People That Manipulate Quotes & Sayings

You can rule ignorance; you can manipulate the illiterate; you can do whatever you want when a people are uneducated, so that goes in line with corrupt business and corrupt politics. — Will.i.am

In the ego's world, power means having the ability to control circumstances to your benefit, to manipulate or dominate people in order to get your own way. If what you want is the greatest good for everyone, ego has little to say. The kind of strength that is giving, selfless, devout, trusting, and patient is decidedly feminine. It belongs to saints and mothers. By affirming this kind of strength, you are demonstrating faith that there can be power without aggression, domination, and control. Is there real power in the feminine aspect? Certainly there is, and even though the ego has exercised control for a long time, spiritual power has always been in charge. Spiritual power pervades every aspect of life as the intelligence that nurtures and organizes all forms, atom to cosmos. This power is yours to tap into. It comes from inside, and nothing can stop it once you have found its source in the true self. — Deepak Chopra

What I found personally to be true was that it's easier to manipulate people rather than technology. — Kevin Mitnick

Successful democratic politicians are insecure and intimidated men. They advance politically only as they placate, appease, bribe, seduce, bamboozle, or otherwise manage to manipulate the demanding and threatening elements in their constituencies. The decisive consideration is not whether the proposition is good but whether it is popular
not whether it will work well and prove itself but whether the active talking constituents like it immediately. Politicians rationalize this servitude by saying that in a democracy public men are the servants of the people. — Walter Lippmann

Interest groups exercise influence way out of proportion to their place in society, distort both taxes and spending, and raise overall deficit levels through their ability to manipulate the budget in their favor. They also undermine the quality of public administration as a result of the multiple and often contradictory mandates they induce Congress to support. All of this has led to a crisis of representation, in which ordinary people feel their supposedly democratic government no longer truly reflects their interests but is under the control of a variety of shadowy elites. What is ironic and peculiar is that this crisis in representativeness has occurred in part because of reforms designed to make the system more democratic. — Francis Fukuyama

Lunars have the unique ability to not only detect bioelectricity in others, but to also control it. They can manipulate it so that people see what the Lunar wishes them to see, and even feel what the Lunar wishes them to feel. A glamour is what they call the illusion of themselves that they project into the minds of others. — Marissa Meyer

I don't 'handle' people. It's so much easier to manipulate actors than to really have an earnest discussion with them. It's very easy to say whatever's going to appease them and then turn around and do whatever you want to do. It's difficult to be forthright with people, because the job does not lend itself to that. — Jon Favreau

Likewise, there is no evidence that texting teaches people to spell badly: rather, research shows that those kids who text frequently are more likely to be the most literate and the best spellers, because you have to know how to manipulate language. — David Crystal

Now you have to ask a question - is that really, is capitalism really about the ability of a handful of rich people to manipulate the lives of thousands of other people and walk off with the money? Or is that in fact somehow a little bit of a flawed system? And so I do draw distinction between looting a company, leaving behind broken families and broken neighborhoods and then leaving a factory that should be there. — Newt Gingrich

I am aware there are books that instruct you on how to manipulate the market, stocks and people ... they might even help you get money. But, let me caution you ... when there is no spiritual growth ... there is no spiritual strength ... there is no lasting happiness ... and, there is no real or lasting wealth. — Bob Proctor

Co-dependency essentially revolves around the sentence: "I am not enough." A co-dependent person will always need another person to validate their worth, their feelings, their ideas and even their existence. This either shows itself as a need to manipulate and control surroundings; or as a need to bend over backwards to make other people feel good, the reason being that "I can't feel good if you don't feel good. — Gudjon Bergmann

Since ancient times, people have bowed down to idols in the appearance of humility and contrition. But their goal wasn't to be mastered by the idol. People worship to get things. We choose idols in part because we believe that they will give us what we want. The god of drugs brings fearlessness; the god of sex promises pleasure and intimacy; the god of wealth holds out power and influence. We can feel miserable about ourselves because we want to be great, at least at something, and we are not feeling very great. Like the prophets of Baal, we are arrogant enough to believe that we can manipulate the idol - whether by cutting or some other form of works righteousness - so it will relent and give us what we want. — Edward T. Welch

Evelyn tried to control people by controlling weapons, but Jeanine was more ambitious - she knew that when you control information, or manipulate it, you don't need force to keep people under your thumb. They stay there willingly. That is what the Bureau - and the entire government, probably - is doing: conditioning people to be happy under its thumb. — Anonymous

In my opinion humanity is being prayed upon, I mean as a species. Not only by old satanic families like the Rothschilds and Rockefellers, Collins, Dupont, Warner, Russell, the world's monarchies, the Vatican. But also prayed upon by these family's employees, by governments, by the military, by banking institutions, by academia. So who does that leave? That's all the people who aren't wealthy, aren't connected, aren't educated, who are easy to manipulate, are easy to persecute and who don't believe any of the issues which you cover on Red Ice. And that's a problem. And that breaks my heart. — Sean Young

When you're an actress, you become this thing in people's hands that people are trying to manipulate. I cannot stand it. — Julie Delpy

Through their capacity to manipulate symbols and to engage in reflective thought, people can generate novel ideas and innovative actions that transcend their past experiences — Albert Bandura

Know that God has a plan for your life. Turn your life over to him every day. Stop looking outside yourself for validation and approval-you're letting other people define your happiness. Instead of trying so hard to manipulate life, take care of yourself on the inside. Then all those other attributes you're so desperately seeking will find you eventually. — Trisha Yearwood

Video games teach these boys that if you manipulate things a certain way, you will get an easy win. These boys have little interaction with people during the years when such interaction is crucial in developing the skills they need to handle themselves as an adult. They shut themselves off to the real world and get caught up in their fantasy worlds. After a while, they prefer their fantasies to the real world. In the real world, things are not so easy to control. They can't rule with a joystick. In the real world they have to talk to people. They have to work. That brings up another point. Laziness. A guy addicted to video games can waste hour after hour after hour without doing anything productive. Playing games is easy. Studying is hard. Taking care of daily chores is hard. Working on a real job is hard. We parents are to blame for some of this because it started out as a way to entertain our kids. We — Leonard Sax

This is supposed to be a participatory democracy and if we're not in there participating then the people that will manipulate and exploit the system will step in there. — George Takei

When I talk to Future Therapists of America, I tell them that what often drives people into treatment is the constant tension between what the organism naturally wants for pleasure and what they've been taught to think about those desires... They just feel guilty about what they think. And this is why I'm so careful about not misusing sexuality. Because I know how to manipulate a body and have infinite patience until it has a good time... If I were an evil person, I would find vulnerable people who are desperate for that kind of experience and give it to them. That would form an intense attachment. I would come across like a savior. And then I could mess with them...So I don't doubt for a moment that her abuser was able to get her body to respond even though she didn't want to be there. — Nina Hartley

Thomas slammed his fist on the table, sending eating utensils flying. "Shameful! It is downright shameful that so-called men of God would use religion to manipulate people."
--from Prairie Grace when Thomas learns how the Indian agents and others are stealing from Native Americans — Marilyn Bay Wentz

Try to imagine the calamity of that: Zack, age twenty-eight, with no management experience, gets training from Dave, a weekend rock guitarist, on how to apply a set of fundamentally unsound psychological principles as a way to manipulate the people who report to him. — Dan Lyons

I realize that many Christians have not been praying because they have not accepted the reality of war in which we find ourselves. There is a spiritual war mode that we must appropriate. It is an aggressive stance that we take against evil. It is governed by love for people, but it is fearless and uncompromising with the powers of darkness that manipulate people to fulfill evil plans. — Francis Frangipane

The ruling class is the rich ... And those people are so able to manipulate our democracy that they really control the democracy. — Walter Cronkite

The Northern powers are more like administrators, who manipulate other people's history but produce none of their own. They are the stock-jobbers of history, lives are their units of exchange. Lives as they are lived, deaths as they are died, all that is made of flesh, blood, semen, bone, fire, pain, shit, madness, intoxication, visions, everything that has been passing down here forever, is real history. — Thomas Pynchon

What led me to be an actor is that I have a strange something in me that can drastically change the way I appear to the world. Growing up, I couldn't understand why people would always have different ideas of me - but because of that I became aware of how you can manipulate your own ability to change. And then I learned to make a career of it. — Zooey Deschanel

When we recognize that nothing has to go right for us to be happy, that people do not have to behave for us to love them, our walk home can be surprisingly simple. We have enormous power not to manipulate the world, but to be happy and to know peace. — Hugh Prather

It is no secret that modern man has a very violent nature. We stress, fear, hate, envy, betray, steal, manipulate, abuse, and kill far more than we relax, appreciate, admire, accept, love, give, greet, respect, and share. Our behavior is barbaric and unacceptable. We have ignored our true nature and consequently our livelihood is mismanaged and our planet is endangered. Millions of people are suffering every day from lack of nutrition and a lack of love from their fellow human beings. — Joseph P. Kauffman

You don't influence people by commanding them. When you are doing that, you are a manipulator and not a leader. — Israelmore Ayivor

We saw a blatant example of this abuse in mid-2014 when a study published by researchers at Facebook and Cornell University revealed that social networks can manipulate the emotions of their users simply by algorithmically altering what they see in the news feed. In a study published by the National Academy of Sciences, Facebook changed the update feeds of 700,000 of its users to show them either more sad or more happy news. The result? Users seeing more negative news felt worse and posted more negative things, the converse being true for those seeing the more happy news. The study's conclusion: "Emotional states can be transferred to others via emotional contagion, leading people to experience the same emotions without their awareness. — Marc Goodman

One can see [ ... ] that the so-called governing powers are cardboard characters that mask the true ruling factors of our culture. Of course, those who manipulate the nation are not stupid. Rulers throughout history are only as powerful as the people who support them allow them to be. — Peter Moon

The bottom line is that people dont have the right to manipulate or to breed dogs and cats ... If people want toys, they should buy inanimate objects. If they want companionship, they should seek it with their own kind, — Ingrid Newkirk

One night, Tim stumbled across a documentary called Manufacturing Consent. After viewing it, he found some writing online by its subject, Noam Chomsky, and as a result began to feel that there wasn't really a point to anything, that free will was an illusion, and that the things most people invested time and energy in were systems of control designed by those who sought to manipulate the general populace — Chad Kultgen

I don't like that the government is going to manipulate the information to try to convince me that what I'm eating is not what I'm really eating. If people choose to eat cardboard because it's ten cents cheaper, then let them. That's at the root of freedom. But in the reverse, I'd like to know if what I'm eating or consuming or buying is somehow hurting or exploiting someone in another part of the planet. — Billy Corgan

What scares me most about the media is that so many of them don't realize that by presenting and highlighting certain issues, opinions, and perspectives over others, they can manipulate and control people's beliefs in subtle ways. — Oliver Stone

And what? What's the other choice? To passively let things happen and then say: "Tut-tut, what at botch that was"? Don't we all manipulate people? Even if we openly ask them to make a choice, don't we try to frame it so they'll chose as we think they should? — Orson Scott Card

I learned that, the greedier people were, the easier they were to manipulate — Cavario H

If I had to bring the whole conspiracy in all its forms into one area, it would be to manipulate people into left-brain reality. That's the key. Once they are in left-brain reality-it's the area that decodes everything as apart, everything in terms of individuals, structure and language, rationality as we call it. Then you are parking them in the droplet. The left brain is great if it's used to translate higher awareness into a form that we can work with here. — David Icke

Patriotism is the surefire wingnut that binds our diverse society. Rulers historically used patriotism to manipulate the populous. Patriotism serves as the trump card to justify going to war and mandatory inscription of young men into military service. Patriotism is becoming synonyms with state justified coercion and murder of less powerful people. — Kilroy J. Oldster

You might believe that it's only for their own good, but how does it feel when you try to manipulate the people you love? Are you teaching them that your love is conditional? Maybe through inquiry we can find another way. — Byron Katie

I laughed. 'You almighty Andalites. There is no limit to your arrogance, is there? Well, let me tell you something: we may be simple people. But we don't use biology to invent monsters. And we don't enslave other species. And we don't unleash a plague of parasites on the galaxy, endangering every other free species, and then go swaggering around like the lords of the universe. No, we're too simple for that. We're too stupid to lie and manipulate. We're too stupid to be ruthless. We're too stupid to know how to build powerful weapons designed to annihilate our enemies. Until you came, Andalite, we were too stupid to know how to kill.' -Dak Hamee — Katherine Applegate

Manipulate your diet until you find something that works for you. I think people get bogged down with trying to go to the gym and doing too much cardio and lifting too much weight. Really, if you're eating well and eating at the right times, and consuming the right things, it's really helpful. — Nick Youngquest

You are not rejecting a person if you reject his words. You get to receive the person with kindness and compassion and treat him as a human being. If someone gets offended and feels rejected just because you rejected his words, then stay away from him, because he has unhealthy heart boundaries that cause him to use prophecy to control or manipulate the people around him. — Shawn Bolz

Unlike any other creature on this planet, human beings can learn and understand without having experienced. They can think themselves into other peoples' places. Of course, this is a power like my brand of fictional magic that is morally neutral. One might use such a power to manipulate or control, just as much as to understand or sympathize. And many prefer not to exercise their imaginations at all. They choose to remain comfortably within the bounds of their own experience, never troubling to wonder how it would feel to have been born other than they are. They can refuse to hear screams or peer inside cages. They can close their hearts and minds to any suffering that does not touch them personally. They can refuse to know. I might be tempted to envy people who can live that way, except that I do not think that they have any fewer nightmares than I do. — J.K. Rowling

I don't believe in love at all," he returns, equally quiet. "It's just a name people give the endorphins that spring up after some really hot fucking, and the justification they use to manipulate the shit out of each other afterward. — Ann Aguirre

It's so easy to manipulate an audience, but it's nearly always clear that you are being manipulated. I think even people that are not critically attuned are aware of cynical manipulation in film. — John Boorman

We can't manipulate people into swallowing our boundaries by sugarcoating them. Boundaries are a "litmus test" for the quality of our relationships. Those people in our lives who can respect our boundaries will love our wills, our opinions, our separateness. Those who can't respect our boundaries are telling us that they don't love our nos. They only love our yeses, our compliance. "I only like it when you do what I want. — Henry Cloud

Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom, says Paul. And we are most in line with the Spirit, most faithfully obedient, when instead of trying to manipulate people into faith, we simply live in that freedom and let the Spirit do the work of transformation. — Mark Galli

A sociopath is not just someone who doesn't care about human emotion. They're someone who understands people to the point that they can manipulate them to an extraordinary degree. — Dan Gilroy

That it is not the people who really feel that way, but it is people who have the most money to fire up these propaganda campaigns, these like, basically these lies that they are willing to lie to the public in order to manipulate them into doing what they want. And to me it doesn't make any sense. — Margaret Cho

When two people in a marriage are more concerned about getting the golden eggs, the benefits, than they are in preserving the relationship that makes them possible, they often become insensitive and inconsiderate, neglecting the little kindnesses and courtesies so important to a deep relationship. They begin to use control levers to manipulate each other, to focus on their own needs, to justify their own position and look for evidence to show the wrongness of the other person. The love, the richness, the softness and spontaneity begin to deteriorate. — Stephen R. Covey

He had the uncanny capacity to know exactly what your weak point is, know what will make you feel small, to make you cringe," Joanna Hoffman said. "It's a common trait in people who are charismatic and know how to manipulate people. Knowing that he can crush you makes you feel weakened and eager for his approval, so then he can elevate you and put you on a pedestal and own you. — Walter Isaacson

Agents were trained liars. They were taught how to manipulate people in order to get what they wanted. Subterfuge was like second nature to them. Throw that in with the fact that they were all basically trying to live for the moment because the next could be the last and the fact that valentine or not, sex could always be a part of the job and he didn't know how anyone did it — Santino Hassell

That's the age that people are exploited, exploitable, and they're easily manipulated. The problem with me is, you can't manipulate me anymore. I've seen it, I know it, I've been there. And that's partially why, particularly in America, you see issues with artists as they get older. And they like to keep it a young man's game. Because that's how they can fudge around with the rules. — Billy Corgan

You must understand something, George. The world's leaders create catastrophes and resolve them
all at their own whimsy
every single day. It is how the world runs. Lacking anything else to believe in, common people need to believe in their leaders' abilities to save them. It's true! Their emotional well-being
and yes, their fate
depends on the intelligence and skill of those who manipulate the days' disasters. And it should go without saying that the one who succeeds in taking the reins of leadership
by whatever means
is the most intelligent and skillful, and therefore most qualified to lead. — Trenton Lee Stewart

Chill out Roman. You deserve a bit of a rake over the coals for what you pulled. I mean what were you even thinking, making a bet like that? You can't go around treating people like chess pieces that you can manipulate and maneuver any which way you like. It's really a bit of karmic justice that you were the one who fell for her in the end. Maybe it will teach you a lesson not to mess with people like that again. — Calista Kyle

Programmers and marketing people know how to get into your subconscious - they spend millions of dollars researching colors, shapes, designs, symbols, that affect your preferences, and they can make you feel warm, trusting, like buying. They can manipulate you. — Richard Hatch

No, I wouldn't direct a movie, no. I couldn't. I don't have the patience for it, I don't have the people skills. You have to be clever. I'm not really clever in that kind of way. And you have to be able to manipulate people, but at the same time allow them to feel like they are manipulating you, to get the kind of movie that you want. — Nick Cave

Enthusiasm brings an enormous empowerment into what you do, so that all those who have not accessed that power would look upon "your" achievements in awe and may equate them with who you are. You, however, know the truth that Jesus pointed to when he said, "I can of my own self do nothing."3 Unlike egoic wanting, which creates opposition in direct proportion to the intensity of its wanting, enthusiasm never opposes. It is non-confrontational. Its activity does not create winners and losers. It is based on inclusion, not exclusion, of others. It does not need to use and manipulate people, because it is the power of creation itself and so does not need to take energy from some secondary source. — Eckhart Tolle

Once we know that people are human and have some Homer Simpson in them, then there's a lot that can be done to manipulate them. — Cass Sunstein

Governments are especially adept at using propaganda to induce fear among citizens to control their behavior. When people are frightened enough, they turn to governments for protection. Because we all fear the judgement of others to some degree, governments also use propaganda to manipulate our perception of the expectations of others. If propaganda creates the impression that all the other citizens expect us to be obedient, our default position will be obedience, and that can only be overcome with careful, rational analysis. Any time someone trying to control us can fill our heads with emotions, they can keep us from thinking clearly and lead us to believe in whatever bad ideas advance their agenda. — Adam Kokesh

Satan so vehemently despises what Christ has done for mortals that one of his chief objectives is to make the clean feel unclean. Oh, how he desires to stain the beautiful bride of Christ. Satan can't make the bride do anything, so he does everything he can to get her to. How is this best accomplished? He tries to corrupt thoughts to manipulate feelings. Satan knows that the nature of humankind is to act out of how we feel rather than what we know. One of our most important defenses against satanic influence will be learning how to behave out of what we know is truth rather than what we feel. Satan's desire is to modify human behavior to accomplish his unholy purposes. Second Timothy 2:26 tells us that Satan's objective in taking people captive is to get them to do his will. If we have received Christ as our Savior, Satan is forced to work from the outside rather than the inside. Thus, he manipulates outside influences to affect the inside decision-makers of the heart and mind. — Beth Moore

Much of our media now are so image-rich and content-poor that they just serve to capture the eye, manipulate our emotions, and short-circuit our impulses. The propaganda and advertising industries therefore function increasingly like adult obedience industries. They instruct their audiences in how to feel and what to think, and increasing numbers of people seem to accept and follow the cues without question. — Nancy Snow

We're not concerned with the temporal and transient. Our success isn't measured in hours, or even centuries. Our focus is fixed on eternity. The gospel is hard to believe, and the people who bring it to the world are nobodies. The plan is still the same for all who are God's clay pots. To summarize, here is Paul's humble, five-point strategy: We will not lose heart. We will not alter the message. We will not manipulate the results, because we understand that a profound spiritual reality is at work in those who do not believe. We will not expect popularity, and therefore, we will not be disappointed. And we will not be concerned with visible and earthly success but devote our efforts toward that which is unseen and eternal. — John F. MacArthur Jr.

They call it "young music"; I see, however, that the record industry makes millions by the carload for shrewd older people! They invoke the name of spontaneity, nonconformity and originality; actually, canny "clothing industrialists" manipulate the field, undisturbed sovereigns! They call themselves revolutionaries, but the overscrupulous attentions devoted to their hair and their dress risk creating merely effeminates. — Pope John Paul I

We are always held in the love of God. We are never wholly at the mercy of other people - they are only "second causes," and no matter how many second or third or fiftieth causes seem to be in control of what happens to us, it is God who is in charge, He who holds the keys, He who casts the lot finally into the lap. Trusting Him, then, requires that I leave some things to be decided by others. I must learn to relinquish the control I might wield over somebody else if the decision properly belongs to him. I must resist my urge to manipulate him, needle and prod and pester until he capitulates. I must trust God in him, trust God to do for both of us better than I know. — Elisabeth Elliot

If you're going to lead people, you better know how to manipulate people, and you have to be pretty smart to be able to do that. — James Purefoy

Frenzy, the counterfeit of fervency, is a contrived attempt to simulate godly fervor. Those who deliberately manipulate
people's emotions are served warning here. There is something holy, something sovereign, about genuine spiritual fervor that cannot be manufactured artificially. It is easy to confuse frenzy and fervor, but the confusion is deadly. — R.C. Sproul

In Las Vegas, people know that the odds are stacked against them. On Wall Street, they manipulate the odds while you are playing the game. — John Ensign

I know that of all the great shifts that have occurred in America
the freedom of slaves, the rights of women, the equality of gays and lesbians
none has happened easily, and certainly none has happened instantly and without serious attacks and backlash. But the reason we have these things is because the fair-minded people who came before us would not give up. In my life, I have seen elections stolen
either outright or through the electoral college. I have seen wars fought because there was no other way to get peace. I have seen the rich get richer and I have seen the poor get poorer. I have seen facts get harder and harder to hide
and easier and easier to manipulate. I have been angry and I have been frustrated and I have been ecstatic and I have been proven right and wrong and back again. I have given up on some things, but I have refused to give up on most things. And I can honestly say that all of it
all of it
seems to have led me to where we are, here and now. — David Levithan

There is nothing you can do that profit does not enter into, and fear of loss, and wish for power. You cannot say good morning without knowing which of you is 'superior' to the other, or trying to prove it. You cannot act like a brother to other people, you must manipulate them, or command them, or obey them, or trick them. You cannot touch another person, yet they will not leave you alone. There is no freedom. — Ursula K. Le Guin

We may overcompensate for our feelings of powerlessness by attempting to control and manipulate other people and our environment. Or we may eventually burst forth with uncontrolled rage that is highly exaggerated and distorted by its long suppression. — Shakti Gawain

A lot of who you were in middle age was determined before you had a chance to manipulate, control, or eve understand the things around you. It was no mystery, he thought, why some old people's minds returned to their youth; the wonder of those years, the discoveries, the first experience with the dirty secret of death, and the first stirrings of lust and love were indelible, drawn in luminous colors on clean canvas. Indeed, the first sex act was so mind-boggling that most people could still remember it clearly twenty, thirty, sixty years later. — Nelson DeMille

We have become a nation ruled by fear. Since the end of the Second World War, various political leaders have fostered fear in the American people
fear of communism, fear of terrorism, fear of immigrants, fear of people based on race and religion, fear of gays and lesbians in love who just want to get married and fear of people who are somehow different. It is fear that allows political leaders to manipulate us all and distort our national priorities. — Mike Gravel

If you're blaming something or someone else for the way you are, then that person, those people, those circumstances or those energies, are going to have to change in order for you to get better; that's most likely never going to happen. It's also a way to manipulate other people. — Wayne Dyer

The whole basis of the music is that people have these emotional attachments to these songs - whether they love it or hate it. Being able to manipulate that is a really easy way to connect with people. — Girl Talk

Another person is, at the heart of it, unknowable. And if you cannot know a person enough to always guess what they're capable of, you certainly cannot know them enough to hold them in your hands, to control their behavior, to fight, manipulate, cajole or nurse or soothe them into doing what they should or shouldn't.
People will do what they will do. The trick is admitting your own helplessness about that little fact. — Deb Caletti

If we really knew the God of Jesus, we would stop trying to control and manipulate others "for their own good," knowing full well that this is not how God works among His people. - The Signature of Jesus — Brennan Manning

People simply can't accept that patterns carry their own intelligence, quite apart from the semantic content that clings to their surfaces; if you manipulate the topology correctly, that content just comes along for the ride. — Peter Watts

It's horrible to think that a small cadre of people would manipulate that information. I mean, for God's sake, we've admitted that we were experimenting on our veterans with mustard gas. So there is no security question. It can't possibly be the reason. — Dwight Schultz

Those who withdraw Christianity from the social order to "focus on evangelism" narrow down our engagement in a similar way. I hope it goes without saying that evangelism is a critical aspect of the life of the church! But when evangelism is the only way in which Christians seek social influence, the world encounters the church in two ways: gospel presentations, and activities designed to manipulate people into hearing gospel presentations. In the eyes of the world, the church comes across as a sort of spiritual Amway. — Greg Forster

Perhaps when you were a little child, people would sometimes take your toy away from you. You learned to cry, to try to manipulate the situation; or to smile so as to please your caretaker, to make her give back the toy. As a young child, you learned to produce a diplomatic smile. That's one way of dealing with the problem of survival. You learn without even knowing that you're learning. The feeling that you're fragile, vulnerable, unable to defend yourself, the feeling that you always need someone to be with you, is always there. That original fear - and its other face, original desire - is always there. The infant, with his fear and his desire, is always alive in us. — Thich Nhat Hanh

Of course, the advantage is that, being in this business, you get to learn a lot, experience a lot of new things, and you can become real successful. The disadvantage is, of course the negative media. People may try to manipulate you and control you, and those are the things you have to avoid. But if you maintain strong family values and you believe in God, you can be successful. So, it's been tough, but I've gotten through it because I stuck with my family and my deep belief in God. — Aaliyah

Maybe you cannot be the CEO of a multinational corporation, but you can frighten a few people, or cause them to scurry around like chickens, or steal from them, or - maybe best of all - create situations that cause them to feel bad about themselves. And this is power, especially when the people you manipulate are superior to you in some way. Most invigorating of all is to bring down people who are smarter or more accomplished than you, or perhaps classier, more attractive or popular or morally admirable. This is not only good fun; it is existential vengeance. And without a conscience, it is amazingly easy to do. You quietly lie to the boss or to the boss's boss, cry some crocodile tears, or sabotage a coworker's project, or gaslight a patient (or a child), bait people with promises, or provide a little misinformation that will never be traced back to you. — Martha Stout

To cover politics in Washington allows you to live in the very, very wide gap between what the actual truth is, and how people are trying to manipulate the truth. They speak in the language of spin, obsequiousness, obfuscation. The meta of politics is just this endless source of material that can shed light on the psychology of the process. — Mark Leibovich

The most effective attitude to adopt is one of supreme acceptance. The world is full of people with different characters and temperaments. We all have a dark side, a tendency to manipulate, and aggressive desires. The most dangerous types are those who repress their desires or deny the existence of them, often acting them out in the most underhanded ways. Some people have dark qualities that are especially pronounced. You cannot change such people at their core, but must merely avoid becoming their victim. You are an observer of the human comedy, and by being as tolerant as possible, you gain a much greater ability to understand people and to influence their behavior when necessary — Robert Greene

Without time management, you lose control of your life and do what other people tell you to do. You lose control and become a puppet that everyone can control and manipulate. — Thomas Miller

What's secretly in the water
of modern culture is that people
enter the world empty.
That's a very dangerous idea,
because if everybody's empty
than other people can get us
to do whatever they want
because there's nothing
in us to stand against it.

But if we came to do
something that's meaningful,
that involves giving and
making the world a more
beautiful, healthy, lively place,
then you become a difficult person
to move around and manipulate. — Michael Meade

Wars are not a pub brawl. They are very complex projects that require an extraordinary degree of organisation, cooperation and appeasement. The ability to maintain peace at home, acquire allies abroad, and understand what goes through the minds of other people (particularly your enemies) is usually the key to victory. Hence an aggressive brute is often the worst choice to run a war. Much better is a cooperative person who knows how to appease, how to manipulate and how to see things from different perspectives. This is the stuff empire-builders are made of. The — Yuval Noah Harari

I figure I just keep working and let the chips fall where they may, and if that means I end up having an eclectic career, so be it. For me to try to manipulate things or for me to try to tell people or the system how it should be ... I'm just a kind of a more go-with-the-flow guy when it comes to my acting career. — Clint Howard