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Quotes About Influence

Women feel that when their power is greatest, they look their best, and that those are their happiest hours; they like power in men, and prefer the strongest even if it is a power that may be their own destruction. I am going to make an inventory of your desires in order to put the question at issue before you.
~ Honore de Balzac
Opinions are caught like infection, and put into practice without examination.
~ Honore de Balzac
Há, sem dúvida, pessoas que não têm o mesmo aspecto nem o mesmo valor, quando separadas das pessoas, das coisas, dos lugares que lhes servem de moldura.
~ Honore de Balzac
Perhaps as the story goes on, the reader will not regret having learned in advance a few particulars as to the home and the habitual companions of Modeste Mignon, for, at her age, people and things have as much influence upon the future life as a person's own character, — indeed, character often receives ineffaceable impressions from its surroundings.
~ Honore de Balzac
A quotation in a speech, article, or book is like a rifle in the hands of an infantryman. It speaks with authority.
~ Honore de Balzac
whatever rung of the social ladder they are perched, when any interest, no matter what, draws them from their own line of obedience and induces them to grasp at power. In their eyes, as in those of politicians, all means to an end are justifiable
~ Honore de Balzac
And what is power without recognition? Nothing.
~ Honore de Balzac
Corruption has come to him with fortune, — as it always does!" he said to himself
~ Honore de Balzac
What does Madame Schinner say to all this?" pursued the count; "for I believe you married, out of love, the beautiful Adelaide de Rouville, the protegee of old Admiral de Kergarouet; who, by the bye, obtained for you the order for the Louvre ceilings through his nephew, the Comte de Fontaine.
~ Honore de Balzac
La flatterie n'émane jamais des grandes âmes, elle est l'apanage des petits esprits qui réussissent à se rapetisser encore pour mieux entrer dans la sphère vitale de la personne autour de laquelle ils gravitent. La flatterie sous-entend un intérêt.
~ Honore de Balzac
Never in his life had Godefroid seen so wonderful a sight; he could scarcely control his emotions. Another wonder, for all was wondrous in this scene, so full of horror and yet of poesy, was that in those who saw it soul alone existed. This atmosphere, filled with mental emotions only, had a celestial influence. Those present felt their bodies as little as the sick woman felt hers. They were all mind.
~ Honore de Balzac
The forty thousand francs you want would be, of course, a mere nothing to Ferdinand, who handles millions with that fat banker, Baron de Nucingen. Sometimes, at dinner, in my presence, they say things to each other which make me shudder. Du Tillet knows my discretion, and they often talk freely before me, being sure of my silence. Well, robbery and murder on the high-road seem to me merciful compared to some of their financial schemes.
~ Honore de Balzac
In the friendship grown old already, one was the worshiper, and that one was David; Lucien ruled him like a woman sure of love, and David loved to give way. He felt that his friend's physical beauty implied a real superiority, which he accepted, looking upon himself as one made of coarser and commoner human clay.
~ Honore de Balzac
Mme. d'Aiglemont had lost her mother in her early childhood; and as a natural consequence in her bringing-up, she had felt the influence of the relaxed notions which loosened the hold of religion upon France during the Revolution. Piety is a womanly virtue which women alone can really instil; and the Marquise, a child of the eighteenth century, had adopted her father's creed of philosophism, and practised no religious observances.
~ Honore de Balzac
And lastly, here in Paris there is a spirit which you breathe in the air; it infuses the least details, every literary creation bears traces of its influence. You learn more by talk in a cafe, or at a theatre, in one half hour, than you would learn in ten years in the provinces. Here, in truth, wherever you go, there is always something to see, something to learn, some comparison to make.
~ Honore de Balzac
The influence and power of the press is only dawning," said Finot. "Journalism is in its infancy; it will grow. In ten years' time, everything will be brought into publicity. The light of thought will be turned on all subjects, and — — " "The blight of thought will be over it all," corrected Blondet.
~ Honore de Balzac
Manche Menschen sind wie Nullen, sie brauchen eine Zahl, die vor ihnen steht, und ihr Nichts erlangt dann zehnfachen Wert.
~ Honore de Balzac
You haven't yet given me the right to obey you when you say: 'I want to.
~ Honore de Balzac
Die Frauen reden Männern, die sie zu Schafen gemacht haben, immer ein, sie seien Löwen und hätten einen eisernen Charakter.
~ Honore de Balzac
Les lois sont des toiles d'araignée à travers lesquelles passent les grosses mouches et où restent les petites
~ Honore de Balzac
In that there is nothing very grave or very gay; since the world was a world, governments have always found pens for sale, and never have they failed to buy them
~ Honore de Balzac
Henry Louis Gates's edited The Classic Slave Narratives, which include Jacobs's as well as Frederick Douglass's autobiographies, continue to be so important to me.
~ Unknown
With monuments as with men, position means everything.
~ Honore de Balzac
But I think Hillary Clinton is one of the most amazing women of this time.
~ Hope Davis