Quotes About Influence

The power he commanded insisted upon subjects. Strength was ever relative, and he could not dominate without the company of the dominated.

A man pushed from behind by many hands will go in but one direction, no matter what he wills.

What I, Karsa Orlong, shall shape, you cannot imagine. No one can.

Since when did ethics and morality become weapons of submission?

Witness? Yes, you are witness. Even so, what I, Karsa Orlong, shall shape, you cannot imagine. No one can.

He openly opposes no one, and he finds power a thing to be avoided at all costs.

The son, after all, is but an extension of the mother – at least so the mother believed, there in some inarticulate part of her soul, unseen yet solid as an iron chain. Assail the child and so too the mother is assailed, for what is challenged is her life as a mother, the lessons she taught or didn't teach, the things she chose not to see, to explain away, to pretend were otherwise than what they were.

You can't steer anyone away from the path they're going to take. You can show 'em that there's plenty of other paths – you can do that much – but past that? They'll go where they go.

And that, my love, is precisely my point. Justice bites. With snippy sharp teeth. If it doesn't, then the common folk will perceive it as unbalanced, forever favouring the wealthy and influential. When robbed, the rich cry out for protection and prosecution. When stealing, they expect the judiciary to look the other way. Well, consider this a royal punch in the face. Let them smart.

Never mind the truth. The past is what I say it is. That is the freedom of teaching the ignorant

Who in there dreams is not omnipotent?

No one lets dead poets lie in peace. We are like old meat on a crowded dinner table.

the bloodlust of a mob was always louder than a lone, reasonable voice.

Take any segment of population, impose strict yet clear definitions on their particular characteristics, then target them for compliance. Bribe the weak to expose the strong. Kill the strong, and the rest are yours. Move on to the next segment

Since you can never crush a black market the next best thing is to run it

It is the curse of leaders to believe they can truly change the world. A curse that has even afflicted me, it seems.

masters at corrupting words, their meanings. They call war peace, they call tyranny liberty. On which side of the shadow you stand decides a word's meaning. Words are the weapons used by those who see others with contempt.

The trouble with Ascendants is that they try to rig every game. Of course, we delight in . . . uncertainty." A

Whatever we do as adults, we make in our children more of what we are. Is there no end to this? Scholars speak of progress, but I fear now that they are mistaken. This is not progress that we see, it is elaboration. Nothing of the old ways ever goes away, it just hides beneath modernity's confusion.

Falsehoods cease being false when enough people believe them, Bakal. Instead, they blaze like eternal truths, and woe to the fool who tries pissing a stream on that.

Power has voice, and that voice is the Song

Bargain from strength or don't bargain at all.

Falsehoods cease being false when enough people believe them, Bakal. Instead, they blaze like eternal truths, and woe to the fool who tries pissing a stream on that. They'll tear you to pieces.

Causes that live by politics, die by politics.