Quotes About Influence

To say that my dad pushed me is an understatement. I was never naturally drawn to football.

My favorite thing about my grandmother is her lust for life and how much she has shown me about living every day to the fullest. To say my grandmother has paved the way for me and so many women out there like me is an understatement.

My father was a really funny guy. He lived a good long life. And he was the reason I wanted to be funny and become a comedian and a comedy writer, so to say that he's somewhat of a mythic figure in my life would be an understatement.

Human beings do not live in the objective world alone, nor alone in the world of social activity as ordinarily understood, but are very much at the mercy of the particular language which has become the medium of expression for their society.

I had my Aunt Rosie, who was famous and then not, so I got a lesson in fame early on. And I understood how little it has to do with you. And also how you could use it.

Our relatives form the natural setting of our childhood. We understand ourselves best and are best understood by others through the persons who came nearest to us in our earliest years.

I have understood that there is a huge fan following of 'Bigg Boss,' it's a huge platform and everyone in the country connects to it... and all those who go to 'Bigg Boss' and come out, have had positive changes only in their lives.

I really understood a lot more about comedy after listening to Bill Hicks, who died at 32 years old. He's probably the best comedian who ever lived. Although you can't say that because of Carlin, Cosby and Pryor.

I never understood why anyone would do magazines. Like, why would someone put their face out there so much? It's because those people reading magazines will go see the movie, so you do it.

My own thinking has evolved. You find Africanisms in American speech. You find an African influence on United States culture. There are all kinds of Africanisms in America, as you would expect, if you really thought about it... That whole thing is much broader; the influence is much broader than I first understood.

Human beings are addicted to power in an interesting way, and this is what makes a lot of people feel powerful: belittling people that are commonly belittled. I think if we understood that this was going on, that this was the mechanism at work within us, we wouldn't be that way.

Jimi Hendrix came from the blues, like me. We understood each other right away because of that. He was a great blues guitarist.

I am inspired by the likes of Steve Biko, Nelson Mandela, Princess Diana and those of their calibre. They understood fully what it means to be selfless and to stand for something.

Curiously, a principle affects your life whether you are aware of it or not. For instance, the principle of gravity was working long before the apple ever fell on Newton's head. But once it did, and he understood it, then we as a society were free to harness this principle to create, among other things, airline flight.

Behrens had a great sense of the great form. that was his main interest; and that I certainly understood and learned from him.

It will, of course, be understood that directly or indirectly, soon or late, every advance in the sciences of human nature will contribute to our success in controlling human nature and changing it to the advantage of the common weal.

Just think, if I had understood my lawyer and if he and I had communicated properly in January 1958, this whole history would have been entirely different .

Martin Luther King Jr. really understood the role of the churches when he said, 'The church is not meant to be the master of the state.' We don't sort of take power and grab the levers of government and impose our agenda down people's throats.

Hubbard set up the Church of Scientology in Hollywood in 1954 for a reason. He understood that celebrity was increasingly a feature of American public life, and celebrities themselves were going to be worshiped as minor deities were in the ancient world. The idea was: if you could get them, think how many people would follow.

There are very fundamental reasons we live our lives in social networks, and if we really understood the role they're playing in our society, we would take better care of social networks and find ways to take advantage of their power to improve our society.

If parents are the fixed stars in the child's universe, the vaguely understood, distant but constant celestial spheres, siblings are the dazzling, sometimes scorching comets whizzing nearby.

Roosevelt's strength was that he understood he would never get anything through the Republican old guard, his party, unless the public pressured Congress.

We never used to blink at taking a leadership role in the world. And we understood leadership often required something other than drones and bombs. We accepted global leadership not just for humanitarian reasons, but also because it was in our own best interest. We knew we couldn't isolate ourselves from trouble. There was no place to hide.

I would go so far as to say I would not have the life that I have right now if it wasn't for Gabe Liedman. He is the first person I met in my adulthood that I felt was truly delighted by me and understood me and also was curious about me.