Quotes about manipulation

Nassim Nicholas Taleb - The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms

Half of the people lie with their lips the other half with their tears

Peter Navarro -

If money is the root of all evil, then China's manipulation of its currency, the yuan, is the tap root of everything wrong with the U.S.-China trade relationship.

Sunday Adelaja -

To break yourself loose from the dominion, rulership and manipulation of the devil, you have to embrace light (knowledge).

Kirtida Gautam - #iAm16iCan

Don't plant a seed just a day before you need the fruit. ~ Aarush Kashyap

Brian Cox -

The problem with today’s world is that everyone believes they have the right to express their opinion AND have others listen to it. The correct statement of individual rights is that everyone has the right to an opinion, but crucially, that opinion can be roundly ignored and even made fun of, particularly if it is demonstrably nonsense!

T.F. Hodge - From Within I Rise: Spiritual Triumph Over Death and Conscious Encounters with "The Divine Presence"

Manipulation, fueled with good intent, can be a blessing. But when used wickedly, it is the beginning of a magician's karmic calamity.

Robert C. Solomon - No Excuses: Existentialism and the Meaning of Life

[W]hat we also see in sex is a kind of submissiveness. But not a kind of submissiveness which is simply 'do what you like, I'm just here for you', but it...is, or can be, very manipulative. It is a way of getting the other person to exercise all his or her efforts towards pleasing you, and in that way controlling what they're thinking, and in particular what they're thinking of you.

Idries Shah - Learning How to Learn: Psychology and Spirituality in the Sufi Way

Virtually all organisations known to you work largely by means of your greed. They attract you because... they appeal to your greed.

Esther Vilar -

When will women become civilized enough to stop mistreating men? When will they cease from training their lovers to become providers, merely because they have the power to do so?As long as they continue as they are, men have no alternative to polygamy.

H.S. Crow - Lunora and the Monster King

Liar! I know that you humans build your life in lies. It starts with your mortal lords and their fabricated gods. They use fictitious stories to impregnate the minds of people, and like herds of sheep they do as their told. With manipulation alone is enough to secure their reign. After all, is it not in your nature to be wanted and purposeful? It is such an easy game to play. I have observed this falsehood accepted by fathers and mothers over and over again. The idiocy becomes one with their chi

C. JoyBell C. -

There are types of people who want to have leverage over other people's lives. For no other reason than they feel the need to have leverage. I find this to be a certain type of sickness of the mind. You could argue that they wish you no harm, however, the desire to simply have leverage over another— whether this is mental, emotional or physical— is, I think, a sickness of the mind. I can honestly say right now that I, 100%, have no manipulative intentions to gain leverage over any other person t

Criss Jami - Killosophy

We first become salesmen as children in the confession booths of our parents.

Susan Forward - Toxic Parents: Overcoming Their Hurtful Legacy and Reclaiming Your Life

Children who are not encouraged to do, to try, to explore, to master, and to risk failure, often feel helpless and inadequate. Over-controlled by anxious, fearful parents, these children often become anxious and fearful themselves. This makes it difficult for them to mature. Many never outgrow the need for ongoing parental guidance and control. As a result, their parents continue to invade, manipulate, and frequently dominate their lives.

Craig D. Lounsbrough -

To live a lie may allow us to avoid the truth, but the real lie lays in believing that we can avoid the truth in the first place.

A.J. Darkholme - Rise of the Morningstar

It’s true what they say, that words are the true weapons. Those who fight with steel are limited to the strength of their arm, the reach of their blade, and the timing of their strike; but those who fight with persuasion know no limits – not time, nor status, nor chance.

Edward L. Bernays - Propaganda

The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country. ...We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of. This is a logical result of the way in which our democratic society is organized. Vast numbers of huma

Elfriede Jelinek - Wonderful Times

The moment workers can afford too little they rebel. The last time this was a real danger was 1950. Communists took advantage of supply problems and stirred up gullible people against their very own country.

Kirtida Gautam - #iAm16iCan

The person who says it is lonely at the top has no idea what the view looks like from above. ~ Aarush Kashyap

Alison Miller - Healing the Unimaginable: Treating Ritual Abuse and Mind Control

Because the problem of ritual abuse and mind control has not gone away - the survivors are still there - many more therapists have learnt about it. Survivors have spoken out and written their stories, and therapists have learnt a great deal from those brave survivors who have discovered what was done to them. There is a large special interest group on Ritual Abuse and Mind Control within the International Society for the Study of Dissociation. Those therapists who have learnt in isolation or in

Ivanka Trump - Trump Card: Playing to Win in Work and Life

Don't go out of your way to correct a false assumption if it plays to your advantage.

Laura Davis - Allies in Healing: When the Person You Love Is a Survivor of Child Sexual Abuse

Abuse manipulates and twists a child’s natural sense of trust and love. Her innocent feelings are belittled or mocked and she learns to ignore her feelings. She can’t afford to feel the full range of feelings in her body while she’s being abused—pain, outrage, hate, vengeance, confusion, arousal. So she short-circuits them and goes numb. For many children, any expression of feelings, even a single tear, is cause for more severe abuse. Again, the only recourse is to shut down. Feelings go undergr

G.G. Renee Hill - The Beautiful Disruption

She loved him. But he didn’t know how to love.He could talk about love. He could see love and feel love. But he couldn’t give love.He could make love. But he couldn’t make promises.She had desperately wanted his promises.She wanted his heart, knew she couldn’t have it so she took what she could get.Temporary bliss. Passionate highs and lows. Withdrawal and manipulation.He only stayed long enough to take what he needed and keep moving.If he stopped moving, he would self-destruct.If he stopped wan

Sunday Adelaja - The Mountain of Ignorance

To break yourself loose from the dominion, ruler-ship and manipulation of the devil, you have to embrace light (knowledge).

Frank Herbert -

Belief can be manipulated. Only knowledge is dangerous.

Jean Vanier - Finding Peace

We can be seduced...by powerful political groups that promise more wealth and lower taxes. Those with power can use clever, psychological tricks and play upon our weaknesses and brokenness in order to attract us to their way of thinking. We can be manipulated into illusion.

Arne Tiselius -

We live in a world where unfortunately the distinction between true and false appears to become increasingly blurred by manipulation of facts, by exploitation of uncritical minds, and by the pollution of the language.

Stefan Molyneux -

There's a huge swath of humanity that has developed verbal abilities to extract resources from guilt-ridden people.They used to be priests, and now they're leftists.

A.J. Darkholme - Rise of the Morningstar

It is the crimson tongue that paints the world others think they see.

Nadia Bolz-Weber - Beautiful Faith of a Sinner & Saint

Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us. Jesus always seems to be pairing God's forgiveness of us with our forgiveness of others. But why? Growing up, I thought it was a way of guilting us into forgiving others, like Jesus was saying, Hey, I died for you and you can't even be nice to your little brother? As though God can get us to do the right thing if God can just make us feel bad about how much we owe God. But that is not the God I see in Jesus Christ. That is a manipulativ

Honoré de Balzac - Père Goriot

How did you get back?' asked Vautrin. 'I walked,' replied Eugene.'I wouldn't like half-pleasures, myself,' observed the tempter. 'I'd want to go there in my own carriage, have my own box, and come back in comfort. All or nothing, that's my motto.''And a very good one,' said Madame Vauquer.

Sharon Law Tucker - How to Be a BadAss - A Survival Guide for Women

Whoever controls the money controls you.

A.J. Darkholme - Rise of the Morningstar

Presenting a humble façade gains trust; flattery appeals to ego; combine the two to gain an ego-based trust within someone, and you will find in your hands a judgement clouding tool second only to love.

Paul Isaacs -

Never trust a person whose smile doesn't reach their eyes, chances are they do similar thing when they "cry" - Just be sure you have that OSCAR ready next time they do this

Garry Crystal - And When the Arguing's Over...

Well the other thing about lying is that the liar is banking on two things when telling the lie. They are hoping that the person being lied to is gullible enough to believe, and it’s also not even that they think they are gullible, it’s that they know the person they are lying to well enough that they know the person won’t push it any further because they know the person they are lying to wants to believe the lie.

Garry Crystal - And When the Arguing's Over...

The thing about lying is it’s like creating your own world, controlling your own little world. A tiny innocent, or as some people call them white lie, can lead eventually to the break-up of a relationship. If the other person in the relationship knows the person has lied, no matter if it was with good intentions, then it’s the beginning of the breakdown of trust. A profile or a picture is being continually formed of the two people in a relationship, and the lies, big and small, add to that profi

Yuval Noah Harari - Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow

If you want to see philosophy in action, pay a visit to a robo-rat laboratory. A robo-rat is a run-ofthe-mill rat with a twist: scientists have implanted electrodes into the sensory and reward areas in the rat’s brain. This enables the scientists to manoeuvre the rat by remote control. After short training sessions, researchers have managed not only to make the rats turn left or right, but also to climb ladders, sniff around garbage piles, and do things that rats normally dislike, such as jumpin

Jonathan Glover - Causing Death and Saving Lives

The first step away from being manipulated, and towards a more autonomous outlook, is to stand back from a set of responses and think.

Latika Teotia -

Your indecisiveness can lead you to being manipulated and controlled like a puppet by others. Because you can’t decide- you can be pushed into compromising and bending backwards. Take responsibility of your life and your choices. Seeking support for every choice or decision can make you easy prey to the people you are looking up to. Once in a while it’s OK to take their suggestion but for every little thing going to them is not right and will not help you in the long run either. People will star

Angelica Hopes -

Cyber trolls' deceptive manipulative, political power play, duplicity and devious hypocrisy cannot equate to true friendship.~ Angelica Hopes, K.H. Trilogy

Charles Fort -

Almost all people are hypnotics. The proper authority saw to it that the proper belief should be induced, and the people believed properly.

Deb Caletti - The Secret Life of Prince Charming

And pity--people who inspire it in you are actually very powerful people. To get someone else to take care of you, to feel sorry for you--that takes a lot of strength, smarts, manipulation. Very powerful people.

S. E. Lynes -

Unhappy people can be very dangerous, don't forget that.

George R.R. Martin - A Clash of Kings

The storms come and go, the waves crash overhead, the big fish eat the little fish, and I keep on paddling. (Varys)

Lance Conrad - The Price of Loyalty

Fear sticks like a barb in the mind. Someone cold enough to take advantage of it can attach strings to those barbs and make puppets of men and women.

Ben H. Winters - Underground Airlines

What she was doing was, she was letting it be his idea. She was walking him along, holding his hand tightly enough to lead him, loosely enough for him to be unaware of it. She was an absolute natural. Or maybe all women could do that to all men, if they wanted to.

Paul Johnson - Modern Times

His (Lenin's)humanitarianism was a very abstract passion. It embraced humanity in general but he seems to have had little love for, or even interest in, humanity in particular. He saw the people with whom he dealt, his comrades, not as individuals but as receptacles for his ideas. On that basis, and no other, they were judged. He judged man not by their moral qualities but by their views, or rather the degree to which they accepted his.

Robert A. Caro - Master of the Senate

He is not the leader of great causes, but the broker of little ones.

Robert A. Caro - Master of the Senate

With Johnson, you never quite knew if he was out to lift your heart or your wallet. Roy Wilkins

Ron Suskind - The Way of the World: A Story of Truth and Hope in an Age of Extremism

Life-shaping institutions tend to start with an idea or revelation. They often become mostly about the preservation and expansion of authority, something they relinquish only with the greatest reluctance.

Adele Faber - How to Talk So Kids Will Listen & Listen So Kids Will Talk

The challenge for us is to find some response that actually inspires change rather than clinging to the old ways that cause resentment, and more importantly, distract from the real problem.

Barbara W. Tuchman - 1890-1914

William McKinley was a man made to be managed.

Rick Perlstein - The Invisible Bridge: The Fall of Nixon and the Rise of Reagan

What does sincerity mean if it is chosen as deliberate strategy?

Geraldine Brooks - The Secret Chord

Even though he said no store in uncanny things, he was soldier enough to value with whatever weapon came to hand.

Orson Scott Card -

Welcome to the human race. Nobody controls his own life, Ender. The best you can do is choose to fill the roles given you by good people, by people who love you.

Kurt Vonnegut Jr. - Breakfast of Champions

So, in the interests of survival, they trained themselves to be agreeing machines instead of thinking machines. All their minds had to do was to discover what other people were thinking, and then they thought that, too.

Rae Carson - Walk on Earth a Stranger

Men can be relentless," she agrees, "when they think a woman belongs to them.

Evita Ochel -

Until you realize how easily it is for your mind to be manipulated, you remain the puppet of someone else's game.

Angelica Hopes -

Move away from Machiavellian hearts. Manipulative people can frame you up even if you have a humble, simple and generous heart. Question their motive. ~ Angelica Hopes, K.H. Trilogy

Hannah Arendt - and Thoughts on Politics and Revoluti

Oddly enough, the only person likely to be an ideal victim of complete manipulation is the President of the United States. Because of the immensity of his job, he must surround himself with advisers, the "National Security Managers", as they have been recently called by Richard Barnet, who "exercise their power chiefly by filtering the information that reaches the President and interpreting the outside world for him".

Ursula K. Le Guin - The Left Hand of Darkness

His themes were not pride and love at all, though he used the words perpetually; as he used them they meant self-praise and hate. He talked a great deal about Truth also, for he was, he said, “cutting down beneath the veneer of civilization.”It is a durable, ubiquitous, specious metaphor, that one about veneer (or paint, or pliofilm, or whatever) hiding the nobler reality beneath. It can conceal a dozen fallacies at once. One of the most dangerous is the implication that civilization, being arti

Kevin Focke -

Storytellers are master manipulators transforming non-reality (grounded in reality) into vicarious experience.

Kirtida Gautam - #iAm16iCan

I simply love Drosera plants! Those tentacles, I love those tentacles...~ Aarush Kashyap

Peter Weiss - The Persecution and Assassination of Jean-Paul Marat as Performed by the Inmates of the Asylum of Charenton Under t

And the priests looked down into the pit of injustice and they turned their faces away and said, 'Our kingdom is not as the kingdom of this world. Our life on earth is but a pilgrimage. The soul lives on humility and patience,' at the same time screwing the poor from their last centime. They settled down among their treasures and ate and drank with princes and to the starving they said, 'Suffer. Suffer as he suffered on the cross for it is the will of God.'And anyone believes what they hear over

A.J. Darkholme - Rise of the Morningstar

Always think at least two steps ahead [in everything, with everyone].

A.J. Darkholme - Rise of the Morningstar

[Everything you write is] not simply a collection of words, but a means of influence not to be taken lightly. Let your recipient's emotions be the gondola, and your words, its gondolier.

A.J. Darkholme - Rise of the Morningstar

When you give people a choice, they believe they have power.

Tim Clinton - How to Push Back: The Moment that Changes Everything

Often, our misunderstandings about love are born in disruptive family relationships, where someone was either one-up or one-down to an extreme. There is an appropriate and necessary difference in the balance of power between parents and young children, but in the best situations, there should be no power struggles by the time those children have become adults - just deep connection, trust, and respect between people who sincerely care about each other.In disruptive families, children are taught

Beth Revis - The Body Electric

And this is what she wants to do to people. Let them have their own lives, until she wants them. Give them the strength of giants, but not the power to control it.

James Rozoff -

Those who rule have always had an interest in shaping the perceptions of those they wish to rule. But never in the history of humanity has their toolbox been so full. Advances in technology and psychology have enabled the messages of the rulers to permeate our consciousness to a degree no prior society could have imagined.

Isaiah Hankel -

Don’t ever feel bad for making a decision about your own life that upsets other people. You are not responsible for their happiness. You’re responsible for your own happiness. Anyone who wants you to live in misery for their happiness should not be in your life anyway.

Charles Eisenstein - The More Beautiful World Our Hearts Know Is Possible

From our immersion in scarcity arise the habits of scarcity. From the scarcity of time arises the habit of hurrying. From the scarcity of money comes the habit of greed. From the scarcity of attention comes the habit of showing off. From the scarcity of meaningful labor comes the habit of laziness. From the scarcity of unconditional acceptance comes the habit of manipulation.

Bonnie Zackson Koury -

If you wouldn't invite a thief in your house why would you allow a liar in. the only difference between the two is the thief steals your money and objects the liar steals with words by deceit of manipulation by Bonnie Zackson Koury

Robert Jordan -

I'm not a clever man, but I'm willing to listen to people who are, and I think you are. Just don't try poking me in the direction you want me to go. I don't like that Master Balwer.

bell hooks - All About Love: New Visions

In the Mars-and-Venus-gendered universe, men want power and women want emotional attachment and connection. On this planet nobody really has the opportunity to know love since it is power and not love that is the order of the day. The privilege of power is at the heart of patriarchal thinking. Girls and boys, men and women who have been taught this way almost always believe love is not important, or if it is, it is never as important as being powerful, dominant, in control, on top-being right. W

Craig D. Lounsbrough -

What insanity would lead me to believe that I possess the power, much less the aptitude to manipulate all of the consequences out of all of my decisions?

Ramana Pemmaraju -

Never give a conscious meaning to your unconscious acts!

Barbara W. Tuchman - 1890-1914

In proportion that property is small, the danger of misusing the franchisee is great.

Nityananda Das - Divine Union

To be able to accept everything that comes our way, even the things we don’t want to accept, is the art of Love. However, this acceptance isn’t to become conformists or martyrs. The art of accepting has to do with surrendering the need for control; it’s ceasing the effort to regulate our environment and manipulate the human beings, as well as the other creatures, within it.“When we give up our attachment to the outcome and rest our minds in a peaceful state, then we have a better chance to act f

Nicholas Kristof -

moral voices can also become sanctimonious bullies.

George Saunders - The Braindead Megaphone

In a culture that is becoming ever more story-stupid, in which a representative of the Coca-Cola company can, with a straight face, pronounce, as he donates a collection of archival Coca-Cola commercials to the Library of Congress, that 'Coca-Cola has become an integral part of people's lives by helping to tell these stories,' it is perhaps not surprising that people have trouble teaching and receiving a novel as complex and flawed as Huck Finn, but it is even more urgent that we learn to look p

Madeleine L'Engle -

Because to take away a man's freedom of choice, even his freedom to make the wrong choice, is to manipulate him as though he were a puppet and not a person.

L.H. -

In kindergarten we all stand before a choice - Do we accept the accepted to be accepted or do we stay logical and keep thinking?

Oche Otorkpa - The Unseen Terrorist

One of the greatest challenge facing young people today, is thelarge scale availability of half truth’s and manipulated facts

Gayle D. Erwin - The Jesus Style

The chief means of resisting manipulation is humility – knowing who we really are and facing it. You can only serve by love. You can only love by choice. True love cannot be the result of decree, force or manipulation. Jesus always kept his strength to make loving choices. He calls us to make loving choices necessary to be the servant of all." "Humility permits me to own my feelings – and to admit them. Now I'm free to say, ‘I'm angry’. I'm free to admit what I am reacting to. I am free to ask i

Shannon L. Alder -

Relationships with negative people are simply tedious encounters with porcupines. You don’t have the remote knowledge how to be close to them without quills being shot in your direction.

Shannon L. Alder -

Often a woman that doesn’t have any business being in a fight is there because their ego thinks it can mend what other people can’t. It’s either superiority or a second chance to heal a wound they have, by meddling on your battlefield.

Flannery O'Connor - A Good Man is Hard to Find and Other Stories

Mrs. Hopewell had no bad qualities of her own but she was able to use other people's in such a constructive way that she never felt the lack.

J. Valor - Salome

The instatement of the One Religion was surely the Magnates’ most cunning move: a device through which they were able to access and harness the incalculable power of the people’s spiritual fervor… Elijah could imagine the Magnates taking cold pleasure in their handicraft. Where chaos ruled, people both high and low were easy to manipulate.

Kris Kidd - Return to Sender

I think it’s pretty common to hold onto people, to bribe them with things, say, a body, in the hopes of keeping them from leaving you. I don’t think it’s uncommon to invert such behaviors, to become something unlovable, in an effort to speed up the process of the inevitable. Fighting is an instinct. So is running. Everybody knows how to destroy a good thing. It’s easy.

Tom Walsh - The Expanded Edition

It seems that many of us have the goal of making other people conform to our desires and expectations, whether or not we would admit to such a thing. We see this especially in parents who get upset because their children don’t conform to their expectations, but instead follow a pattern of development that is unique and individual. We often use language with peers and colleagues that encourages them to change their ways of doing things to our ways of doing things: “You should” and “You ought to”

Shannon L. Alder -

When you love yourself you won't need to ask God if someone is being honest with you. You will know already because you wouldn't have asked him if you had the self confidence to know how people should treat you.

Criss Jami - Killosophy

What man ever openly apologizes for slander? It is not so much a feeling of slander as it is that of a massive lie, a misdeed not only to the slandered but also to those manipulated in the process. He has made them all, every one, his enemies, thereupon he is so overwhelmed with guilt that he will deny it until his grave.

Kresley Cole - Lothaire

Why am I letting you comfort me?” He stared over her head. Because I’ve made sure you have no one else to turn to.

Criss Jami -

Speculation, movements having abandoned rational thought, echo chambers, projection, hypocrisy by little to no self-awareness, bewildering minds brainwashed and manipulative hearts manipulated - one is sure to find these à la people cock-sure in their biased and fanatical, immovable despising of persons. We would all do well to humbly re-think from time to time: 'Whom do I really hate? For what purpose?

A.J. Darkholme - Rise of the Morningstar

The values most important to us are always the most easily exploitable.

A.J. Darkholme - Rise of the Morningstar

What separates us into engineers and robots, puppeteers and puppets, kings and pawns, is not the status we hold at any given time among others - status is irrelevant; it is the level of ever-present awareness we have of a grey-matter tailor's tools [of flattery, persuasion, and cunning.]

Craig D. Lounsbrough - Flecks of Gold on a Path of Stone: Simple Truths for Life's Complex Journey

Lies are like paper-Mache in a rain storm.

Shawn Lukas -

Honesty is the only trick to not trick anyone.

Daniel Waterman - Autonomy and Responsibility

It is easier to exploit and manipulate people if they are fearful or confused, (and discouraged from trusting their own judgment). Our investigation identifies the ‘policy of prohibition’ as a major source of ignorance, fear and confusion concerning psychoactive substances, their uses, users, effects and outcomes.