control

Link	Quote	Tags	Author
b653c92	Incredible change happens in your life when you decide to take control of what you do have power over instead of craving control over what you don't.	letting-go change empowerment motivational life inspirational control	Steve Maraboli
ec3e7c7	You must learn to let go. Release the stress. You were never in control anyway.	letting-go motivational life inspirational control stress	Steve Maraboli
afddceb	The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum....	acceptable-opinion lively-debate obedient limit passive debate opinion control passivity obedience	Noam Chomsky
134017c	A culture fixated on female thinness is not an obsession about female beauty, but an obsession about female obedience. Dieting is the most potent political sedative in women's history; a quietly mad population is a tractable one.	myth feminism feminist diet fad control food obedience	Naomi Wolf
255a8f0	How would your life be different if...You stopped worrying about things you can't control and started focusing on the things you can? Let today be the day...You free yourself from fruitless worry, seize the day and take effective action on things you can change.	action change motivational life inspirational intent seize-the-day control worry	Steve Maraboli
743d1e1	There are times when the world is rearranging itself, and at times like that, the right words can change the world.	words greatness control power	Orson Scott Card
08dcf64	Be not angry that you cannot make others as you wish them to be, since you cannot make yourself as you wish to be.	spiritual inspirational control balance	Thomas à Kempis
21d0191	They began by controlling books of cartoons and then detective books and, of course, films, one way or another, one group or another, political bias, religious prejudice, union pressure; there was always a minority afraid of something, and a great majority afraid of the dark, afraid of the future, afraid of the past, afraid of the present, afraid of themselves and shadows of themselves.	fear chain-reactions political-bias religious-prejudice control	Ray Bradbury
d334c95	The finest fury is the most controlled.	music lonesome-death-of-hattie-carroll bob-dylan control fury	Christopher Hitchens
44551d4	I feel like Amy wanted people to believe she really was perfect. And as we got to be friends, I got to know her. And she wasn't perfect. You know? She was brilliant and charming and all that, but she was also controlling and OCD and a drama queen and a bit of a liar. Which was fine by me. It just wasn't fine by her. She got rid of me because I knew she wasn't perfect.	friends friendship lack-of-understanding lacking gillian-flynn breakups drama-queen control	Gillian Flynn
13fb2cc	Every day I ran to that book like it was a bottle of whiskey and crawled inside because it was a world that I had at least some control over, and slowly, in time, it began to take shape.	writing control	Craig Ferguson
9592e1e	I'd developed an inability to demonstrate much negative emotion at all. It was another thing that made me seem like a dick - my stomach could be all oiled eels, and you would get nothing from my face and less from my words. It was a constant problem: too much control or no control at all.	words truth dick judging-by-appearance jumping-to-conclusions outer-appearance what-s-inside-that-counts stoic emotional judging heartless mean control emotions panic judgemental	Gillian Flynn
fed3725	The act of tattooing one's skin was a tranformative declaration of power, an announcment to the world:	the-lost-symbol dan-brown tattoo flesh control	Dan Brown
89df635	I am one in a row of specimens. It's when I try to flutter out of line that he hates me. I'm meant to be dead, pinned, always the same, always beautiful. He knows that part of my beauty is being alive. but it's the dead me he wants. He wants me living-but-dead.	kidnap control	John Fowles
b820663	"The first key to leadership was self-control, particularly the mastery of pride, which was something more difficult, he explained, to subdue than a wild lion and anger, which was more difficult to defeat than the greatest wrestler. He warned them that "if you can't swallow your pride, you can't lead."	leadership ghengis-khan historical-person mongols control pride	Jack Weatherford
da481de	I realize the simple truth is that power isn't control at all- power is strength, and giving that strength to others. A leader isn't someone who forces others to make him stronger; a leader is someone willing to give his strength to others so that they may have the strength to stand on their own.	love control overcoming strong power	Beth Revis
27536a2	Acceptance means no complaining, and happiness means no complaining about the things over which you can do nothing.	happiness complaining control	Wayne W. Dyer
3338317	It's possible to name everything and to destroy the world.	labels names life nomenclature control destruction	Kathy Acker
4e3e5a7	"You and I, we must carry on, Gemma. I cannot afford the luxury of love. I must marry well. And now I must look after you. It is my duty." "If you wish to suffer, you do so of your own free will, not on my behalf. Or Father's or Grandmama's or anyone's. You are a fine physician, Thomas. Why is that not enough?" "Because it isn't," he says with a rare candor. "Only this and the hope of nothing more? A quiet respectability with no true greatness or heroism in it, with only my reputation to recommend me. So you see, Gemma, you are not the only one who cannot rule her own life."	responsibility life love thomas-doyle gemma-doyle yearn control	Libba Bray
16147db	She blushed. It is a beautiful thing when a woman blushes; at that instant her body no longer belongs to her; she doesn't control it; she is at its mercy; oh, can there be anything more beautiful than the sight of a woman violated by her own body!	women control	Milan Kundera
89316ca	He would be able to create a scent that was not merely human, but super human, an angels scent, so indescribably good and vital that who ever smelt it would be enchanted and with his whole heart would have to love him.	love enchanted superhuman control lust power scent perfume	Patrick Süskind
a9a6b7d	If we are to be aware of life while we are living it, we must have the courage to relinquish our hard-earned control of ourselves.	bravery courage life-and-living life relinquish-control control	Madeleine L'Engle
a18474b	Often, our misunderstandings about love are born in disruptive family relationships, where someone was either one-up or one-down to an extreme. There is an appropriate and necessary difference in the balance of power between parents and young children, but in the best situations, there should be no power struggles by the time those children have become adults - just deep connection, trust, and respect between people who sincerely care about each other. In disruptive families, children are taught to remain one-up or one-down into adulthood. And this produces immature adults who either seek to dominate others (one-up) or who allow themselves to be dominated (one-down) in their relationships - one powerful and one needy, one enabling and one addicted, one decisive and one confused. In relationships with these people, manipulation abounds. Especially when they start to feel out of control.	family-relationships abusive counseling disfunction enable enabling codependency manipulation control power psychology	Tim Clinton
a18f653	"It's an illusion, control," Naomi said. "You ought to understand that by now, young Claire. We are never in control of our destinies, even the strongest of us. All we can hope to do is not be too badly damaged by events."	destiny control	Rachel Caine
ceea131	"My sister said Mary Elizabeth is suffering from low self-esteem, but I told her that she said the same thing about Sam back in November when she started dating Craig, and Sam is completely different. Everything can't be low self-esteem, can it? My sister tried to clarify things. She said that by introducing me to all these great things, Mary Elizabeth gained a "superior position" that she wouldn't need if she was confident about herself. She also said that people who try to control situations all the time are afraid that if they don't, nothing will work out the way they want."	control-freaks feeling-superior low-self-esteem needing-to-feel-superior control self-esteem	Stephen Chbosky
6b457d7	How do you calculate upon the unforeseen? It seems to be an art of recognizing the role of the unforeseen, of keeping your balance amid surprises, of collaborating with chance, of recognizing that there are some essential mysteries in the world and thereby a limit to calculation, to plan, to control.	unforeseen control	Rebecca Solnit
dcfe828	I laugh and it's the same bitter laugh I remember him giving when we met so many weeks ago. Isaiah says it so simply that my heart soars and sinks at the same time. I whisper. Isaiah shakes his head and stares out the window. I ask. Because I don't know how the two of us can continue forward. Isaiah refuses to let me in. It's sort of cruel. He's brought me close with his stories of his childhood and with his words of love, but he can't relinquish control. I refuse to be with someone who won't treat me as an equal.	love let-in rachel-young isaiah happen control hurt refuse help	Katie McGarry
02e60e3	From this day forward, I vowed to myself, I was in control of my life. Not fate, not God, not even Chris was ever again going to tell me what to do, or dominate me in any way. From this day forward, I was my own person, to take what I would, when I would, and I would answer only to myself.	fate life vow vows domination control	V.C. Andrews
6a4cbd5	What's law? Control? Law filters chaos and what drips through? Serenity? Law -- our highest ideal and our basest nature. Don't look too closely at the law. Do, and you'll find the rationalized interpretations, the legal casuistry, the precedents of convenience. You'll find the serenity, which is just another word for death.	interpretaions serenity law control	Frank Herbert
8bde9f7	No true love is possible, Lewis demonstrates, until we abandon our claims, our rights, our grievances. Until then we will be trapped in the obscurity of our heart's mixed motives, our will to possess, to control, to be our own gods.	cslewis life love wisdom control rights	Michael D. O'Brien
9e7516b	"I think I know what will help you chill." The way his eyes devoured me hinted I shouldn't take the bait, but I did anyhow. "And what would that be?" Noah pressed his body into mine, pushing me against the lockers. "Kissing." I held my books close to my chest and fought the urge to drop them and pull him close. But that would only encourage his behavior, and good God, bring on his fantastic kissing. Fantastic or not, kissing in public would definitely mean detention and a tardy slip. I ducked underneath his arm and breathed in fresh air, welcoming any scent that didn't remind me of him. Noah caught up to me, slowing his pace to mine. "You know, you may have never noticed, but we have calculus together," he said. "You could have waited for me." "And give you the chance to drag me into the janitor's closet?"	kissing janitor-closet echo-emerson noah-hutchins control	Katie McGarry
102b765	" ,' Dad said, 'has the sort of ellipsis ending most American audiences would rather undergo a root canal than be left with, not only because they loathe anything left to the imagination-we're talking about the country that invented spandex-but also because they are a confident, self-assured nation. They Family. They Right from Wrong. They know God-many of them attest to daily chats with the man. And the idea that none of us can truly know anything at all-not the lives of our friends or family, not even ourselves-is a thought they'd rather be shot in the arm with their own semi-automatic rifle than face head-on. Personally, I think there's something terrific about not knowing, relinquishing man's feeble attempt to control. When you throw up your hands, say, "Who knows?" you can get on with the sheer gift of being alive." --	america family god ambiguous-ending foreign-film ambiguity endings control americans right-and-wrong	Marisha Pessl
c6308d1	This is one of the many paradoxes of happiness: we seek to control our lives, but the unfamiliar and the unexpected are important sources of happiness.	happiness control	Gretchen Rubin
de05a0c	That surge of power and delight, of confidence, of control. That sudden sense of the richness of the world. Its infinite possibility.	possibility control power	Donna Tartt
368d0e6	The game had to be played the same way every day or the pieces would fall to the floor, the board would collapse, and the illusion that you were shaping your own life, that you were in control, would break.	habits control	Kevin Brockmeier
2acc22c	One of the many signs of verbal virtuosity among intellectuals is the repackaging of words to mean things that are not only different from, but sometimes the direct opposite of, their original meanings. 'Freedom' and 'power' are among the most common of these repackaged words. The basic concept of freedom as not being subjected to other people's restrictions, and of power as the ability to restrict other people's options have both been stood on their heads in some of the repackaging of these words by intellectuals discussing economic issues. Thus business enterprises who the public's options, either quantitatively (through lower prices) or qualitatively (through better products) are often spoken of as 'controlling' the market, whenever this results in a high percentage of consumers choosing to purchase their particular products rather than the competing products of other enterprises. In other words, when consumers decide that particular brands of products are either cheaper or better than competing brands of those products, third parties take it upon themselves to depict those who produced these particular brands as having exercised 'power' or 'control.' If, at a given time, three-quarters of the consumers prefer to buy the Acme brand of widgets to any other brand, then Acme Inc. will be said to 'control' three-quarters of the market, even though consumers control 100 percent of the market, since they can switch to another brand of widgets tomorrow if someone else comes up with a better widget, or stop buying widgets altogether if a new product comes along that makes widgets obsolete. ....by saying that businesses have 'power' because they have 'control' of their markets, this verbal virtuosity opens the way to saying that government needs to exercise its 'countervailing power' (John Kenneth Galbraith's phrase) in order to protect the public. Despite the verbal parallels, government power is in fact power, since individuals do not have a free choice as to whether or not to obey government laws and regulations, while consumers are free to ignore the products marketed by even the biggest and supposedly most 'powerful' corporations in the world.	freedom government-power john-kenneth-galbraith monopoly economics control big-business power	Thomas Sowell
01dccdf	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.	love-quotes feminism romance feminist love affection women-are-from-venus bell-hooks men-are-from-mars venus manipulation control mars gender power	bell hooks
ee3cc57	The trouble with anger is, it gets hold of you. And then you aren't the master of yourself. Anger is.	control	Jeanne DuPrau
08cf036	I don't want to have these burdens. But I can't bear to turn them over to anyone else, either. Because, despite all the work, I like being in control of my own life.	life control	Robin Hobb
79c6de4	"Someday" is a disease that will take your dreams to the grave with you."	freedom work dreams happiness control goals	Timothy Ferriss
462687a	Why will the Structure allow every other kind of sexual behavior but that one? Because submission and dominance are resources it needs for its very survival. They cannot be wasted in private sex. In any kind of sex. It needs our submission so that it can co-opt us into its own power game. There is no joy in it, only power. I tell you, if S and M could be established universally, at the family level, the State would wither away.	masochism sadism control capitalism	Thomas Pynchon
9b9d57f	The dream of control is seductive but it leads to monoculture in the field and fortified white bread in the supermarket.	monoculture control food	Michael Pollan
ad9643d	..I buried myself in accomplishments, because with accomplishments, I believed I could control things, I could squeeze in every last piece of happiness before I got sick and died.. which I figured was my natural fate.	fate happy achieve death life perspective control thought	Mitch Albom
c24d1cd	Sam enjoyed knowledge. The accumulation and distribution of facts gave him a feeling of control, of utility, of the opposite of the powerlessness that comes with having a smallish, underdeveloped body that doesn't dependably respond to the mental commands of a largish, overstimulated brain.	smarts control facts knowledge power	Jonathan Safran Foer

b653c92

Incredible change happens in your life when you decide to take control of what you do have power over instead of craving control over what you don't.

letting-go change empowerment motivational life inspirational control

Steve Maraboli

ec3e7c7

You must learn to let go. Release the stress. You were never in control anyway.

letting-go motivational life inspirational control stress

Steve Maraboli

afddceb

The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum....

acceptable-opinion lively-debate obedient limit passive debate opinion control passivity obedience

Noam Chomsky

134017c

A culture fixated on female thinness is not an obsession about female beauty, but an obsession about female obedience. Dieting is the most potent political sedative in women's history; a quietly mad population is a tractable one.

myth feminism feminist diet fad control food obedience

Naomi Wolf

255a8f0

How would your life be different if...You stopped worrying about things you can't control and started focusing on the things you can? Let today be the day...You free yourself from fruitless worry, seize the day and take effective action on things you can change.

action change motivational life inspirational intent seize-the-day control worry

Steve Maraboli

743d1e1

There are times when the world is rearranging itself, and at times like that, the right words can change the world.

words greatness control power

Orson Scott Card

08dcf64

Be not angry that you cannot make others as you wish them to be, since you cannot make yourself as you wish to be.

spiritual inspirational control balance

Thomas à Kempis

21d0191

They began by controlling books of cartoons and then detective books and, of course, films, one way or another, one group or another, political bias, religious prejudice, union pressure; there was always a minority afraid of something, and a great majority afraid of the dark, afraid of the future, afraid of the past, afraid of the present, afraid of themselves and shadows of themselves.

fear chain-reactions political-bias religious-prejudice control

Ray Bradbury

d334c95

The finest fury is the most controlled.

music lonesome-death-of-hattie-carroll bob-dylan control fury

Christopher Hitchens

44551d4

I feel like Amy wanted people to believe she really was perfect. And as we got to be friends, I got to know her. And she wasn't perfect. You know? She was brilliant and charming and all that, but she was also controlling and OCD and a drama queen and a bit of a liar. Which was fine by me. It just wasn't fine by her. She got rid of me because I knew she wasn't perfect.

friends friendship lack-of-understanding lacking gillian-flynn breakups drama-queen control

Gillian Flynn

13fb2cc

Every day I ran to that book like it was a bottle of whiskey and crawled inside because it was a world that I had at least some control over, and slowly, in time, it began to take shape.

writing control

Craig Ferguson

9592e1e

I'd developed an inability to demonstrate much negative emotion at all. It was another thing that made me seem like a dick - my stomach could be all oiled eels, and you would get nothing from my face and less from my words. It was a constant problem: too much control or no control at all.

words truth dick judging-by-appearance jumping-to-conclusions outer-appearance what-s-inside-that-counts stoic emotional judging heartless mean control emotions panic judgemental

Gillian Flynn

fed3725

The act of tattooing one's skin was a tranformative declaration of power, an announcment to the world:

the-lost-symbol dan-brown tattoo flesh control

Dan Brown

89df635

I am one in a row of specimens. It's when I try to flutter out of line that he hates me. I'm meant to be dead, pinned, always the same, always beautiful. He knows that part of my beauty is being alive. but it's the dead me he wants. He wants me living-but-dead.

kidnap control

John Fowles

b820663

"The first key to leadership was self-control, particularly the mastery of pride, which was something more difficult, he explained, to subdue than a wild lion and anger, which was more difficult to defeat than the greatest wrestler. He warned them that "if you can't swallow your pride, you can't lead."

leadership ghengis-khan historical-person mongols control pride

Jack Weatherford

da481de

I realize the simple truth is that power isn't control at all- power is strength, and giving that strength to others. A leader isn't someone who forces others to make him stronger; a leader is someone willing to give his strength to others so that they may have the strength to stand on their own.

love control overcoming strong power

Beth Revis

27536a2

Acceptance means no complaining, and happiness means no complaining about the things over which you can do nothing.

happiness complaining control

Wayne W. Dyer

3338317

It's possible to name everything and to destroy the world.

labels names life nomenclature control destruction

Kathy Acker

4e3e5a7

"You and I, we must carry on, Gemma. I cannot afford the luxury of love. I must marry well. And now I must look after you. It is my duty." "If you wish to suffer, you do so of your own free will, not on my behalf. Or Father's or Grandmama's or anyone's. You are a fine physician, Thomas. Why is that not enough?" "Because it isn't," he says with a rare candor. "Only this and the hope of nothing more? A quiet respectability with no true greatness or heroism in it, with only my reputation to recommend me. So you see, Gemma, you are not the only one who cannot rule her own life."

responsibility life love thomas-doyle gemma-doyle yearn control

Libba Bray

16147db

She blushed. It is a beautiful thing when a woman blushes; at that instant her body no longer belongs to her; she doesn't control it; she is at its mercy; oh, can there be anything more beautiful than the sight of a woman violated by her own body!

women control

Milan Kundera

89316ca

He would be able to create a scent that was not merely human, but super human, an angels scent, so indescribably good and vital that who ever smelt it would be enchanted and with his whole heart would have to love him.

love enchanted superhuman control lust power scent perfume

Patrick Süskind

a9a6b7d

If we are to be aware of life while we are living it, we must have the courage to relinquish our hard-earned control of ourselves.

bravery courage life-and-living life relinquish-control control

Madeleine L'Engle

a18474b

Often, our misunderstandings about love are born in disruptive family relationships, where someone was either one-up or one-down to an extreme. There is an appropriate and necessary difference in the balance of power between parents and young children, but in the best situations, there should be no power struggles by the time those children have become adults - just deep connection, trust, and respect between people who sincerely care about each other. In disruptive families, children are taught to remain one-up or one-down into adulthood. And this produces immature adults who either seek to dominate others (one-up) or who allow themselves to be dominated (one-down) in their relationships - one powerful and one needy, one enabling and one addicted, one decisive and one confused. In relationships with these people, manipulation abounds. Especially when they start to feel out of control.

family-relationships abusive counseling disfunction enable enabling codependency manipulation control power psychology

Tim Clinton

a18f653

"It's an illusion, control," Naomi said. "You ought to understand that by now, young Claire. We are never in control of our destinies, even the strongest of us. All we can hope to do is not be too badly damaged by events."

destiny control

Rachel Caine

ceea131

"My sister said Mary Elizabeth is suffering from low self-esteem, but I told her that she said the same thing about Sam back in November when she started dating Craig, and Sam is completely different. Everything can't be low self-esteem, can it? My sister tried to clarify things. She said that by introducing me to all these great things, Mary Elizabeth gained a "superior position" that she wouldn't need if she was confident about herself. She also said that people who try to control situations all the time are afraid that if they don't, nothing will work out the way they want."

control-freaks feeling-superior low-self-esteem needing-to-feel-superior control self-esteem

Stephen Chbosky

6b457d7

How do you calculate upon the unforeseen? It seems to be an art of recognizing the role of the unforeseen, of keeping your balance amid surprises, of collaborating with chance, of recognizing that there are some essential mysteries in the world and thereby a limit to calculation, to plan, to control.

unforeseen control

Rebecca Solnit

dcfe828

I laugh and it's the same bitter laugh I remember him giving when we met so many weeks ago. Isaiah says it so simply that my heart soars and sinks at the same time. I whisper. Isaiah shakes his head and stares out the window. I ask. Because I don't know how the two of us can continue forward. Isaiah refuses to let me in. It's sort of cruel. He's brought me close with his stories of his childhood and with his words of love, but he can't relinquish control. I refuse to be with someone who won't treat me as an equal.

love let-in rachel-young isaiah happen control hurt refuse help

Katie McGarry

02e60e3

From this day forward, I vowed to myself, I was in control of my life. Not fate, not God, not even Chris was ever again going to tell me what to do, or dominate me in any way. From this day forward, I was my own person, to take what I would, when I would, and I would answer only to myself.

fate life vow vows domination control

V.C. Andrews

6a4cbd5

What's law? Control? Law filters chaos and what drips through? Serenity? Law -- our highest ideal and our basest nature. Don't look too closely at the law. Do, and you'll find the rationalized interpretations, the legal casuistry, the precedents of convenience. You'll find the serenity, which is just another word for death.

interpretaions serenity law control

Frank Herbert

8bde9f7

No true love is possible, Lewis demonstrates, until we abandon our claims, our rights, our grievances. Until then we will be trapped in the obscurity of our heart's mixed motives, our will to possess, to control, to be our own gods.

cslewis life love wisdom control rights

Michael D. O'Brien

9e7516b

"I think I know what will help you chill." The way his eyes devoured me hinted I shouldn't take the bait, but I did anyhow. "And what would that be?" Noah pressed his body into mine, pushing me against the lockers. "Kissing." I held my books close to my chest and fought the urge to drop them and pull him close. But that would only encourage his behavior, and good God, bring on his fantastic kissing. Fantastic or not, kissing in public would definitely mean detention and a tardy slip. I ducked underneath his arm and breathed in fresh air, welcoming any scent that didn't remind me of him. Noah caught up to me, slowing his pace to mine. "You know, you may have never noticed, but we have calculus together," he said. "You could have waited for me." "And give you the chance to drag me into the janitor's closet?"

kissing janitor-closet echo-emerson noah-hutchins control

Katie McGarry

102b765

" ,' Dad said, 'has the sort of ellipsis ending most American audiences would rather undergo a root canal than be left with, not only because they loathe anything left to the imagination-we're talking about the country that invented spandex-but also because they are a confident, self-assured nation. They Family. They Right from Wrong. They know God-many of them attest to daily chats with the man. And the idea that none of us can truly know anything at all-not the lives of our friends or family, not even ourselves-is a thought they'd rather be shot in the arm with their own semi-automatic rifle than face head-on. Personally, I think there's something terrific about not knowing, relinquishing man's feeble attempt to control. When you throw up your hands, say, "Who knows?" you can get on with the sheer gift of being alive." --

america family god ambiguous-ending foreign-film ambiguity endings control americans right-and-wrong

Marisha Pessl

c6308d1

This is one of the many paradoxes of happiness: we seek to control our lives, but the unfamiliar and the unexpected are important sources of happiness.

happiness control

Gretchen Rubin

de05a0c

That surge of power and delight, of confidence, of control. That sudden sense of the richness of the world. Its infinite possibility.

possibility control power

Donna Tartt

368d0e6

The game had to be played the same way every day or the pieces would fall to the floor, the board would collapse, and the illusion that you were shaping your own life, that you were in control, would break.

habits control

Kevin Brockmeier

2acc22c

One of the many signs of verbal virtuosity among intellectuals is the repackaging of words to mean things that are not only different from, but sometimes the direct opposite of, their original meanings. 'Freedom' and 'power' are among the most common of these repackaged words. The basic concept of freedom as not being subjected to other people's restrictions, and of power as the ability to restrict other people's options have both been stood on their heads in some of the repackaging of these words by intellectuals discussing economic issues. Thus business enterprises who the public's options, either quantitatively (through lower prices) or qualitatively (through better products) are often spoken of as 'controlling' the market, whenever this results in a high percentage of consumers choosing to purchase their particular products rather than the competing products of other enterprises. In other words, when consumers decide that particular brands of products are either cheaper or better than competing brands of those products, third parties take it upon themselves to depict those who produced these particular brands as having exercised 'power' or 'control.' If, at a given time, three-quarters of the consumers prefer to buy the Acme brand of widgets to any other brand, then Acme Inc. will be said to 'control' three-quarters of the market, even though consumers control 100 percent of the market, since they can switch to another brand of widgets tomorrow if someone else comes up with a better widget, or stop buying widgets altogether if a new product comes along that makes widgets obsolete. ....by saying that businesses have 'power' because they have 'control' of their markets, this verbal virtuosity opens the way to saying that government needs to exercise its 'countervailing power' (John Kenneth Galbraith's phrase) in order to protect the public. Despite the verbal parallels, government power is in fact power, since individuals do not have a free choice as to whether or not to obey government laws and regulations, while consumers are free to ignore the products marketed by even the biggest and supposedly most 'powerful' corporations in the world.

freedom government-power john-kenneth-galbraith monopoly economics control big-business power

Thomas Sowell

01dccdf

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.

love-quotes feminism romance feminist love affection women-are-from-venus bell-hooks men-are-from-mars venus manipulation control mars gender power

bell hooks

ee3cc57

The trouble with anger is, it gets hold of you. And then you aren't the master of yourself. Anger is.

control

Jeanne DuPrau

08cf036

I don't want to have these burdens. But I can't bear to turn them over to anyone else, either. Because, despite all the work, I like being in control of my own life.

life control

Robin Hobb

79c6de4

"Someday" is a disease that will take your dreams to the grave with you."

freedom work dreams happiness control goals

Timothy Ferriss

462687a

Why will the Structure allow every other kind of sexual behavior but that one? Because submission and dominance are resources it needs for its very survival. They cannot be wasted in private sex. In any kind of sex. It needs our submission so that it can co-opt us into its own power game. There is no joy in it, only power. I tell you, if S and M could be established universally, at the family level, the State would wither away.

masochism sadism control capitalism

Thomas Pynchon

9b9d57f

The dream of control is seductive but it leads to monoculture in the field and fortified white bread in the supermarket.

monoculture control food

Michael Pollan

ad9643d

..I buried myself in accomplishments, because with accomplishments, I believed I could control things, I could squeeze in every last piece of happiness before I got sick and died.. which I figured was my natural fate.

fate happy achieve death life perspective control thought

Mitch Albom

c24d1cd

Sam enjoyed knowledge. The accumulation and distribution of facts gave him a feeling of control, of utility, of the opposite of the powerlessness that comes with having a smallish, underdeveloped body that doesn't dependably respond to the mental commands of a largish, overstimulated brain.

smarts control facts knowledge power

Jonathan Safran Foer