Influential People Quotes & Sayings

These scientific studies countervail the influential claims of the Kants, Nietzsches, and Rands about the nature of human goodness. Compassion is not a blind emotions that catapults people pell-mell toward the next warm body that walks by. Instead, compassion is exquisitely attuned to harm and vulnerability in others. Compassion does not render people tearful idlers, moral weaklings, or passive onlookers but individuals who will take on the pain of others, even when given the chance to skip out on such difficult action or in anonymous conditions. The kindness, sacrifice, and jen that make up healthy communities are rooted in a bundle of nerves that has been producing caretaking behavior for over 100 million years of mammalian evolution. — Dacher Keltner

Friedrich von Bernhardi, one of Germany's most influential military thinkers. Bernhardi believed the German people were destined to become the master race, who would prevail over lesser breeds and rule the world. — Paul Ham

The Sunnis continue to see themselves, possibly for nostalgic reasons, as the most influential group and want a stronger central government - quite unlike minorities in other countries. The circumstances here are far more complex than many people in Washington imagine. — Zalmay Khalilzad

We always stand to gain, whether it be an influential politician to further our interests - which is the most frequent and almost easiest case to fabricate - or a great businessman, most of whose money we administer through our own networks. It is therefore our interest to create as many such 'vicious circles' as possible. And it is on this foundation that we have built modern society and the so-called 'cell of society,' that is, the family which we have chained to an infinite set of dependences: jobs, houses, comfort, cars, bank loans, and long-term contractual obligations that sometimes extend over one or two generations of the respective family. The role of a 'vicious circle' is to make people dependent because, when this happens, they are no longer free. — Radu Cinamar

Every hour of every day, at every level in every organization, influential people succeed and non-influential people don't, — Graham Roberts

Because leaders and influential people are just as human as any other person, they sometimes forget that by doing little extra things to become extraordinary means they no longer have a completely private life. You must be willing to pay this price because if you don't, the consequences can be more disastrous. Learn to plan and be deliberate in also ensuring you and your family can still enjoy quality private moments. — Archibald Marwizi

Almost by force of habit, successful people simply do more. As a result, they experience not only greater financial rewards for their extra efforts but also a personal transformation, becoming more self-confident, more self-reliant, and more influential with those around them. — Jack Canfield

Wilson had to explain why the Constitution did not, like several state constitutions, include a bill of rights. The reason, he said in one of his most influential arguments, lay in a critical difference between the constitutions of the states and the proposed federal Constitution. Through the state constitutions, the people gave their state governments "every right and authority which they did not in explicit terms reserve." The federal Constitution, however, carefully defined and limited the powers of Congress, so that body's authority came "not from tacit implication, but from the positive grant" of specific powers in the Constitution. — Pauline Maier

The corporations have become our government. They're not just influential. Department by department, you name it, they put their people in high government positions, they have 10,000 PACs and 35,000 lobbyists, so there's no more opening to be heard. — Ralph Nader

When you see a black guy on TV, he's always a thug or always portrayed as someone that's in trouble. It spreads the message to everyone else that that's who we are. People often don't try to understand black men as a whole. We're creative, strong and influential. — Thomas Jones

Adopting the behaviors and habits of surrendered people helps us improve our relationships, feel love and gratitude, get healthier, give up destructive people and behavior patterns, and become more successful and influential in our lives and careers. And that's just the tip of the iceberg as far as benefits go. — Judith Orloff

A lot of people influenced me as I was learning but probably Bing Crosby was the most influential, because I would hear his Christmas albums, which my parents played a lot. — Gordon Lightfoot

People don't learn science in movies. You don't go to the movies thinking, 'I hope I learn some quantum mechanics this afternoon.' But on the other hand, movies are instrumental and influential in getting young people interested in science. — Seth Shostak

Kelsier smiled. 'It means that you, Vin, are a very special person. You have a power that most high noblemen envy. It is a power that, had you been born an aristocrat, would have made you one of the most deadly and influential people in all of the final empire.'
Kelsier leaned forward again. 'But, you weren't born an aristocrat. You're not noble, Vin. You don't have to play by their rules
and that makes you even more powerful. — Brandon Sanderson

A personal mission statement is based on Habit Two of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People called "Begin with the End in Mind." In one's life, the most effective way to begin with the end in mind is to develop a mission statement, one that focuses on what you want to be in terms of character and what you want to do in reference to contributions and achievements. It is based upon self-chosen values and principles. Victor Hugo once said, "There is nothing as powerful as an idea whose time has come." A mission statement is that idea. You may call it a credo or a philosophy; or you may call it a purpose statement. It's not important what it is called. What is important is that vision, purpose, and values are more powerful, more significant, and more influential than the baggage of the past or the accumulated noise of the present. — Stephen R. Covey

I do not criticize people who take a public stand on human rights issues. I express my respect for them. But some people are more influential without a public confrontation. — Henry A. Kissinger

Humankind's struggle against a hostile environment causes people throughout the ages to deploy their full armory of logic, training, strategy, imagination, inventiveness, and creativity. We are born with the natural ability to strategize. The most influential tool in humankind's intellectual tool kit is the ability to regenerate a sense of unruffled alertness, to establish a poised stance that leads to intuitive discoveries generated by the conscious and unconscious mind constantly filtering a plethora of data, selecting critical facts, and producing elegant solutions to seemingly insoluble dilemmas. — Kilroy J. Oldster

Given all of this, you'd think LeBon's work might have at some point stopped being influential. But it never did. I suppose one reason for his enduring success is that we tend to love nothing more than to declare other people insane. — Jon Ronson

I'm convinced that some of our greatest and most influential teachers show up in our lives disguised as people we resent or even despise. — Wayne Dyer

people who have made India awesome aren't all politicians. Most of the people that did this are not from the government. Whether it is entrepreneurs like J.R.D. Tata and N.R. Narayana Murthy, sportspersons like Sachin Tendulkar or musicians like A.R. Rahman, people from all walks of life have helped improve our nation. Not just celebrities, but E. Sreedharan, responsible for the Delhi Metro, and Dr Verghese Kurien, who created the Amul revolution, were all ordinary people doing their work extraordinarily well. Mahatma Gandhi and Swami Vivekananda, two of the most influential figures in India's history, never held political office. Aim to be one of those people who made India awesome. — Chetan Bhagat

I think having a vision can make someone an influential man. I'm not talking about acting or anything like that, I'm talking about people I admire, whether it's a writer or a musician or a sports figure or a politician, whatever. — Benicio Del Toro

PREFACE A New Look at the Legacy of Albert Einstein Genius. Absent-minded professor. The father of relativity. The mythical figure of Albert Einstein - hair flaming in the wind, sockless, wearing an oversized sweatshirt, puffing on his pipe, oblivious to his surroundings - is etched indelibly on our minds. "A pop icon on a par with Elvis Presley and Marilyn Monroe, he stares enigmatically from postcards, magazine covers, T-shirts, and larger-than-life posters. A Beverly Hills agent markets his image for television commercials. He would have hated it all," writes biographer Denis Brian. Einstein is among the greatest scientists of all time, a towering figure who ranks alongside Isaac Newton for his contributions. Not surprisingly, Time magazine voted him the Person of the Century. Many historians have placed him among the hundred most influential people of the last thousand years. — Michio Kaku

Everyone in England ate mutton, but not horse meat, especially as influential people considered horses they had ridden both noble and too close to humans for either clerics or lords to consume. — Brian M. Fagan

Influential people are never satisfied with the status quo. They're the ones who constantly ask, 'What if?' and 'Why not?' They're not afraid to challenge conventional wisdom, and they don't disrupt things for the sake of being disruptive; they do it to make things better. — Travis Bradberry

I'm not the only one; most people's mothers are the most influential person in their life. But my mother survived the camps, and she was very strong. She made me strong, but she wanted me to be strong. That's more important. — Diane Von Furstenberg

Research has shown that healthy lifestyles are
more influential than genetic factors in helping older people avoid
the deterioration traditionally associated with aging. — Patricia A. Tabloski

that for understanding the spread of behaviors in social networks, we need to take into account not just the power of influential nodes but also the extent to which these influential nodes have access to easily influenceable people. — David Easley

We are not very good at this. Our success rests on our international experience and on our ability to read the market. And I contest the notion that you can only succeed in China when you are well-connected. Neither my husband nor I are "princelings" - children of influential people, that is. And yet China has enabled us to succeed. — Zhang Xin

Early to bed and early to rise is a bad rule for anyone who wishes to become acquainted with our most prominent and influential people. — George Ade

Influential people have a profound impact on everyone they encounter. Yet, they achieve this only because they exert so much influence inside, on themselves. — Travis Bradberry

I think where Playground is heading is deeper into that marriage between stage, film and television, with the increasing number of people in the film business working in television, obviously something that we were very influential in starting and doing at HBO. And I think that that's the focus of where I see the company moving forward, continuing to explore that intersection of all that talent. — Colin Callender

Averting the looming (pick your favorite term) catastrophe, time bomb, crisis, or emergency, requires us to hew to their worldview, one in which we humans are the problem and the Earth is the object to be saved. The biggest and most influential environmental groups routinely preach a message of doom. They regularly claim, for instance, that technology is dangerous (their opposition to nuclear and GMOs are obvious examples of this mindset) and that industrial development must be stopped in order to the save the planet. However, the painful paradox is that they are aiming to stop many of the innovations that are helping to improve the environment and raise the living standards of millions of people. They are also promoting energy policies that would be ruinous for the environment they say they want to protect. — Robert Bryce

When one takes a broad survey of the country, he will find that the most useful and influential people in it are those who take the deepest interest in institutions that exist for the purpose of making the world better. — Booker T. Washington

In Malaysia, where Western culture was extremely influential, I'd grown up listening to Elvis and the Beatles and watching American movies. People wanted to be like Americans. In contrast, when I got here, I saw prosperous middle-class American college students wanting to somehow join the Third World. — Feisal Abdul Rauf

A lot of people inspire me. I'm a huge movie buff. From studying and watching movies, over and over again, directly influential are Terrence Malik and his naturalism, Robert Altman and his exploration of improvisation, and Judd Apatow, in terms of his comedic process. — David Gordon Green

In my life the most influential people are people who are sort of brought to me, as opposed to people I seek out. — Lauryn Hill

You have to work at having quality in your church, because people that are influential in your city may be God's instruments for resolving all kinds of problems that will most surely come up in the future. — Sunday Adelaja

Ever since 1980, sci-fi has generally been more Bladerunner than Star Wars. People talk about Star Wars being the most influential movie of all time and creating the blockbuster along with Jaws and that sort of thing, but really there's not been a space opera that anyone can go and see. — Mark Millar

If feminism wasn't powerful, if feminism wasn't influential, people wouldn't spend so much time putting it down. — Jessica Valenti

Soccer must play a socio-cultural role. We reach 1.6 billion people, thanks to the positive emotions that soccer triggers, FIFA is more influential than any country on Earth and any religion. We move masses. We want to use that to create more peace, justice and health in the world. — Pope Francis

Make a list of 200 prestigious, influential, and powerful people with whom you want to work, play, grow and do business. — Mark Victor Hansen

She had her sonar continually set for excuses to entertain, to bring together influential and powerful people in a mix that hummed, sizzled, throbbed, and sometimes burst into flames. But I was delighted to be her excuse tonight. — Kate White

When he was restored to the throne at Apple, we put him on the cover of Time, and soon thereafter he began offering me his ideas for a series we were doing on the most influential people of the century. He had launched his "Think Different" campaign, featuring iconic photos of some of the same people we were considering, and he found the endeavor of assessing historic influence fascinating. — Walter Isaacson

The pitch, timbre, volume, speed, and cadence of your voice, the speed with which you speak, and even the way you modulate pitch and loudness, are all hugely influential factors in how convincing you are and how people judge your state of mind and character. — Leonard Mlodinow

Influential people aren't buffeted by the latest trend or by public opinion. They form their opinions carefully, based on the facts. They're more than willing to change their mind when the facts support it, but they aren't influenced by what other people think - only by what they know. — Travis Bradberry

Nelson Mandela was one of the most influential people in my life. He was my hero, my friend, and also a companion to me in our fight for the people and for world peace. Let us all continue his legacy with purpose and passion. — Pele

When you are influential and highly respected, people tend to tell you what you want to hear, not what you need to hear. They are seeking your approval, or they flatter you. Unfortunately, this creates a gap between what you hear and reality. If you find yourself in that situation, you will need to work extra hard to get the people close to you to speak honestly into your life. And you will have to become highly intentional in observing and listening. — John C. Maxwell

I did a number of local children's theater plays growing up, but in 5th grade, I had some good times on stage making people laugh as a troll in 'The Hobbit.' That solidified my dream to be on 'Saturday Night Live,' which was hugely influential for me growing up. — Lauren Lapkus

What offends me the most when I hear criticisms about this so-called Africa bias is how quick we are to focus on the words and propaganda of a few powerful, influential individuals, and to forget about the millions of anonymous people who suffer from their crimes. — Fatou Bensouda

Children model the behavior of adults, on whatever scale is available to them. Ours are growing up in a nation whose most important, influential men - from presidents to the coolest film characters - solve problems by killing people ... We have taught our children in a thousand ways, sometimes with flag-waving and sometimes with a laugh track, that the bad guy deserves to die. — Barbara Kingsolver

We can help many people suffer less and realize a lot of happiness without being rich or influential. If love and compassion are in out hearts, every thought, word, and deed can bring about a miracle — Nhat Hanh

Whether I like it or not, I've become influential to people. — Maisie Williams

I started playing the violin at age 3, and I was very fortunate because there were people who heard me who were influential in getting me auditions. By the time I was 7, I was playing concerts - it was just ridiculous. — Phil Ramone

People think kindness is a soft, weak, submissive influence when in reality it is the most potent, persuasive force in existence. — Richelle E. Goodrich

The right people have the right mindsets, they are high-positive, high-innovative, high-influential and high-mature. — Pearl Zhu

Nowadays, it is true, we have mass media and expert propaganda to spread suspicion and fear. But the people I mean - and they form the great majority - are not suspicious and fearful, as many educated and more influential persons are. Propaganda has not made them accept the Bomb. We protesters, though we may have won over some of their sons and daughters, brothers and sisters, have not made them reject it. They remain profoundly, astonishingly, shockingly indifferent. — J.B. Priestley

When you have a personal relationship with God, it's like being close friends with the most powerful and influential people in the world who have keys to open every door for you.

And best of all, knowing the One helps us to know ourselves and make sense of who we are, why we're here and what life is all about. — Michael Mackintosh

It's not magic; it's hard work by vested people who share a vision for God's kingdom in their city. An influential church is nothing more than a bunch of believers who get in the game and live on mission. — Jen Hatmaker

All this imagery and syncretism of Yahweh with Asherah was, of course, frowned on by the Levitical priesthood and made intolerant zealots like Samuel furious. Asherah smiled to herself. In truth, the elitist inner circle of Levites was quite small and unable to enforce its will across the innumerable rural towns and villages of Israel. The polytheistic folk religion of the common man was often out of tune with the official national cult of monolatry. But it was much more influential on the daily lives of citizens, who did what they wanted without repercussion. Thus, Asherah had a stranglehold on Israel and could venture most anywhere she wanted, without much fear of being attacked by Yahweh's evil minions. The people empowered her with their worship. Their idolatry protected her. — Brian Godawa

I don't want to be
one of those easily forgotten people, so important at the time, so special, so
influential, and so treasured, yet years later just a vague face and a distant
memory. — Cecelia Ahern

The members of the legislative department ... are numerous. They are distributed and dwell among the people at large. Their connections of blood, of friendship, and of acquaintance embrace a great proportion of the most influential part of the society ... they are more immediately the confidential guardians of their rights and liberties. — James Madison

Anyway, my point is (I know, I know, there is one), I don't want to be
one of those easily forgotten people, so important at the time, so special, so
influential, and so treasured, yet years later just a vague face and a distant
memory. I want us to be best friends forever, Alex. — Cecelia Ahern

Books can change your life. Some of the most influential people in our lives are characters we meet in books. — David McCullough

Most people have music in the center of their lives. I believe my work sheds light on how music affects us and why it is so influential. — Susan McClary

There is a small world of people who are very interested in contemporary art and a slightly bigger world of people who look at contemporary art. But then there is a much larger world that doesn't realise how influential art is on things that they actually look at. — Marc Jacobs

Have not some religions, including the most influential forms of Christianity, taught that the heart of man is totally corrupt? How could the course of religion in its entire sweep not be marked by practices that are shameful in their cruelty and lustfulness, and by beliefs that are degraded and intellectually incredible? What else than what we can find could be expected, in the case of people having little knowledge and no secure method of knowing; with primitive institutions, and with so little control of natural forces that they lived in a constant state of fear? — John Dewey

Becoming an influential personality at work is much more important than becoming a hardworking person! — Abhishek Ratna

Few influential people involved with the Internet claim that it is a good in and of itself. It is a powerful tool for solving social problems, just as it is a tool for making money, finding lost relatives, receiving medical advice, or, come to that, trading instructions for making bombs. — Esther Dyson

When influential people speak, conversations spread like ripples in a pond. And those ripples are multidirectional; influencers inspire everyone around them to explore new ideas and think differently about their work. — Travis Bradberry

They also bring to mind what sometimes seems to be a rapt predilection of small but influential cults of intellectuals or esthetes for what is generally regarded as perverse dispirited or distastefully unintelligible. The award of a Nobel Prize in literature to Andre Gide who in his work fervently and openly insists that pederasty is the superior and preferable way of life for adolescent boys furnishes a memorable example of such judgments. Renowned critics and some professors in our best universities reverently acclaim as the superlative expression of genius James Joyce's Finnegan's Wake a 628page collection of erudite gibberish indistinguishable to most people from the familiar word salad produced by hebephrenic patients on the back wards of any state hospital. — Hervey M. Cleckley

People who think of themselves as tough-minded and realistic, among them influential political leaders and businessmen as well as go-getters and hustlers of smaller caliber, tend to take it for granted that human nature is selfish and that life is a struggle in which only the fittest may survive. According to this philosophy, the basic law by which man must live, in spite of his surface veneer of civilization, is the law of the jungle. The "fittest" are those who can bring to the struggle superior force, superior cunning, and superior ruthlessness. — S.I. Hayakawa

If ... many influential people have failed to understand, or have just forgotten, what we were up against in the Cold War and how we overcame it, they are not going to be capable of securing, let alone enlarging, the gains that liberty has made. — Margaret Thatcher

We are all united by both pain and love. Both a smile and a wound. We are all united by these very basic yet very influential things, because we all recognize them, we all know what they feel like to have or to give. Everything else, all the other things that do not unite us - those things are all illusions. — C. JoyBell C.

Without hesitation, I place Freud among the heroes. He dispossessed the Jewish people of the greatest and most influential of all heroes-Moses. — Salvador Dali

I can see where influential people would like Maharishi better than Jesus. My God, if the Beatles and Mia Farrow went to Jesus, He'd tell them to give all their money away. — Kurt Vonnegut

Von Pein's family was a little known, but highly influential entity within American banking circles. Banking Royalty, some called it. His grandfather had been one of the chief orchestrators of the Federal Reserve Act of 1913, which effectively took ownership of the bank from the American people. — James Morcan

Truly powerful people have great humility. They do not try to impress, they do not try to be influential. They simply are. People are magnetically drawn to them. They are most often very silent and focused, aware of their core selves ... They never persuade, nor do they use manipulation or aggressiveness to get their way. They listen. If there is anything they can offer to assist you, they offer it; if not, they are silent. — Sanaya Roman

The sober people of America are weary of the fluctuating policy which has directed the public councils. They have seen with regret and indignation that sudden changes and legislative interferences, in cases affecting personal rights, become jobs in the hands of enterprising and influential speculators, and snares to the more-industrious and less informed part of the community. They have seen, too, that one legislative interference is but the first link of a long chain of repetitions, every subsequent interference being naturally produced by the effects of the preceding. — James Madison

I had an amazing advantage: a grandmother [Polly Noonan, an influential confidante of the mayor of Albany] who loved politics. She taught me not to listen to negative press or people. I grew up knowing politics was rough-and-tumble. — Kirsten Gillibrand

You convey too great a compliment when you say that I have earned the right to the presidential nomination. No man can establish such an obligation upon any part of the American people. My country owes me no debt. It gave me, as it gives every boy and girl, a chance. It gave me schooling, independence of action, opportunity for service and honor. In no other land could a boy from a country village, without inheritance or influential friends, look forward with unbounded hope. My whole life has taught me what America means. I am indebted to my country beyond any human power to repay. — Herbert Hoover

But, sir, the great cause of complaint now is the slavery question, and the questions growing out of it. If there is any other cause of complaint which has been influential in any quarter, to bring about the crisis which is now upon us; if any State or any people have made the troubles growing out of this question, a pretext for agitation instead of a cause of honest complaint, Virginia can have no sympathy whatever, in any such feeling, in any such policy, in any such attempt. It is the slavery question. Is it not so? ... — John Brown Baldwin

In every country the intellectual class is the most influential class. This is the class which can foresee advice and lead. In no country does the mass of the people live the life for intelligent thought and action. It is largely imitative and follows the intellectual class. There is no exaggeration in saying that the entire destination of the country depends upon its intellectual class. If the intellectual class is honest and independent, it can be trusted to take the initiative and give a proper lead when a crisis arises. It is true that the intellect by itself is no virtue. It is only a means and the use of a means depends upon the ends which an intellectual person pursues. An intellectual man can be a good man but he may easily be a rogue. Similarly an intellectual class may be a band of high-souled persons, ready to help, ready to emancipate erring humanity or it may easily be a gang of crooks or a body of advocates of narrow clique from which it draws its support. — B.R. Ambedkar

You don't have to be a person of influence to be influential. In fact, the most influential people in my life are probably not even aware of the things they've taught me. — Scott Adams

When you examine the lives of the most influential people who have ever walked among us, you discover one thread that winds through them all. They have been aligned first with their spiritual nature and only then with their physical selves. — Albert Einstein

You have to look also to the media, where you have a vast majority of the loudest and most influential political voices in America media from people who came from the entertainment world. — Ben Affleck

At every stage of my career, I sought out the most influential people around me and asked for their help and guidance. — Keith Ferrazzi

Ethnomethodology, a small but influential subfield of sociology founded by Harold Garfinkel (1967), took as its project the description of how people produce orderly social conduct. Ethnomethodologists argue that orderliness is enacted as people draw on resources in their environments, resources with which to improvise meaningful action. Action is not preordered by anything that can be reduced to theoretical principles; rather, the analyst considers specific instances of organized action, and describes those. An — Victor Kaptelinin

People become wealthy when they become specific ... when they know what that means to them, not only in terms of the objects and amounts involved - ... but also in terms of how they want this wealth to make them feel. — Kiki Theo

There's a critical insight in all this for those of us who want to learn to be more influential. The best persuaders become the best through pre-suasion - the process of arranging for recipients to be receptive to a message before they encounter it. To persuade optimally, then, it's necessary to pre-suade optimally. But how?

In part, the answer involves an essential but poorly appreciated tenet of all communication: what we present first changes the way people experience what we present to them next. — Robert B. Cialdini

Many media commercials encourage us to believe that if we buy a certain product, we can be physically appealing, or popular, or successful. According to the commercial message, it may be easy to make friends and influence people if we simply do what we're told to do. It would be wonderful if that were true, but unfortunately life does not seem to work that way. What is inside of us can be much more important and influential than what is outside. — John Templeton

I've already exceeded my expectations for myself. I'm one of the most influential people! I mean come on! I wanted to be ... I never thought the things I've experienced in my life, I didn't think that was the life that I was gonna get to live. — Ashton Kutcher

Part of becoming a little bit older and having the opportunities that I have, you want to start giving back to people who have been influential and helped you along the way. — Grant Achatz

Any demanding high technology tends to develop influential and dedicated constituencies of those who link its commercial success with both the public welfare and their own. Such sincerely held beliefs, peer pressures, and the harsh demands that the work itself places on time and energy all tend to discourage such people from acquiring a similarly thorough knowledge of alternative policies and the need to discuss them. — Amory Lovins

Be a source of influence to others — Sunday Adelaja

Instead of squirreling away your earnings early in your career, spend on experiences that will enrich your life - like diving with great white sharks. It can expose you to influential people who could open doors for you. — Blake Mycoskie

I'm one of the highest-paid television people in the world. I feel like I've made a difference in my viewers' lives, that I've been influential. — Cristina Saralegui

There will always be individuals who give enthusiastic support for the use of force to solve all the problems of the world. The neoconservatives, though less influential today than a decade ago, will not give up on their faith in violence. Let us take advantage of this new attitude among the people and help build the momentum away from the persistent effort to control the world through war and bribery. That destructive effort has been undertaken at the expense of those who are forced to fight in and pay for the wars benefiting the privileged few. — Ron Paul

Landowners and influential men of all kinds, especially members of political councils, ought to set an example to the people. The young members of rich families should offer themselves for military service. If not one of two sons, at least one of three sons should be ready to do so. — Chiang Kai-shek

I've been working hard at assuming Court polish, but the more I learn about what really goes on behind the pretty voices and waving fans and graceful bows, the more I comprehend that what is really said matters little, so long as the manner in which it is said pleases. I understand it, but I don't like it. Were I truly influential, then I would halt this foolishness that decrees that in Court one cannot be sick; that to admit you are sick is really to admit to political or social or romantic defeat; that to admit to any emotions usually means one really feels the opposite. It is a terrible kind of falsehood that people can only claim feelings as a kind of social weapon. — Sherwood Smith

Well, Bradbury's a genius. Fahrenheit 451 is one of my favorite books of all time, and The Illustrated Man as a collection of short stories ranks up there. When you read it you realize how influential it is on so many other stories and people. — Zack Snyder