Quotes About Influence

Where there's life, there's hope. Living people can change things, dead people cannot.

Otto von Bismarck quipped, Laws are like sausages, it is better not to see them being made.

The time to act is when you still have privilege and power, not when you've had it stripped from you.

Even the bystander vegans couldn't ignore the racket.

There are some factors you can control, and some you can't. Wishing things were different won't make them different.

So I want you to get all your friends to come to my place, tomorrow, after school. Five p.m. Tell them, anyone who doesn't come is not allowed to jailbreak anything ever again." He registered surprise. "You mean that if we come, we can still jailbreak?" She smiled and met Nadifa's eye. "Oh yes, my boy. We're not going to stop breaking the rules. We're just going to be smart about it.

You're also not white. You ever hear those heritage-not-hate types, that myth that the Irish were the first slaves in America? They're an interesting bunch. They're so close, you know, so close to understanding that whiteness is a thing that other people choose for you. People are white if whiteness is endowed upon them by the wider whiteness. It starts before birth and carries on after you're dead. And what whiteness gives, it can take away.

A 'job creator' is someone who figures out how to threaten you with starvation unless you do something you don't want to do.

There was a space in the conversation here where Salima would say something positive. Everyone in the room wanted her to say something positive. The conversation had a shape, or maybe a direction, and she could pat it on the back, give it a little push in that direction, and the next stop would be something glad from Paul or Wye or the white guy, and then back to her, push and push and push, until it had picked up enough velocity that no one could stop it.

living people can sometimes change their situations, while dead ones can't change a fucking thing.

You never have to sit back and look at the people, the systems, the politics—just the technology that can be used to distort them to suit your needs.

The trick isn't to fight the aristocracy, it's to find one who isn't too terrible, who has his hands on the reins of power, and make friends. Make yourself useful. The quid pro quo in feudalism is the protection of the lord from the marauders sent forth by the other lords.

Your prayer for someone may or may not change them, but it always changes YOU.

Becoming obsessed with what people think is the quickest way to forget about what God thinks.

If everyone loves you, maybe you don't need so many tanks.

There was nothing illegal, for example, about naturalized American citizens like the Odessa-born billionaire oligarch Len Blavatnik and his businesses contributing millions to Mitch McConnell's GOP Senate Leadership Fund and to the Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee, as he did in 2016.

From the KGB's point of view, the most appealing quality about Trump was probably that he had a personality that was ideal for a potential asset—vain, narcissistic, highly susceptible to flattery, and greedy.

Later, long after he took up residence in the White House, people asked again and again what the Russians had on Trump. And in a way, it's really quite simple: They owned him.—

Notice how the crucible of the story changes those who listen to it, those who are within it, and the person who is telling it, all at the same time.

It is always a mistake to underestimate the little people of the world, for it is often they who tip the balance.

My poison is creeping through his body. My strong venom is killing his heart.

Who chooses what we know or what's important? I know I have to decide these things for myself.

Some people who run for office want to create change, and some want everyone to fall in love with them.

My own preferences had little bearing on the outcome of events.