teaching them murder, rape, cruelty, superstition, credulity, and consumerism. We keep at it, and through constant repetition many of them finally get it. What kind of society could we create if, instead, we drummed into them science and a sense of hope?

Aproximadamente, la mitad de los científicos de la Tierra trabajan al menos a tiempo parcial para los militares.

I don't believe in villains or heroes--only right or wrong ways that individuals have taken, not by choice but by necessity or by certain still-uncomprehended influences in themselves, their circumstances, and their antecedents.

Life is partly what we make it, and partly what it is made by the friends we choose.

God works from within a committed relationship with the world and not on the world from without in total freedom.

It is not easy to measure the ocean, but we can be measured by it, confront it, and be in it.