Quotes About Influence

Chi di voi vorrà fare il giornalista, si ricordi di scegliere il proprio padrone: il lettore.

In the same way that the wind blows spores of a dandelion across a green yard, and they begin to pop up everywhere, the same is true of hatred, the seeds multiplying one by one until the landscape it has fallen upon is forever changed.

At the beginning of the twentieth century, the world's democracies numbered fewer than a dozen. Since this imperfect United States of America became the recognized leader of the world, 80 percent of the countries on Planet Earth are either democracies or proto-democracies.

In the highly classified manual of dezinformatsiya that codified my life within the Soviet intelligence community, it was proclaimed on the first page, all in upper case letters: "IF YOU ARE GOOD AT DISINFORMATION, YOU CAN GET AWAY WITH ANYTHING.

Ci vuole così poco per spostare la vita in questa o in quella direzione!

But one must do something about the past. It doesn't just cease to be. It goes on existing and affecting the present, and in new and different ways, as if in some other dimension it too were growing.

Only take someone's hand in a certain way, even look into their eyes in a certain way, and the world is changed forever.

A love without reservation ought to be a life force compelling the world into order and beauty. But that love can be so strong and yet so entirely powerless is what breaks the heart.

The exercise of power is a dangerous delight.

Goodness is giving up power and acting upon the world negatively. The good are unimaginable.

Some people are just 'diminishers' and 'spoilers' for others. I suppose almost everybody diminishes someone. A saint would be nobody's spoiler.

I think women, perhaps unconsciously, convey to female children a deep sense of their own discontent.

Lucas continued, speaking pensively in a dreamy tone, The painters, you know, the painters, what they did for Christianity!

When dealing with a married couple one can never be neutral. The hot magnetic power of each one's view of the other makes the spectator sway.

Wittgenstein has created a void into which neo-Kantianism, existentialism, utilitarianism have made haste to enter.

Anything can be tarnished by association, and if you have enough associations you can blacken the world.

I believe in you so much that you must do what I want.

I suspect the study of English literature is doing you no good, it's full of all sorts of romantic high-flown nonsense. You've been reading Shelley. I plead guilty to that crime.

Labour in power?

But I have, I suppose, become through the power of love, awful, relentless.

History repeated itself. The 'don't do the things I did' mantra was tiresome pish. The best way to make sure your children don't grow up as cunts is not to be one yourself - or not to let them SEE you being one. This is easier as a sober artist in Santa Barbara than as an alcoholic jailbird in Leith.

What interests me, personally, is work which in some way, speaks the truth to power…I don't think we speak the truth to power for power's ear, but for the ear and the imagination of future generations, who would seek to live in a world free from the malign and self-serving influence of those who wield it.

it seemed that young people, despite their fundamental decency, now had to buy into a mind-set which made viciousness and treachery come easy.

Los colegas son una puta pérdida de tiempo. Siempre están dispuestos a arrastrarte hasta su nivel de mediocridad social, sexual e intelectual.