Quotes & Sayings About Maintaining Control

Self-control and deliberate thought apparently draw on the same limited budget of effort.... This is how the law of least effort comes to be a law. Even in the absence of time pressure, maintaining a coherent train of thought requires discipline. — Daniel Kahneman

Mack once told me that he used to speak his mind more freely in his younger years, but he admitted that most of such talk was a survival mechanism to cover his hurts; he often ended up spewing his pain on everyone around him. He says that he had a way of pointing out people's faults and humiliating them while maintaining his own sense of false power and control. Not too endearing. — Wm. Paul Young

In a state of flow, however, maintaining focused attention on these absorbing activities requires no exertion of self-control, thereby freeing resources to be directed to the task at hand. — Daniel Kahneman

The fleabitten grey mare's short legs are slightly over at the knee, she has a Roman nose and a neck of solid muscle well-practiced at pulling her rider out of the saddle. Her head is up and a layer of sweat darkens her pale shoulders, but Alec's holding his reins tight and he's maintaining control. All the riders who have gone before on beautifully turned out, well-schooled ponies were merely passengers as their ponies jumped. Alec has harnessed the raw talent of his mare, her power barely held in check as the bell rings and he canters her around towards the first jump. Jess strains against the martingale as she charges towards the first fence and with one strong push off her hocks, flies over the jump with her knees tucked into her chest. — Kate Lattey

For so long, companies were run using a command-and-control, 'top down' hierarchical method that involved dictating down the command chain and maintaining order. What I've witnessed in our time is evolving democratization, a shift to a demand economy accelerated by technological advancements like social media. — Kevin Allen

The World as an Ice Cream Store

From now on, try to look at the world as if it were a gigantic ice cream store. What makes it so great is that it contains a combination of so many unique flavors, and this is why people love it so much. If you want to keep enjoying all the ice cream, we all have to take part in preserving and maintaining 'the store'. United, we have to make sure that it never gets robbed or destroyed, and to protect it from greedy crooks who want to brand and monopolize certain flavors, and eliminate those that compete with them.

Our job as devoted protectors of our universal ice cream store is to make sure that no one group tries to control it, and that there is always enough cream for everybody all around. There is no such thing as 'cream only for the cream', or 'the best cream only for this or that team'. We have to stick together and melt together. Or else, there will be no peace. — Suzy Kassem

I found out that "Shame is a reaction to other people's criticism, an acute personal chagrin at our failure to live up to our obligations and the expectations others have of us. Personal desires are sunk in the collective expectation. (Shame is) the primary device for gaining control over children and maintaining control over adults — Paul G. Hiebert

Consistent happiness is an art - An art that involves taking and maintaining control of which thoughts you give attention to and which thoughts you disregard — Gennaro Moccia

But I cannot accept a vision of You as an engineer who spends His days maintaining the machine of morality. I cannot take the idea of You as an optimizer, introducing evil into human affairs in an attempt to create the best of all possible worlds. I cannot bear this cold mathematician's God who sees all the universe as nothing more than an elaborate problem to be solved. Such a world is a world with no meaning, one in which one history is no more or less preferable to any other. — Dexter Palmer

While originating in acts of imagination, orthodoxies paradoxically seek to control the imagination as a means of maintaining their authority. The authenticity of a person's understanding is measured according to its conformity with the dogmas of the school. While such controls may provide a necessary safeguard against charlatanism and self-deception, they also can be used to suppress authentic attempts at creative innovation that might threaten the status quo. The imagination is anarchic and potentially subversive. The more hierarchic and authoritarian a religious institution, the more it will require that the creations of the imagination conform to its doctrines and aesthetic norms. Yet — Stephen Batchelor

For example, when Christians discuss sex, it often sounds as if we are somehow "against sex". What we fail to make clear is that sexual passion (the good gifts of God's creation) is now subservient to the demanding business of maintaining a revolutionary community in a world that often uses sex as a means of momentarily anesthetizing or distracting people from the basic vacuity of their lives. When the only contemporary means of self-transcendence is orgasm, we Christians are going to have a tough time convincing people that it would be nicer if they were not promiscuous. — Stanley Hauerwas

It's the narcissist's way of maintaining control of the twisted situation he conducted in his environment.
Narcissists thrive when attempting to make people crazy. It's called psychological warfare. — V. Theia

... "white supremacy" is a much more useful term for understanding the complicity of people of color in upholding and maintaining racial hierarchies that do not involve force (i.e slavery, apartheid) than the term "internalized racism"- a term most often used to suggest that black people have absorbed negative feelings and attitudes about blackness. The term "white supremacy" enables us to recognize not only that black people are socialized to embody the values and attitudes of white supremacy, but we can exercise "white supremacist control" over other black people. — Bell Hooks

All too often departmental heads were more concerned with maintaining control than encouraging cross-departmental cooperation. — Anonymous

As a result, ways out of the crisis are being intensively searched for at all levels - ways, which, however, aim at maintaining the whites' control over the country. — Joe Slovo

Diplomacy, Democracy, and parenting are very much the same. It's an act of creating and maintaining control over people without them becoming aware of it while rousing their allegiance through fear or manipulation to protect your right to continue taking advantage of them and their loyalty. — Mitch Alexander

Jealousy is the opposite of maintaining and growing in a relationship. Jealousy includes elements of fear, anger, suspicion, and control that have no place in a mature relationship. — Darrel Ray

The thought of both East and West (philosophies) can indeed be integrated into a higher truth. They show us that the West is correct in maintaining that life is about progress about evolving toward something higher. Yet the East is also correct in emphasizing that we must let go of control with the ego. We can't progress by using logic alone. We have to attain a fuller consciousness, an inner connection with God, because only then can our evolution toward something better be guided by a higher part of ourselves. — James Redfield

Patriarchy, like any system of domination (for example, racism), relies on socializing everyone to believe that in all human relations there is an inferior and a superior party, one person is strong, the other weak, and that it is therefore natural for the powerful to rule over the powerless. To those who support patriarchal thinking, maintaining power and control is acceptable by whatever means. — Bell Hooks

The mythology of black women as promiscuous was important to maintaining the profitable exploitation of slave society. In freedom, it remained important as a means of racial and gender control. — Melissa V. Harris-Perry

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. Women who give seemingly selfless adoration and care to the men in their lives appear to be obsessed with 'love,' but in actuality their actions are often a covert way to hold power. Like their male counterparts, they enter relationships speaking the words of love even as their actions indicate that maintaining power and control is their primary agenda. — Bell Hooks

The same six corporations own the media outlets that we rely on for nearly all of our information. These corporations serve the interest of the central banks. The strength of these corporations lies in the large amounts of money that they generate. If the people were informed of the control these corporations have, then they would stop investing their money towards these companies, and the corporations would lose their power and wealth. It is in the best interest of the government, the corporations and the banks to keep the public uninformed. The biggest tool of maintaining public ignorance is by the control of media outlets that distribute information to the mass population. — Joseph P. Kauffman

Man is a machine which reacts blindly to external forces and, this being so, he has no will, and very little control of himself, if any at all. What we have to study, therefore, is not psychology-for that applies only to a developed man-but mechanics. Man is not only a machine but a machine which works very much below the standard it would be capable of maintaining if it were working properly. — P.D. Ouspensky

I believe in tension and release, in that if you stay in the the same tone and mode and intensity for too long, it actually becomes monotonous. When you change up your pace or your humour level, then the release is welcome ... I believe that's my biggest job: tone control, and maintaining enough unity so that it all feels like one movie and all the scenes belong together, and yet diversity so that emotional and narrative interest is maintained. — Patricia Rozema

The argument is not between adding features and simplicity, between adding capability and usability. The real issue is about design: designing things that have the power required for the job while maintaining understandabili ty, the feeling of control, and the pleasure of accomplishment. — Donald A. Norman

Privacy is an inherent human right, and a requirement for maintaining the human condition with dignity and respect. It is about choice, and having the power to control how you present yourself to the world. — Bruce Schneier

path of descent becomes our own liberation. We are freed from the exhausting stance of defense. We are no longer compelled to be right and are thus relieved from the burden of maintaining some reputation. We are released from the idols of greed, control, and status. The pressure to protect the house of cards is alleviated when we take the lowest place. — Jen Hatmaker

While we may operate every day under the illusions of control, even our best efforts at maintaining it ultimately fall short. — William McDavid

in life. It is important, I think, to remember that in a mature relationship, love is not a feeling, but rather a way of being and, as some have said, it is a decision. If we are to love we must avoid the trap of behaving however we might happen to feel on any given day. That puts love on a seesaw with us; down one day and up the next! Rather, to love someone while also maintaining our own love for ourselves, we must deliberately and wisely choose what we do in our relationship. At least as importantly, we must control how we respond to what our partner may do. After all, love doesn't grow from being adored. It grows when it persists and endures through times when we or our partner are difficult to love. Indeed, love thrives on challenges, especially those we address within our own hearts. — John Gray

Englishmen Francis Galton to describe the "science" of bettering human stock and the elimination of unwanted characteristics ... and individuals. Galton proposed societal intervention for the furtherance of "racial quality," maintaining that "Jews are specialized for a parasitical existence upon other nations" and that "except by sterilization I cannot yet see any way of checking the produce of the unfit who are allowed their liberty and are below the reach of moral control. — Francis Galton

Now, pull the knife toward you - never push it. You want to hold your blade the way an artist holds and controls a paintbrush. You have to anticipate a sudden flinch, jerk or quiver so that any cut is intentional, never accidental. Your sub is your precious canvas, and you want to be creative while always maintaining full control." Mark — Claire Thompson

The first law of the multitude is conformity. Civilization is the mechanism of controlling and maintaining that multitude. The more civilized a nation, the more conformed its population, until that civilization's last age arrives, when multiplicity wages war with conformity. The former grows ever wilder, ever more dysfunctional in its extremities; whilst the latter seeks to increase its measure of control, until such efforts acquire diabolical tyranny. — Steven Erikson

... the repression of primitive, violent impulses in favor of civilized behavior was a control mechanism for the more shrewdly aggressive dominators who successfully channeled *their* primitive, violent impulses into a socially acceptable form known as 'ruthlessness,' while monopolizing the right to use outright violence as a last resort for maintaining an otherwise indefensible accumulation of power and wealth. — R.U. Sirius

Maintaining control indefinitely over millions of Palestinians will inevitably lead to a demographic nightmare and cannot be sustained if Israel is to remain true to its founding principles. — Edgar Bronfman, Sr.

While many governments are committed to maintaining flexible regimes for fast-moving Internet technologies, some others have been quite explicit about their desire to put a single U.N. or other intergovernmental body in control of the Net. — Vint Cerf

Health education emphasizing risks is a form of pedagogy, which, like other forms, serves to legitimize ideologies and social practices. Risk discourse in the public health sphere allows the state, as the owner of knowledge, to exert power of the bodies of its citizens. Risk discourse, therefore, especially when it emphasizes lifestyle risks, serves as an effective Foucauldian agent of surveillance and control that is difficult to challenge because of its manifest benevolent goal of maintaining standards of health. In doing so, it draws attention away from the structural causes of ill-health. — Deborah Lupton

Maintaining the illusion that I am in control is futile, lonely, and in the long run more always costly than the effort is worth. — Sheldon B. Kopp

Being aware, is a gentle way of being curious. Use your senses to notice the way your food smells, looks and tastes. When you're aware, you are in control. Questioning is a way of maintaining control. Use curiosity to decide what you really want and what will put you at a disadvantage. Intuitively, you want the advantage and therefore eat to feel good. Curiosity helps you notice what feels good. — Jane Bernard