Quotes About Influence

Place your iron hand inside a velvet glove.

The higher the rank, the greater the effect of the example. The men tend to feel no kind of contact with a commander who, they know, is sitting somewhere in headquarters. What they want is what might be termed a physical contact with him.

Keep withdrawing, surprising, and stimulating the chase. As long as you do, you have the power.

An understanding of people's hidden motives is the single greatest piece of knowledge you can have in acquiring power.

He increasingly spoke of himself in the third person, as if he had become an impersonal revolutionary force, and as such he was infallible. If he happened to mispronounce a word in a speech, every subsequent speaker from then on would have to pronounce it that way. "If I'd said it right," confessed one of his top lieutenants, "Stalin would have felt I was correcting him." And that could prove suicidal.

No power is made available by ignoring images and symbols. There is no possible reversal to this law.

Nunca critiques abiertamente a la gente; esto la hará sentirse insegura, y se resistirá al cambio. Siembra ideas, insinúa sugerencias.

entre más se relaje el objetivo, más fácil te será inclinarlo a tu voluntad.

Keep people off-balance and in the dark by never revealing the purpose behind your actions. If they have no clue what you are up to, they cannot prepare a defense. Guide them far enough down the wrong path, envelop them in enough smoke, and by the time they realize your intentions, it will be too late.

clave para hacer que tus víctimas se sientan cómodas es ser su reflejo, adaptarse a sus estados de ánimo. Las personas son narcisistas; se sienten atraídas por quienes se parecen más a ellas. Hazles sentir que compartes sus valores y gustos, que comprendes su espíritu, y caerán bajo tu hechizo.

Los débiles siempre se benefician con las luchas entre los poderosos".

We will quote the Bible, refer to unverifiable statistics. Who can be persuaded by bags of air like that? Action and demonstration are much more powerful and meaningful

In searching, as you must, for the methods that will gain you the most power for the least effort, you will find the creation of a cultlike following one of the most effective.

People feel superior to the person whose actions they can predict. If you show them who is in control by playing against their expectations, you both gain their respect and tighten your hold on their fleeting attention.

If you yearn for power, quickly lay honesty aside, and train yourself in the art of concealing your intentions.

By being unabashedly open you make yourself so predictable and familiar that it is almost impossible to respect or fear you, and power will not accrue to a person who cannot inspire such emotions.

Muéstrate abierto a la influencia de los demás, y caerán más fácilmente bajo tu hechizo.

The power of demonstrating your idea is that your opponents do not get defensive, and are therefore more open to persuasion.

To hold an idea and convince ourselves we arrived at it rationally, we go in search of evidence to support our view. What could be more objective or scientific? But because of the pleasure principle and its unconscious influence, we manage to find the evidence that confirms what we want to believe. This is known as confirmation bias.

Playing with appearances and mastering arts of deception are among the aesthetic pleasures of life. They are also key components in the acquisition of power.

Rather than flattering Louis XIV, Fouquet's elaborate party offended the king's vanity. Louis would not admit this to anyone, of course—instead, he found a convenient excuse to rid himself of a man who had inadvertently made him feel insecure. Such is the fate, in some form or other, of all those who unbalance the master's sense of self, poke holes in his vanity, or make him doubt his pre-eminence.

When people are free to do as they please, they usually imitate each other. —Eric Hoffer

Caesar set the ideal for all leaders and people of power. Like him, you must learn to enlarge your actions through dramatic techniques such as surprise

Never associate with those who share your defects—they will reinforce everything that holds you back.