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c856ba5 You are a manipulator. I like to think of myself more as an outcome engineer. dark label comedy manipulation euphemism J.R. Ward
dbbd127 When you know what a man wants you know who he is, and how to move him. knowing-your-opponent pawns manipulation George R.R. Martin
c6be5f6 Love without sacrifice is like theft marriage true-love relationships sacrifice love marriage-advice passive-aggressive passive-aggressiveness narcissists manipulation real-love narcissism Nassim Nicholas Taleb
0706ac0 So, in the interests of survival, they trained themselves to be agreeing machines instead of thinking machines. All their minds had to do was to discover what other people were thinking, and then they thought that, too. women kurt-vonnegut manipulation girls machines thinking Kurt Vonnegut
ece1376 Half of the people lie with their lips; the other half with their tears women politics liars preachers sociopathology sociopaths narcissists manipulation narcissism politicians men-and-women Nassim Nicholas Taleb
1f4faf2 The storms come and go, the waves crash overhead, the big fish eat the little fish, and I keep on paddling. (Varys) war mad-skills manipulation omniscient George R.R. Martin
d1cd904 The television is 'real'. It is immediate, it has dimension. It tells you what to think and blasts it in. It must be right. It seems so right. It rushes you on so quickly to its own conclusions your mind hasn't time to protest, 'What nonsense!'. television manipulation media Ray Bradbury
181a21c "Why am I letting you comfort me?" He stared over her head. Because I've made sure you have no one else to turn to." love confusion manipulation deceit Kresley Cole
bbdd6e3 In a culture that is becoming ever more story-stupid, in which a representative of the Coca-Cola company can, with a straight face, pronounce, as he donates a collection of archival Coca-Cola commercials to the Library of Congress, that 'Coca-Cola has become an integral part of people's lives by helping to tell these stories,' it is perhaps not surprising that people have trouble teaching and receiving a novel as complex and flawed as Huck Finn, but it is even more urgent that we learn to look passionately and technically at stories, if only to protect ourselves from the false and manipulative ones being circulated among us. story manipulation George Saunders
76ad55c Ender didn't like fighting. He didn't like Peter's kind, the strong against the weak, and he didn't like his own kind either, the smart against the stupid. manipulation force Orson Scott Card
d01a583 Her need is so immense that you become surrounded by it; this need is so enormous that you realize you can actually control it, and I know this because I've done it before. manipulation Bret Easton Ellis
0626043 The household was pervaded by this atmosphere of a calm adult woman and a man who gave into animal impulses. She reported to him in great detail what her analyst ... said about his binges and his hostility; she used Charley's money to pay Dr. Andrews to catalog his abnormalities. And of course Charley never heard anything directly from the doctor; he had no way of keeping her from reporting what served her and holding back what did not. The doctor, too, had no way of getting to the truth of what she told him; no doubt she only gave him the facts that suited her picture, so that the doctor's picture of Charley was based on what she wanted him to know. By the time she had edited both going and coming there was little of it outside her control. misrepresentation lifestyle manipulation Philip K. Dick
899bfcb "You know I love you. You're the only one." "She isn't the first woman he's ever said that to. He shouldn't have used it up so much earlier in his life, he shouldn't have treated it like a tool, a wedge, a key to open women. By the time he got around to meaning it, the words sounded fraudulent to him and he'd been ashamed to pronounce them." lies love manipulation Margaret Atwood
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
ac80662 How did you get back?' asked Vautrin. 'I walked,' replied Eugene. 'I wouldn't like half-pleasures, myself,' observed the tempter. 'I'd want to go there in my own carriage, have my own box, and come back in comfort. All or nothing, that's my motto.' 'And a very good one,' said Madame Vauquer. manipulation life-philosophy Honoré de Balzac
bda31e0 "Gender roles suck," says Swift Fox. Then you should stop playing them, thinks Toby." women manipulation gender-roles Margaret Atwood
a11e808 In a dependent relationship, the protege can always control the protector by threatening to collapse. learned-helplessness manipulation passivity Barbara W. Tuchman
2097848 A man without fear cannot be a slave. manipulation Edith Hamilton
f172dbc You get all the pleasures of the puppeteer. graff manipulation Orson Scott Card
c09da91 Children, who have so much to learn in so short a time, had involved the tendency to trust adults to instruct them in the collective knowledge of our species, and this trust confers survival value. But it also makes children vulnerable to being tricked and adults who exploit this vulnerability should be deeply ashamed. manipulation parenting Rebecca Goldstein
13ec223 "We have a predator that came from the depths of the cosmos and took over the rule of our lives. Human beings are its prisoners. The Predator is our lord and master. It has rendered us docile, helpless. If we want to protest, it suppresses our protest. If we want to act independently, it demands that we don't do so... I have been beating around the bush all this time, insinuating to you that something is holding us prisoner. Indeed we are held prisoner! "This was an energetic fact for the sorcerers of ancient Mexico ... They took us over because we are food for them, and they squeeze us mercilessly because we are their sustenance. just as we rear chickens in chicken coops, the predators rear us in human coops, humaneros. Therefore, their food is always available to them." "No, no, no, no," [Carlos replies] "This is absurd don Juan. What you're saying is something monstrous. It simply can't be true, for sorcerers or for average men, or for anyone." "Why not?" don Juan asked calmly. "Why not? Because it infuriates you? ... You haven't heard all the claims yet. I want to appeal to your analytical mind. Think for a moment, and tell me how you would explain the contradictions between the intelligence of man the engineer and the stupidity of his systems of beliefs, or the stupidity of his contradictory behaviour. Sorcerers believe that the predators have given us our systems of belief, our ideas of good and evil, our social mores. They are the ones who set up our hopes and expectations and dreams of success or failure. They have given us covetousness, greed, and cowardice. It is the predators who make us complacent, routinary, and egomaniacal." "'But how can they do this, don Juan? [Carlos] asked, somehow angered further by what [don Juan] was saying. "'Do they whisper all that in our ears while we are asleep?" "'No, they don't do it that way. That's idiotic!" don Juan said, smiling. "They are infinitely more efficient and organized than that. In order to keep us obedient and meek and weak, the predators engaged themselves in a stupendous manoeuvre stupendous, of course, from the point of view of a fighting strategist. A horrendous manoeuvre from the point of view of those who suffer it. They gave us their mind! Do you hear me? The predators give us their mind, which becomes our mind. The predators' mind is baroque, contradictory, morose, filled with the fear of being discovered any minute now." "I know that even though you have never suffered hunger... you have food anxiety, which is none other than the anxiety of the predator who fears that any moment now its manoeuvre is going to be uncovered and food is going to be denied. Through the mind, which, after all, is their mind, the predators inject into the lives of human beings whatever is convenient for them. And they ensure, in this manner, a degree of security to act as a buffer against their fear." "The sorcerers of ancient Mexico were quite ill at ease with the idea of when [the predator] made its appearance on Earth. They reasoned that man must have been a complete being at one point, with stupendous insights, feats of awareness that are mythological legends nowadays. And then, everything seems to disappear, and we have now a sedated man. What I'm saying is that what we have against us is not a simple predator. It is very smart, and organized. It follows a methodical system to render us useless. Man, the magical being that he is destined to be, is no longer magical. He's an average piece of meat." "There are no more dreams for man but the dreams of an animal who is being raised to become a piece of meat: trite, conventional, imbecilic." slavery magic human religion dreams ancient-history cognitive-dissonance anunnaki cosmos occult virus shamanism aliens cause-and-effect manipulation sorcery sorcerer matrix chaos problems beliefs predator important service secrets food mind-control Carlos Castaneda
96ffaa6 Madame de Nucingen was already there, dressed with the deliberate aim of appealing to all eyes, knowing that thereby she would seem even more attractive to Eugene. manipulation Honoré de Balzac
59fa807 "The words "I love you" could contain all the bloodthirsty despair of the abattoir, all the hopelessness of the most isolated, frozen gulag, all the lurid sadness of death row." manipulation Pat Conroy
23f346e The games are always been played, and no one plays the games like me. You just have to be the best. And I usually am. mind-games twisted manipulation corruption deceit evil Irvine Welsh
57b5e48 Of all tools used in the shadow of the moon, men are the most apt to get out of order. mankind manipulation resilience Herman Melville
c80e9e4 Spiritual power and spiritual authority notoriously shade over into both politics and poetry. church-and-state idolatry manipulation Harold Bloom
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
3e55a62 And this is what she wants to do to people. Let them have their own lives, until she wants them. Give them the strength of giants, but not the power to control it. manipulation power Beth Revis
8a870c4 In proportion that property is small, the danger of misusing the franchisee is great. manipulation perspective materialism democracy Barbara W. Tuchman
5e8f01e William McKinley was a man made to be managed. manipulation popularity Barbara W. Tuchman
a709cfe Sometimes if you let people do things to you, you're really doing it to them. Know what I mean? If someone wants to do fucked-up things to you, and you let them, you're making them more fucked up. Then you have the control. As long as you don't go crazy. manipulation Gillian Flynn
4db65c0 He (LBJ) played on their fears as he played on their hopes. leadership motivation manipulation Robert A. Caro
98b2e57 Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us. Jesus always seems to be pairing God's forgiveness of us with our forgiveness of others. But why? Growing up, I thought it was a way of guilting us into forgiving others, like Jesus was saying, Hey, I died for you and you can't even be nice to your little brother? As though God can get us to do the right thing if God can just make us feel bad about how much we owe God. But that is not the God I see in Jesus Christ. That is a manipulative mother. religion manipulation guilt Nadia Bolz-Weber
38ddc76 He is not the leader of great causes, but the broker of little ones. leadership manipulation vision Robert A. Caro
ab9cc7f With Johnson, you never quite knew if he was out to lift your heart or your wallet. Roy Wilkins manipulation Robert A. Caro
e32ded7 Even though he said no store in uncanny things, he was soldier enough to value with whatever weapon came to hand. leadership manipulation pragmatism persuasion Geraldine Brooks
218477c The priest Zadok looked stricken. He had hoped to bargain information for a higher price. Now I, as a prophet, had given it to David for free. religion word-of-god manipulation Geraldine Brooks
a633b23 "His themes were not pride and love at all, though he used the words perpetually; as he used them they meant self-praise and hate. He talked a great deal about Truth also, for he was, he said, "cutting down beneath the veneer of civilization." It is a durable, ubiquitous, specious metaphor, that one about veneer (or paint, or pliofilm, or whatever) hiding the nobler reality beneath. It can conceal a dozen fallacies at once. One of the most dangerous is the implication that civilization, being artificial, is unnatural: that it is the opposite of primitiveness... Of course there is no veneer, the process is one of growth, and primitiveness and civilization are degrees of the same thing. If civilization has an opposite, it is war. Of those two things, you have either one, or the other. Not both." politics manipulation Ursula K. Le Guin