Power Of Suggestion Quotes & Sayings

Very deep things in our nature, some dim sense of the dependence of great things upon small, some dark suggestion that the things nearest to us stretch far beyond our power, some sacramental feeling of the magic in material substances, and many more emotions past fading out, are in an idea like that of the external soul. The power even in the myths of savages is like the power in the metaphors of poets. The soul of such a metaphor is often very emphatically an external soul. — G.K. Chesterton

The Democrats just don't have a foreign policy that they're willing to defend, that they're willing to use to take down the president's. We're dealing with the power of suggestion here. — Chris Matthews

Tempest liked the feeling of strength in Darius's hand, the heat of his body warming hers, the easy, fluid way he moved with the suggestion of tightly leashed power. Most of all she loved the way his eyes burned possessively over her, the way his chiseled, perfect mouth tempted her. — Christine Feehan

Welcome to Barrayar, son. Here you go: have a world of wealth and poverty, wrenching change and rooted history. Have a birth; have two. Have a name. Miles means "soldier," but don't let the power of suggestion overwhelm you. Have a twisted form in a society that loathes and fears the mutations that have been its deepest agony. Have a title, wealth, power, and all the hatred and envy they will draw. Have your body ripped apart and re-arranged. Inherit an array of friends and enemies you never made. Have a grandfather from hell. Endure pain, find joy, and make your own meaning, because the universe certainly isn't going to supply it. Always be a moving target. Live. Live. Live. — Lois McMaster Bujold

The first thing to remember is the dual nature of your mind. The subconscious mind is constantly amenable to the power of suggestion; furthermore the subconscious mind has complete control of the functions, conditions, and sensations of your body. Trust the subconscious mind to heal you. It made your body, and it knows all of its processes and functions. It knows much more than your conscious mind about healing and restoring you to perfect balance. — Joseph Murphy

Most people bestow tremendous power onto those human beings we consider evil, who cause of threaten harm to others, even though we know they are acting from their own pain or fear. Would ignoring evil disarm it? Don't dismiss the idea. As we have declared War on Terror, a War on Drugs, a War on Poverty, a War on Crime, the problems only seem to have gotten bigger. We cling tthe notion of evil as detrimental, unpredictable force in our world and refuse any suggestion that it is not real. We argue for our fear about terrorism or climate change or economic instability, heatedly trying to prove that things are only getting worse. And in doing so, we reinforce the principle that what we focus on grows. We create our experience by where we place our attention. What we resist, persists. — Ellen Debenport

All the wrong people have the power of suggestion and the freedom of the press is meaningless if nobody asks a question. — Ani DiFranco

We were encouraged to propose safetyprevention suggestions, and write them all down - locking doors, walking or exercising with a friend, wearing shoes that don't hinder running. Erin's suggestion of "Avoid assholes" was popular. — Tammara Webber

When a man says I cannot, he has made a suggestion to himself. He has weakened his power of accomplishing that which otherwise would have been accomplished. — Muhammad Ali

It is hard to explain just how a single sight of a tangible object with measurable dimensions could so shake and change a man; and we may only say that there is about certain outlines and entities a power of symbolism and suggestion which acts frightfully on a sensitive thinker's perspective and whispers terrible hints of obscure cosmic relationships and unnamable realities behind the protective illusions of common vision. — H.P. Lovecraft

The whole system of mental therapeutics may be divided into two parts; what we may designate as metaphysical cure denies that either matter or evil exists, and heals by inspiring the belief that the disease cannot assail the patient because he is pure spirit; the other class, faith cure, recognizes the disease, but cures by faith in the power of divinity, persons, objects, or suggestion. — George Barton Cutten

To most people, I fancy, the stars are beautiful; but if you asked why, they would be at a loss to reply, until they remembered what they had heard about astronomy, and the great size and distance and possible habitation of those orbs ... [We] persuade ourselves that the power of the starry heavens lies in the suggestion of astronomical facts. — George Santayana

The susceptibility of the average modern to pictorial suggestion enables advertising to exploit his lessened power of judgment. — Johan Huizinga

I think it's a blessing that the show [Dracula] is on a network because it forces everyone to use their imaginations and be creative. The power of suggestion comes back. So, in the sex scenes, no one is ever fully naked, but I feel the suggestion is so much sexier. — Oliver Jackson-Cohen

All of us have our own inner fears, beliefs, opinions. These inner assumptions rule and govern our lives. A suggestion has no power in and of itself. its power arises from the fact that you accept it mentally. — Joseph Murphy

A sign of power in a man is not only when people follow what he suggests, but also when people make a conscious effort to do the exact opposite of what he suggests. — Criss Jami

The power of the Marxian critique of class domination stands as an implicit suggestion that feminists should consider the advantages of adopting a historical materialist approach to understanding phallocratic domination. — Nancy Hartsock

Whether it was the power of suggestion or whether her eyes really hadn't deceived her, I began noticing too that my face was occasionally going rogue the rest of the afternoon, smiling when I had little reason to smile. Maybe my facial nerves were developing a neurological condition; I resolved to keep a close eye on it. — Cary Attwell

An aristocracy come to power, convinced of its own disinterested quality, believing itself above both petty partisan interest and material greed. The suggestion that this also meant the holding and wielding of power was judged offensive by these same people, who preferred to view their role as service, though in fact this was typical of an era when many of the great rich families withdrew from the new restless grab for money of a modernizing America, and having already made their particular fortunes, turned to the public arena as a means of exercising power. They were viewed as reformers, though the reforms would be aimed more at the newer seekers of wealth than at those who already held it. ("First-generation millionaires," Garry Wills wrote in Nixon Agonistes, "give us libraries, second-generation millionaires give us themselves.") — David Halberstam

That was the first time he'd seen Baltsaros sacrifice someone. The next time it had happened, it had taken a different form; the captain had pulled the young man's heart from his body to take a bite of it, but the result had been the same: Tom was fucked into oblivion. Initially, Tom had begun to find himself getting hard at the mere suggestion of a "hunt" as Baltsaros called it, but over time he'd started to grow concerned about the captain's state of mind. It was an obsession, and a deeply disturbing one at that. Tom didn't believe in sorcery, but the way that the blood renewed Baltsaros was something that worried him. It spoke of a dark power that Tom had no wish to be part of. — Bey Deckard

Don't seek approval. This may be the toughest suggestion for you to follow
and the most important. Whether you'te a teenager seeking approval from your peers, a middle-aged parent seeking the approval of your kids, or a man or woman seeking the approval of a partner, it all amounts to the same thing. You're giving your personal power away every time you seek validation from someone else for who you are. — T. J. MacGregor

For as long as I care to remember, religion, like the striptease, has always been a display of the power of suggestion. Like the Virgin Birth, it has all too often supported an immaculate deception. — Bernard Katz

Thanksgiving is a time for gratitude. It can also be a time when feeling grateful can be an acrobatic feat that you're just not up for. There's no rules that need to be followed here. Authentic living is your only option, so it's ok to turn off the tv when another ad screams for you to be a certain way just because the calendar says so. Power of suggestion can be great medicine - but don't judge yourself or a loved one who is having trouble learning the words to this song. It's a tough season from some people. Huddle and cuddle with those you trust and love. That's real medicine and it's a good place to be during the holidays. xoxo — Deborah Pardes

I kind of resent the suggestion that there would be something inherent about superheroes that wouldn't be of interest to women. That makes me nuts. I'm a 5-foot tall woman with a quick temper who always looks like a child, so power fantasies are not strange to me. — Kelly Sue DeConnick

Can an idea a notion as abstract as Relativism produce by itself the effects alleged? cause all the harm, destroy all the lives and reputations? I am as far as anyone can be from denying the power of ideas in history, but the suggestion that a philosophy (as Relativism is often called) has perverted millions and debased daily life is on the face of it absurd. No idea working alone has ever demoralized society, and there have been plenty of ideas simpler and more exciting than Relativism. — Jacques Barzun

At the beginning of this study on the conditions of suggestion, we have admitted that suggestion could not develop in sickly minds - that it demanded, in order to attain to its full power, minds relatively sane. We have just now demonstrated that it depended on a lack of synthesis, on a weakening of consciousness. Are not these two affirmations contradictory ? Not at all. A symptom may disappear in certain maladies and still remain a pathological symptom. The crepitant rale does not exist in all stages of pneumonia; it disappears in many serious lung affections; it is none the less a very characteristic sign of the disease. — Anonymous

This feeling of power, it's happiness to sit in a cottage by the Danube among six women who think I'm semi-idiot, and to know that in Paris, the headquarters of intelligence, 500 people are sitting dead-quiet in the auditorium and are foolish enough to expose their brains to my powers of suggestion. Some revolt! But many will go away with my spores in their gray matter. They will go home pregnant with the seed of my soul, and they will breed my brood. — August Strindberg

She could control with parts of her body too. She could control some people with her face alone, or with her face and a suggestion made in a certain tone of voice- a voice of pretended promises. Or with her hair. Her power was in all of those things. — Kristin Cashore

Most writers cannot afford focus groups or A/B testing, but they can ask a roommate or colleague or family member to read what they wrote and comment on it. Your reviewers needn't even be a representative sample of your intended audience. Often it's enough that they are not you. This does not mean you should implement every last suggestion they offer. Each commentator has a curse of knowledge of his own, together with hobbyhorses, blind spots, and axes to grind, and the writer cannot pander to all of them. Many academic articles contain bewildering non sequiturs and digressions that the authors stuck in at the insistence of an anonymous reviewer who had the power to reject it from the journal if they didn't comply. Good prose is never written by a committee. A writer should revise in response to a comment when it comes from more than one reader or when it makes sense to the writer herself. — Steven Pinker

When we play an unaccompanied Bach suite we may compare ourselves to an actor in Shakespeare's day, creating scenery which did not exist at all, through the power of declamation and suggestion. So in Bach. There is but one voice
and many voices have to be suggested. — Pablo Casals