Quotes About Influence

Cicero, Seneca, Marcus Aurelius, Epictetus, Lucian, or the poets: Juvenal, Horace, or the later French so-called "moralists" (La Rochefoucauld, Vauvenargues, La Bruyère, Chamfort). Bossuet is a class on his own. One can use Montaigne and Erasmus as a portal to the ancients: Montaigne was the popularizer of his day; Erasmus was the thorough compiler.

Plutarch, Livy, Suetonius, Diodorus Siculus, Gibbon, Carlyle, Renan, and Michelet.

Note that scholars are judged mostly on how many times their work is referenced in other people's work and thus cliques are formed of people who quote one another. It's an I quote you, you quote me type of business.

only a few people suffice to disproportionately move the needle.

It is a very powerful manipulation to let others win the small battles.

In fact the rest are already benefiting from the contribution of the minority.

That awareness of a problem does not mean much—particularly when you have special interests and self-serving institutions in play.

so your mood is propped up by visible continuous feedback.

It is very difficult to isolate a single cause when there are plenty around.

However, our presence in the sample completely vitiates the computation of the odds.

you can control a slave much better by convincing him he is an employee.

Thus they become easily prone to manipulation by lobbyists

We saw that bureaucrats (whether in government or large corporations) live in a system of rewards based on narratives

causing it to become heavily indebted, mostly to the United States.

But the problem is the one-eyed following the blind:

3) The regulator's incentive to make complicated regulations in order to subsequently sell his "expertise" to the private sector.

Metaphors and stories are far more potent (alas) than ideas;

You will never fully convince

I may never know if Onassis was skilled or lucky, though I am convinced that his charm opened doors for him

Significant signals have a way to reach you.

history belongs to those who can write about it (whether winners or losers)

Empirically, if you want an author to cross a few generations

In the days of Suetonius, 60% of prominent educators (grammarians) we slaves. Today the ratio is 97.1%, and growing.

it depends on how the choices are presented to you.