Quotes About Influence

We are the products of editing, rather than authorship.

Experience has taught us that men will not adopt and carry into execution measures the best calculated for their own good without the intervention of a coercive power

Associate with men of good quality if you esteem your own reputation for it is better to be alone than in bad company.

Money, we know, will fetch anything and command the service of any man.

My mother was the most beautiful woman I ever saw. All I am I owe to my mother. I attribute my success in life to the moral, intellectual and physical education I received from her.

However [political parties] may now and then answer popular ends, they are likely in the course of time and things, to become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government, destroying afterwards the very engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion.

Associate yourself with men of good quality, if you esteem your own reputation; for 'tis better to be alone than in bad company.

American power made it possible for Europeans to believe that power was no longer important." -Robert Kagan

Poland was a reminder to the world that there is more to history and power than brute force; the human spirit can bend the course of history in nobler directions. Culture drives history, over the long haul.

Leadership is, among other things, the ability to inflict pain and get away with it - short-term pain for long-term gain.

Voters don't decide issues, they decide who will decide issues.

Institutions are lengthening shadows of strong individuals.

Good actors, including political actors, do not deal in unrealities. Rather, they create realities that matter – perceptions, aspirations, allegiances.

Government could avoid having opinions about so many things if it would quit subsidizing so many things.

When I was your age we had men in the church—don't frown, it makes me want to clout you—men I say—make what you like of the word-heads of a parish, masters, my boy, rulers.  They could hold a whole country together, that sort could—with a mere lift of the chin.  Oh, I know what you're going to say: they fed well, drank good wine and didn't object to a game of cards.  Well, what of it?

Wilhelmine chatted on, chatted as if emboldened by the gathering dusk. She wasn't afraid any more. She didn't blush any more. And in this chatter without lamplight the dark seemed to suffuse her words as well. Her voice deepened. Darkness can have a strange influence. It has something religious about it and makes one speak in a low voice, as if in a church.

Your grandmother had an icon, your mother had a little portrait of Lenin, and you have your TV.

Without someone to set the pendulum's swing, we wouldn't know where to find the middle. None of us in the business of making changes gets everything we want, the extremists allow us to look like moderates and to go after changes that will make a difference.

My dad's not a very intimidating father figure.

My friend Doris Bry says now that I've ruined her spelling because I misspell with such confidence.

I never did learn to spell. My friend Doris Bry says now that I've ruined her spelling because I misspell with such confidence.

People would say you look weak if you're not cursing the opposition and driving around in a big black car while always wearing a tie. Above all, to be 'strong' you're always supposed to be giving orders.

Taxation with representation ain't so hot either.

Everyone alters and is altered by everyone else. We are all the time taking in portions of one another or else reacting against them, and by these involuntary acquisitions and repulsions modifying our natures.