74 Quotes Tagged: influence

Never make fun of people who are different...unless they have more money, power and influence. Then you must.

He was no longer quite sure whether anything he had ever thought or felt was truly his own property, or whether his thoughts were merely a common part of the world’s store of ideas which had always existed ready-made and which people only borrowed, like books from a library.

When you start loving, your character becomes like the positive side of a magnet and the one you love becomes negative, that pulls people close to you in union, and becomes very difficult to separate.

Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal; bad poets deface what they take, and good poets make it into something better, or at least something different.

Why, man, he doth bestride the narrow world
Like a Colossus; and we petty men
Walk under his huge legs, and peep about
To find ourselves dishonourable graves.

"There is something indefinable in an entrepreneur, and I saw that in Steve," he said. " He was interested not just in engineering, but also the business aspects. I taught him that if you act like you can do something, then it will work. I told him, " Pretend to be completely in control and people will assume that you are.

"Everybody says that I have a lot of power. But what does that power consist of?... Can I influence governments? I am beginning to be able to..." (1995)

We never know which lives we influence, or when, or why.

Never underestimate the influence you have on others.

First, a mother who, by her example, made reading a delight and counseled me constantly to “be independent,” able to fend for myself, whatever fortune might have in store for me. Second, teachers who influenced or encouraged me in my growing-up years.

A newcomer could ascertain the identity of a town's true leaders – which storekeeper was respected, which farmer was listened to other farmers – only through endless hours of subtle probing of reticent men.

Do not turn the power of your mind upon others, but turn it upon yourself in such a way that it will make you stronger, more positive, more capable, and more efficient, and as you develop in this manner, success must come of itself. There is only one way by which you can influence others legitimately, and that is through the giving of instruction, but in that case, there is no desire to influence. You desire simply to impart knowledge and information, and you exercise a most desirable influence without desiring to do so.

"Your brain is not designed to make you happy. Your brain has only one agenda in mind: survival. It is always watching for signs of "lack and attack." Your brain is programmed to seek out the negative — dwindling resources, destructive weather, whatever's out to hurt you. So when you switch on that radio on the way to work and get bombarded with all those reports...your brain lights up — it will now spend all day chewing over that feast of fear, worry, negativity."

People, I have learned, have a way of taking root in one's still-developing mind without our knowing it, especially people, like [James] Baldwin, who live in the world of words.

Few emotions are more ephemeral in the political world than gratitude: appreciation for past favors. Far less ephemeral, however, is hope: the hope of future favors. Far less ephemeral is fear, the fear that in the future, favors may be denied.