Quotes About Influence

The ascent of money has been essential to the ascent of man.

Everybody carries a world. But certain people change the air about them.

Still, children seem like empty vessels who pick up on everything and are so affected by their surroundings. I mean, that's what they tell me in therapy and it seems to be true. Stuff I don't consciously remember affects my behavior every day. I see that now

Within families, you're stuck with the character they think you are, whatever you do. You become a war hero and all that your parents ever talk about is something supposedly funny you used to do when you were in nursery school.

A police force is about political influence, and it always has been. If I can't get up the home secretary's arse and get you the funding that you're pissing away, you won't be in a position to solve your crimes, any of you.

However far you run from your family and try to expunge them from your life, they follow you.

Men are driven by two principal impulses, either by love or by fear.

He who wishes to be obeyed must know how to command

There is nothing more important than appearing to be religious.

And here comes in the question whether it is better to be loved rather than feared, or feared rather than loved. It might perhaps be answered that we should wish to be both; but since love and fear can hardly exist together, if we must choose between them, it is far safer to be feared than loved.

Men shrink less from offending one who inspires love than one who inspires fear.

For the great majority of mankind are satisfied with appearance, as though they were realities and are often more influenced by the things that seem than by those that are

In truth, there never was any remarkable lawgiver amongst any people who did not resort to divine authority, as otherwise his laws would not have been accepted by the people; for there are many good laws, the importance of which is known to be..

it is much safer to be feared than loved because ...love is preserved by the link of obligation which, owing to the baseness of men, is broken at every opportunity for their advantage; but fear preserves you by a dread of punishment which never fails.

People should either be caressed or crushed. If you do them minor damage they will get their revenge; but if you cripple them there is nothing they can do. If you need to injure someone, do it in such a way that you do not have to fear their vengeance.

Since love and fear can hardly exist together, if we must choose between them, it is far safer to be feared than loved

If we are connected to everyone else by six degrees and we can influence them up to three degrees, then one way to think about ourselves is that each of us can reach about halfway to everyone else on the planet.

We discovered that if your friend's friend's friend gained weight, you gained weight. We discovered that if your friend's friend's friend stopped smoking, you stopped smoking. And we discovered that if your friend's friend's friend became happy, you became happy.

Because of our tendency to want what others want, and because of our inclination to see the choices of others as an efficient way to understand the world, our social networks can magnify what starts as an essentially random variation.

P]å både individ- och gruppnivå är det mer effektivt att gå ner i vikt tillsammans med sina vänners vänner än tillsammans med sina vänner. Problemet är detta: Om du försöker gå ner i vikt tillsammans med dina vänner så är det mycket möjligt att du lyckas, men det pyttelilla klustret som består av dig och dina vänner är omgivet av en stor grupp människor som utövar påtryckningar för att ni ska gå upp i vikt igen.

Alla har upplevt känslomässig överföring... . Men en ofta förbisedd aspekt av all denna överföring av känslor är att de inte bara sprider sig till våra vänner utan också till våra vänners vänner och ännu längre - även om vi inte ens är närvarande.

Att ha en stor social krets kan alltså göra dig lycklig, men om du är lycklig vidgar det inte nödvändigtvis din sociala krets. En position i mitten av nätverket leder till lycka - inte tvärtom. Ditt nätverks struktur och din plats i det har stor betydelse.

psychologist David Premack refers to as the "Russian-novel problem"—that is, when looking at the history of two animals (or humans), it is often hard to know what caused what, since the two may have interacted in so many ways over such a long time, and they may also remember events differently and act according to this subjective experience.

Den modell som bäst kunde förutsäga strukturen i de amerikanska senatorernas nätverk var faktiskt den som beskrev det sociala slickandet hos kor.