Influenced Quotes & Sayings

I am influenced by books which don't have their eye on the endgame, but which try to be entertaining on each and every page. — Steve Toltz

A man who is influenced by the polls or is afraid to make decisions which make him unpopular is not a man to represent the welfare of the country. — Harry S. Truman

Facts and values are entangled in science. It's not because scientists are biased, not because they are partial or influenced by other kinds of interests, but because of a commitment to reason, consistency, coherence, plausibility and replicability. These are value commitments. — Alva Noe

By the death of Mr. O. Chanute the world has lost one whose labors had to an unusual degree influenced the course of human progress. If he had not lived the entire history of progress in flying would have been other than it has been. — Wilbur Wright

When your 18th, 19, 20 years old like we were at that time, its just like anyone else, you look at like Silverchair and bands like that that are super young and sound extremely derivative of bands that were out at that current moment. As they sounded like 'Nirvana in pajamas' as we called them, we sounded like Bon Jovi and Skid Row and Motley Crue, because we were only influenced by what was out at the time because we were so young — Butch Walker

I think your values are always influenced by your family and your community. — Dolly Parton

Since the age of 12, all my musical thinking has been influenced by Afro-American music. — Alexis Korner

Are human reactions what they've always been, or has a century or more of movies influenced our response to every stimulus — Dean Koontz

I was reading Emily Dickinson and Edwin Arlington Robinson, but these weren't the poets that influenced me. I think Gwendolyn Brooks influenced me because she wrote about Chicago, and she wrote about poor people. And she influenced me in my life by giving me a blurb. I would see her in action, and she listened to every single person. She didn't say, "Oh, I'm tired. I gotta go." She was there, and present, with every single person. She's one of the great teachers. — Sandra Cisneros

Young men need a positive influence, especially when they don't have a strong male figure in their lives. They can be influenced by a great, godly man in the church, which gives men a great mission in the church to influence these kids. — Tony Evans

I was much influenced by Jean-Paul Sartre. — Thom Gunn

You sing about the things you're influenced by. So we've been big into sci-fi since we were kids, things like Star Trek etc. Then came movies like Terminator and Dune. Burton is also a really big reader and loves sci-fi novels which helps him write. It's also really cool he does that because it's through the perspective of how we see things going or possibly going. — Dino Cazares

I was as equally influenced by Bergman as I was [low-budget sexploitation filmmaker]. — John Waters

I was my class playwright and I wrote plays set in villages with kings and chiefs.My plays were about treason and betrayals. If they were influenced by Macbeth, they were also influenced by Nigerian plays I had seen and Village Headmaster, a television drama series I had watched as a child. — Sefi Atta

Most of the confidence which I appear to feel, especially when influenced by noon wine, is only a pretense. — Tennessee Williams

Just as you are unconsciously influenced by outside advertisement, announcement, and appeal, so you can vitally influence your life from within by auto-suggestion. The first thing each morning, and the last thing each night, suggest to yourself specific ideas that you wish to embody in your character and personality. Address such suggestions to yourself, silently or aloud, until they are deeply impressed upon your mind. — Grenville Kleiser

I love working with customers. Sales has really influenced everything I do. It has instilled in me the important traits of operating with a sense of urgency and listening to people. — Jeffrey R. Immelt

I love Crews, but had been writing a long time before I knew of him. I learned of him because a friend thought we were similar. The reason we are is we were both heavily influenced by Flannery O'Conner. She was wonderful. — Joe R. Lansdale

My songwriting is so influenced by orchestrated music, dramatic, super glam rock-y stuff. Two of my biggest influences in songwriting were Elton John and Freddie Mercury. — Brandi Carlile

I have been definitely influenced more by Latin American writers than by any other type of writer. They are very close in terms of voice - their humor, their fatalism, their ... well, that over-used term 'magical realism.' It's a wonderful term that's just been used so much, we don't know what it means anymore. — Jessica Hagedorn

In reality no food is valued solely for its nutritive power and no garment or house solely for the protection it affords against cold weather and rain ... the demand for goods is widely influenced by metaphysical, religious, and ethical considerations, by aesthetic value judgments, by customs, habits, prejudice, tradition, changing fashions, and many other things. — Ludwig Von Mises

I can't say if I have influenced anything really, maybe a few artists but at the end of the day we are all influenced by various arts and situations around us, etc ... all of us. I don't see or hear from any of the above, sorry ... — Mick Harris

We are the sum of who we are. We pick certain things at certain moments that influenced us. — Keanu Reeves

If you say one gets influenced watching a character, I think it's foolish. Cinema reflects society; society rarely reflects cinema. — Kajol

She has some very interesting ways of thinking about things. I wonder in what kind of environment she built that kind of worldview? Is there anyone who influenced her to be like that? — Minari Endou

The way we frame information for ourselves or for others can make a big difference in how we see and respond to choice. Every time we encounter new information or reexamine old information, we're influenced by its presentation. We can use framing to our advantage, but sometimes it has a negative impact on the quality of our decisions. — Sheena Iyengar

Every drummer that had a name, had a name because of his individual playing. He didn't sound like anybody else, So everybody that I ever listened to, in some form, influenced my taste. — Buddy Rich

From my studies of genetics and neuroscience I have come to believe that people fall into four broad personality types - each influenced by a different brain chemical: I call them the Explorer, Builder, Director, and Negotiator. — Helen Fisher

My style of songwriting is influenced by cinema. I'm a frustrated filmmaker. A fan once said to me, 'Girl, you make me see pictures in my head!' and I took that as a great compliment. That's exactly my intention. — Joni Mitchell

I was heavily influenced by J. R. R. Tolkien, George R. R. Martin, C. S. Friedman, Terry Brooks, Robert Jordan, R. A. Salvatore, and James Clavell to name a few, but of course every book I've ever read, whether I liked it or not, has had an influence ... I think I am constantly evolving as a writer, but not to mimic anyone else or mainstream trends. — Peter V. Brett

Freedom is for the curious ones. Free is the one not influenced by taboos. Free is the one who reasons and evolves continuously, and refuses to accept anything without thinking. — Massimo Marino

First-generation children were strongly influenced by their immigrant parents approach to choice. For them, choice was not just a way of defining and asserting their individuality, but a way to create community and harmony by deferring to the choices of people whom they trusted and respected. — Sheena Iyengar

Males were expected to be ready to fuck any hole they could slip their dicks into. Boys weren't considered men unless they were influenced by their carnal instincts to spread their seed. — Maggie Young

We are here to influence the world rather than to be influenced by the world. — Sheri L. Dew

I have been influenced in my thinking by both west and east. — Nelson Mandela

I've been influenced by some of the greatest designers. Charles Eames. And Bruno Munari in the '50s in Italy - when they had to retool the industry of war into an industry to help society. In a way, I'm influenced by designers that were there at a radical time of change. — Yves Behar

If it were thought that anything I wrote was influenced by Robert Frost, I would take that particular piece of mine,
shred it, and flush it down the toilet, hoping not to clog the pipes. — James Dickey

All leaders are influenced by those they admire. Reading about them and studying their traits inevitably allows an inspiring leader to develop his own leadership traits. — Rudy Giuliani

These days I don't look to other people with the objective of trying to steal their licks, although I've got no objections to stealing them if that seems like a good idea. I'm sure that I'm still influenced by Mark Knopfler and Eddie Van Halen as well ... I can't play like Eddie Van Halen. I wish I could. I sat down to try some of those ideas and can't do it. I don't know if I could ever get any of that stuff together. Sometimes I think I should work at the guitar more. — David Gilmour

Your assumptions are your windows on the world. Scrub them off every once in a while or the light won't come in. If you challenge your own, you won't be so quick to accept the unchallenged assumptions of others. You'll be a lot less likely to be caught up in bias or prejudice or be influenced by people who ask you to hand over your brains, your soul or your money because they have everything all figured out for you. — Alan Alda

In our modern religion there is a reticence in speaking of our personal relationship to Jesus which often causes great loss. We forget that the majority of men are guided more by emotions than by intellect: the heart is the great power by which they are meant to be influenced and molded. — Andrew Murray

In any country, in any city, there will be political influence on what is said, what kind of images are to be projected and, yes, of course artists can be and are influenced by politicians. — Cai Guo-Qiang

I think that my vampires in general were influenced by my being allowed to watch the Hammer vampire films. Vampire Circus, also shown as Circus of Fear, was one of those movies. — Laurell K. Hamilton

I had the most incredible English and literature teachers in school, and it really influenced my love of storytelling. It's what made me excited to study journalism in college. I love editorials and documentaries. All of that came from being given the opportunity to lose myself in good writing when I was a kid. — Sophia Bush

There is no figure who had more of an influence, no person had more of an influence on the intellectuals behind the Iron Curtain than Friedrich Hayek. His books were translated and published by the underground and black market editions, read widely, and undoubtedly influenced the climate of opinion that ultimately brought about the collapse of the Soviet Union. — Milton Friedman

I'm a fan of retracing the facts and absorbing my atmosphere and being influenced by it. — Lindi Ortega

I never allow myself to be influenced in the smallest degree either by atmospheric disturbances or by the arbitrary divisions of what is known as Time. — Marcel Proust

Billions of people have seen and been influenced by movies in the short history of this industry. — Conrad Hall

We are all linked by a fabric of unseen connections. This fabric is constantly changing and evolving. This field is directly structured and influenced by our behavior and by our understanding. — David Bohm

Cocteau is someone who has made such a profound impression on me that there's no doubt he's influenced every one of my films. — Jacques Rivette

I don't watch a lot of other people's parodies because I don't want to be unduly influenced. — Al Yankovic

I'd always wanted to work in the studio and experiment with sounds. Things that I'm really influenced by and that I love are like The Beatles and Radiohead, and all those records by bands whose music is really involved. — Regina Spektor

People today are desperate for leaders, but they want to be influenced only by individuals they can trust, persons of good character. — John C. Maxwell

We are very influenced by completely automatic things that we have no control over, and we don't know we're doing it. — Daniel Kahneman

A woman's head is always influenced by her heart, but a man's heart is always influenced by his head. — Marguerite Gardiner, Countess Of Blessington

Yeah. My singing and my songs were very influenced by all of that. People would come up to me and ask, Is that a Billie Holiday song? I'd say, No, it's my song. The lyrics would be in my style, but the songs would be very jazzy. — Regina Spektor

I find that a duck's opinion of me is influenced by whether or not I have bread. A duck loves bread, but he does not have the capability to buy a loaf. That's the biggest joke on the duck ever. If I worked at a convenience store, and a duck came in and stole a loaf of bread, I would let him go. I'd say, "Come back tomorrow, bring your friends!" When I think of a duck's friends, I think of other ducks. But he could have, say, a beaver in tow. — Mitch Hedberg

Our analysis of truth and falsehood, or of the nature of judgment, is not very likely to be influenced by our hopes and fears. — Charles D. Broad

It's like in most parts of America, where there was industry and there is no longer; there is cynicism mixed with sarcasm and some optimism. That's how my background influenced my comedy. — Jim Gaffigan

Art has definitely influenced how I think of design, both as individual items and as a body of work. — Cynthia Rowley

I was more influenced by players like Randy Rhoads and Eddie Van Halen than by the guys in southern rock bands. — Dimebag Darrell

Being classically trained gave me the real foundation for music. It's so important in my life. Why was I influenced by all these styles of music? Because it gave me a sense of freedom. It made me feel like I could put my hand in a colored bag and pull out a different colored candy and have fun with it. — Lara Fabian

I could have done a hundred songs, really. It was hard to narrow them down, because I tried to pick songs for the most part that actually did have some effect on me or influenced me in the past. — Alan Jackson

One thing that has really influenced me with Bowie where I've taken an approach from him is how he changes from album to album and has always modified his sound and his appearance. I think that's an important thing. — Scott Weiland

brain and other nerve-related problems such as headaches from concussions, vascular dementia (dementia caused by blood vessel problems in the brain), migraines, Bell's palsy (a paralysis of the facial nerve), and tinnitus (ringing of the ears). He emphasized he was influenced by research that had been done in Israel on light therapy and the brain. Dr. Shimon Rochkind, a neurosurgeon at Tel Aviv University, originally pioneered work using lasers to treat injuries in the peripheral nervous system, that is, all the nerves in the body except those in the brain and spinal cord. Injury to peripheral nerves can lead to problems sensing or moving. — Norman Doidge

Many of the greatest works of philosophy seem to me to be valuable not because of their arguments, but because they offer us perspectives that open up new possibilities. They show us how we might start in different places, and not buy into the assumptions tacitly made on the first pages of the philosophical works that have influenced us. — Philip Kitcher

I'm more influenced by my own interests than anyone else's. Writers have to entertain themselves, or they can't entertain anyone else. — Laurell K. Hamilton

I was influenced by big, strong voices - writers like Elizabeth Bowen, Virginia Woolf, Jane Bowles; gay writers like Ed White, Michael Cunningham, Allen Hollinghurst; and contemporary lesbian writers, like Dorothy Allison. — Stacey D'Erasmo

It's always great playing with other musicians. It's also a great situation where I'm the older guy, I've influenced generations of guitar players. — Ace Frehley

What I do try to do is just stay away from other people's work, because they might influence you too much in a level that you don't want to be influenced in. And you don't want to look somebody else, you want to look like yourself. — Marko Djurdjevic

These Taoists' ideas have greatly influenced all our theories of action, even to those of fencing and wrestling. Jiu-jitsu, the Japanese art of self-defence, owes its name to a passage in the Tao-teking. In jiu-jitsu one seeks to draw out and exhaust the enemy's strength by non-resistance, vacuum, while conserving one's own strength for victory in the final struggle.
In art the importance of the same principle is illustrated by the value of suggestion. In leaving something unsaid the beholder is given a chance to complete the idea and thus a great masterpiece irresistibly rivets your attention until you seem to become actually a part of it. A vacuum is there for you to enter and fill up the full measure of your aesthetic emotion. — Okakura Kakuzo

I don't think I can pick apart how I was influenced by which author. But these were the authors whose books I went back to again and again when I was in high school and college, when I first started trying to write stories. — Martha Wells

The first movie I saw - and I don't know if it influenced me - was Ben Hur. We watched it outside in a corn field, and it ran backwards, so the first movie I ever saw was Ben Hur backwards. — Roberto Benigni

The Bee Gees were always heavily influenced by black music. As a songwriter, it's never been difficult to pick up on the changing styles of music out there, and soul has always been my favourite genre. — Robin Gibb

I don't like MTV, and I don't like the culture that goes with it. It's OK in very small doses, maybe. Nevertheless, it's a social reality and has influenced how kids perceive things around them, the pace of life and the way people do things. — Seymour Papert

I love movies. Movies have influenced me as a writer. — Michael Connelly

The comics I read as a kid were much more influenced by TV and movies. Encountering superheroes as an adult without that kind of childhood sentimentality, it just doesn't allow you, or in my case at least, it wouldn't let me take the characters seriously. — Garth Ennis

I recently realized that Television has influenced a lot of English bands. Echo and the Bunnymen, U2, Teardrop Explodes - it's obvious what they've listened to and what they're going for. When I was sixteen I listened to Yardbirds records and thought, "God, this is great." It's gratifying to think that people listened to Television albums and felt the same. — Tom Verlaine

I love music/sounds that have a passion, a fire, an energy I can connect with. I love angry sounding beat tracks, dark sounds for sure but I also love delicate sounds, they both connect I think. Discharge back in 1980 was a big explosion in sound for me to hear the anger and the energy, still an influence on me. Miles Davis has been an influence, as much as John Coltrane, Brian Eno, John Hassel. So much around me has influenced me: my everyday life, everything around me, the family, etc ... It has an impact. — Mick Harris

'Female Convict 701: Scorpion' is based on a manga as is 'Lady Snowblood.' I saw 'Lady Snowblood' in the theater between writing issue three and issue four of the first arc of 'Pretty Deadly,' and I was really surprised how much I was influenced by it. — Kelly Sue DeConnick

God was alone when He made His decrees, and His determinations were influenced by no external cause. He was free to decree or not to decree, and to decree one thing and not another. This liberty we must ascribe to Him who is Supreme, Independent, and Sovereign in all His doings. — Arthur W. Pink

But you'd have a job to find many of my poems which would seem to be very influenced by a particular person. — Norman MacCaig

Cars are the most central thing in America, in a lot of ways. They've probably influenced the way we live more than anything else, and yet every really big problem - whether it's the environment or who dictates the international economy because of oil - is all tied to cars. Ultimately, cars are bad for civilization. I don't know if they'll end us. — Chuck Klosterman

Life management begins with mind management. The quality of your life is influenced by the quality of your thoughts. Your thoughts do form your world. Scarce thoughts create a life of scarcity. Thoughts of abundance lead to abundant circumstances. — Robin Sharma

Saudade is presented as the key feeling of the Portuguese soul. The word comes from the Latin plural solitates, "solitudes," but its derivation was influenced by the idea and sonority of the Latin salvus, "in good health," "safe." A long tradition that goes back to the origins of Lusophone language, to the thirteenth-century cantiga d'amigo, has repeatedly explored, in literature and philosophy, the special feeling of a people that has always looked beyond its transatlantic horizons. Drawn from a genuine suffering of the soul, saudade became, for philosophical speculation, particularly suitable for expressing the relationship of the human condition to temporality, finitude, and the infinite. — Barbara Cassin

I'm a practicing Zen Buddhist and I'm influenced by my readings in that tradition, such as the notion that everyone is born a perfect being and we spend most of our lives with a clouded vision trying to realize our perfection, he says. At critical moments in the book, T.S. registers his inkling of this realization. When he makes his maps, it feels like taking down dictation from the universe. — Reif Larsen

In large part, we are teachers precisely because we remember what it was like to be a student. Someone inspired us. Someone influenced us. Or someone hurt us. And we've channeled that joy (or pain) into our own unique philosophies on life and learning and we're always looking for an opportunity to share them - with each other, our students, parents, or in our communities. — Tucker Elliot

I have heard some stuff that might be influenced by my records, but it's usually pretty wacky and off-the-wall, which is kind of annoying, to be frank. — Beck

The Golden Bough was popular with both scholars and laymen, and it dramatically influenced the work of Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung - Frazer's depiction of tales of myth and romance as echoes of ancient rituals chimed with Jung's description of archetypes that exist within the collective unconscious - as — George Pendle

Many good people, being influenced by the bold spirit of the times, are now seeking surgery for the wife or the husband so they may avoid pregnancies and comply with the strident voice demanding a reduction of children. It was never easy to bear and rear children, but easy things do not make for growth and development. But loud, blatant voices today shout 'fewer children' and offer the Pill, drugs, surgery, and even ugly abortion to accomplish that. Strange the proponents of depopulating the world seem never to have thought of continence! — Spencer W. Kimball

I suppose I'm most influenced by any good, commercial writer. I learn from everyone. — Nicholas Sparks

Every thought, feeling, and emotion creates a molecule known as a neuropeptide. Neuropeptides travel throughout your body and hook onto receptor sites of cells and neurons. Your brain takes in the information, converts it into chemicals, and lets your whole body know if there's trouble in the world or cause for celebration. Your body is directly influenced as these molecules course through the bloodstream, delivering the energetic effect of whatever your brain is thinking and feeling. — Deepak Chopra

I will insist the Hebrews have [contributed] more to civilize men than any other nation. If I was an atheist and believed in blind eternal fate, I should still believe that fate had ordained the Jews to be the most essential instrument for civilizing the nations ... They are the most glorious nation that ever inhabited this Earth. The Romans and their empire were but a bubble in comparison to the Jews. They have given religion to three-quarters of the globe and have influenced the affairs of mankind more and more happily than any other nation, ancient or modern. — John Adams

Western literature has been more influenced by the Bible than any other book. — Thomas B. Macaulay

I'm not just influenced by the '60s - it's who I am. I grew up with Allen Ginsberg and Che Guevara. I flirted with various forms of communism when it was way out of style. It was this really strange and creative time in music and culture, and it was fabulous. — Thom Mayne

Every way of life produces its own environment and in turn is influenced by that environment. — Hugh Nibley

Dad had a music store, and he'd often bring home comedy albums that I would listen to. I started listening to Bob Newhart and Bill Cosby, and developing taste. They really influenced my style of comedy. — Billy Crystal

The Kingdom of God is Within You, which in turn influenced such twentieth-century figures — Leo Tolstoy

There was a generation of kids who were just kind of emulating distant heroes and wearing peace symbols, and parents who were thinking of themselves as liberal and removed from barbarity, but it also was the era of Vietnam. I very much was influenced - and I think the whole country was kind of in a state of shock - for the first time seeing the horror and cruelty of war. — Wes Craven

There is no doubt that every single body cell is influenced by the way we think and feel. — Gian Kumar