Smoke Trick Quotes & Sayings

An old Russian proverb . . . "Where hangs the smoke of hate burns a fiercer fire called fear."
The trick . . . was to keep that fire alive, but to know at the same time it might consume you also. Then the truck was to make the fear invisible in the smokes of hatred. Having accomplished that, you would own men's souls and your power would be absolute, so long as you never allowed men to see that their hate was but fear, and so long as you, afraid, knowing it, hence more shrewd and cautious than the rest, did not become a corpse at the hands of the hating fearful.
There, in a nutshell, was the recipe for dictatorship. Over the proletariat. Over the godly believers. Over the heathen. Over all men, even those who imagined they were free and yet could be made to hate.
Frighten; then furnish the whipping boys. Then seize. — Philip Wylie

And power is a game of smoke and mirrors,' said her ladyship, reaching for the wine. 'Oddly enough, Commander Vimes reminds me of that nearly every day. No civil police force could hold out against an irate and resolute population. The trick is not to let them realize that. Yes? — Terry Pratchett

The trick is to smoke a cigarette to calm your nerves and then take a big swig of strong liquor to tone your muscles. — Lev Yashin

I liked the idea of having actual magic performed as stage magic, so you could assume that it was just a trick, that something is all smoke and mirrors, but there's that, like, feeling at the back of your mind: What if it's not? — Erin Morgenstern