Quotes About Influence

Weird...something happens when you smile at people. They smile back

My dad wanted to name me after Rainier Maria Rilke, the poet.

The Empire seemed to be giving a veto on India's political advance to Jinnah, the princes and Ambedkar.

In the new situation created by Hitler's war, Linlithgow was more successful at dividing Indians than Gandhi was in uniting them.

At the Khyber, 'thanks to the suasive influence of British gold', the Afridis guarding the Pass let the soldiers through.

The name of Nalwa became a terror in the tribal territory', and Pashtun mothers would for years frighten children into good behaviour by speaking of 'Haria', after Nalwa's first name.

The somewhat sinister maxim, divide et impera [had] been acted upon', adds Bosworth Smith, with 'triumphant results'.

Gulab Singh had kept in close touch with the British. Unlike many of the others, the Dogra chief had also ensured that his personal coffers were full.

John Lawrence said in a letter to his older brother that 'our very existence depends on our gradually reducing the power and consequence of the chiefs'.58

While one can do nothing about choosing one's relatives one can, as artist, choose one's "ancestors."

Some people are your relatives but others are your ancestors, and you choose the ones you want to have as ancestors. You create yourself out of those values.

To know that one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded.

I don't feel particularly comfortable about actors using whatever power they may have to push their beliefs, unless they're extremely well informed.

In essence, Satan doesn't want you to believe what God thinks of Himself and what God thinks about you.

Clever lines routinely travel from obscure mouths to prominent ones.

I start with the premise that the function of leadership is to produce more leaders, not more followers.

Turn on to politics, or politics will turn on you.

Power has to be insecure to be responsive.

Like sex in Victorian England, the reality of Big Business today is our big dirty secret.

The nation is faced with one of the most corporate-orientated anti-consumer Congresses in our history.

The 'democracy gap' in our politics and elections spells a deep sense of powerlessness by people who drop out, do not vote, or listlessly vote for the 'least worst' every four years and then wonder why after every cycle the 'least worst' gets worse.

The only difference between Republicans and Democrats is the velocity at which their knees hit the floor when corporations knock on the door.

The Function of Leadership is to produce more Leaders, Not more Followers.

Members of Congress are like the voters in one respect -- they want to go with the winners.