Quotes About Influence

Mark Twain, I believe, is author of the saying that a lie can run all the way round the earth while the truth is putting on its

Somebody was needed to point out to them that even though they had had to quit, they had not failed entirely. If they had published sound ideas and had found readers, their ideas would live in other minds and spawn and reproduce themselves after the manner of ideas.

He explained Adi's propaganda technique of choosing a big lie and repeating it incessantly until everybody believed it;

These were the men of money, masters of the life of France. They told the workers where to live and what work to do; they told the editors what to publish, and thus told the French public what to believe; they told the politicians how to vote, which meant telling the police whom to arrest and the soldiers whom to shoot.

What chance does the democratic tradition stand when its enemies control ninety per cent of the press and the radio and the money—plus all of the weapons? I tell you, the fellows who run the National Association of Manufacturers could take over the government of this country in twenty-four hours if ever they get mad enough to try it. And believe me, they're going to get madder every hour in the economic crisis that will come after this war.

Quadratt had, so he claimed, a mailing list of a hundred and fifty thousand names, and seldom a day passed that he didn't write a speech for some Senator or Congressman to deliver. Then it would be printed as part of the Congressional Record, reprinted at a nominal cost by the Government Printing Office, and mailed out to these names, and to other lists supplied by Nazi or near-Nazi organizations scattered all over the country.

Having bought so many politicians in his day, the Baron could hardly be blamed for taking a cynical attitude to the breed; now, since they were refusing to stay bought, he could hardly be blamed if he had decided to get rid of them.

The dream of every dictator was to get exclusive control of that colossal instrument, so that never again in all history would it be possible to answer back. Then what you said would become the truth and the only truth—no matter how false it might have been previously! He who could get and hold the radio became God.

You recall what I told you the first time you came to me. I couldn't go any faster than the people would let me. I had to wait, and let events change their minds.

One man decides, and the rest obey.

Even a purely moral act that has no hope of any immediate and visible political effect can gradually and indirectly, over time, gain in political significance.

We had become what the world outside had made us; we had to live in the world as it existed.

We have nothing. We solace ourselves with the great men of our tribe, the Gandhi and the Nehru, and we castrate ourselves. 'Here, take my manhood and invest it for me. Take my manhood and be a greater man yourself, for my sake!

You know, Sanger, Barnum may have said that it matters not what is said about you so long as it is said, but I am eloquent enough to knock that theory into a cocked hat should I be required to do so.

What it had done, however, was to give him a feeling of power and control that had taken him back to how he used to feel every day.

It's your fault because you got me into Morag Fraser. I'd never even heard of the Hebridean Harpies series till you dragged me along to her event. And now I am totally hooked. I was reading Vampires on Vatersay till one in the morning. I just had to finish it. And then I started Banshees of Berneray at breakfast and I could hardly drag myself away from it to come and meet you.

Ruth Rendell, Reginald Hill, P.D. James, Ernest Tidyman, John Le Carré, Norman Mailer, Penelope Fitzgerald and Colin Dexter all transported

But also, surprisingly, Charles Willeford, Ken Bruen and James Sallis.

people are shaped by what happens to them and how they respond to it.

As the poet Philip Larkin famously said, 'They fuck you up, your mum and dad.' Sometimes, it only takes one of them.

The key to our present behaviour lies in our past.

When a woman walks out in the morning with confidence--she loves her heels, her dress, she thinks she looks great--her day will be better. She'll be nicer to the people she interacts with. They'll have a better day. And so on, and so on. You're creating joy and spreading it around. Is that insignificant?

Certainly, the sexual revolution influenced the course of fashion history. As we move into the twenty-first century and fashion becomes ever more erotic and taboo-breaking, we can clearly see how important a role the mini-skirt played in the development of women's fashion.

Now, because we have spent so many years convincing the younger people that we are helpless, they believe that we are no longer of use to this world.