Manipulation Quotes

What’s important to remember is that while human beings in general can engage in toxic behaviors from time to time, abusers use these manipulation tactics as a dominant mode of communication. Toxic people such as malignant narcissists, psychopaths and those with antisocial traits engage in maladaptive behaviors in relationships that ultimately exploit, demean, and hurt their intimate partners, family members, and friends.

~ Shahida Arabi

Because I'm just a giving person spiritually, I feel that if your intentions are to use or abuse or take advantage of, then you might get what you get in the meantime, but there's still a price to pay.

~ Angie Stone

A person raised in a healthy family is equipped to live a confident and independent life, someone from an unhealthy family is filled with fear and self-doubt. He has difficulty with the prospect of life without someone else. The devaluing messages of control and manipulation create dependency so those who most need to leave their family of origin are the least equipped to do so.

~ Christina Enevoldsen

Part of the problem was that I couldn't seem to get past the fact that I hadn't tried to escape from Kas. Even in France, when he'd left me on my own for several days, I'd carried on working [as a prostitute] and doing all the things he'd told me to d. And although I knew that it was because of the fear he'd so carefully and deliberately instilled in me, I still felt as though I'd somehow colluded in what had happened to me - despite knowing, deep down, that nothing could have been further from the truth.

~ Sophie Hayes

There is clear evidence from internal investigations in the past that some raters actually see themselves as adversaries to veterans. If a claim can be minimized, then the government has saved money, regardless of the need of the veteran. Just recently, the press exposed an official e-mail from a high-level staff person who stated in essence that PTSD diagnosis was becoming too prevalent and offered ways to delay and deflect ratings in order to save the government money.

~ Taylor Armstrong

With hardly any effort at all, she made me feel special. Just like all the other people she toyed with.

~ Neal Shusterman

Deception and privileged secrets are common facets of politics.

~ Wayne Gerard Trotman

If you want to know the outcome of a game before the game has even started, you need to control each side.

~ David Icke

Of all tools used in the shadow of the moon, men are the most apt to get out of order.

~ Herman Melville

The black widow, who had dispatched a lover or two, was sought out for her wisdom. The young spider asked her, Did you keep his harmful secret under the threat of danger, or did you spin a web so confusing that he didn't know if you were friend or foe? Did you release him from the web and your presence or will you give another the venom in which to finish him? The black widow was quiet and then said, All of the above.

~ Donna Lynn Hope

Lincoln learned to summon the passions, but he never addressed his audience as sweethearts.

~ Richard Brookhiser

Sure, the outcome was favourable, but what was the cost? Wasn't changing the way she felt about something not far from taking away her free will altogether?

~ Cassandra Page

If you don’t have a sense of wonder it’s like you’re dead inside. But your sense of wonder can be used to trick you. You can have a sense of wonder over a thing that’s basically a conjurer’s trick, or a con job, or a rip-off.

~ Bruce Sterling

That day I swore to never manipulate anyone again. Even if I believed I was doing good--for who am I to presume what is good for others?

~ Marissa Meyer

Manipulating or controlling others through the use of one's illness or suffering,for example,was-and remains-extremely effective for people who find they cannot be direct in their interactions,Who argues with someone who is in pain? And if pain is the only power a person has,health is not an attractive replacement. It was apparent to me that becoming healthy represented more than just getting over an illness. Health represented a complex progression into a state of personal empowerment in which one had to move from a condition of vulnerability to one of invincibility,from victim to victor,from silent bystander to aggressive defender of personal boundaries.Completing this race to the finish was a yeoman's task if ever there was one.Indeed,in opening the psyche and soul to the healing process,we had expanded the journey of wellness into one of personal transformation.-

~ Caroline Myss

If you are an approval addict, your behaviour is as easy to control as that of any other junkie. All a manipulator need do is a simple two-step process: Give you what you crave, and then threaten to take it away. Every drug dealer in the world plays this game.

~ Harriet B. Braiker

I know it sounds a bit trite, but I really do get everything I want now. They say life is a game, and I guess I might agree if the stakes were a little higher, but it’s just so easy to fall into a cycle. I get bored.

~ Kris Kidd

I might be manipulating you to create risk for myself.

~ Sharon Stone

I want to see her naked, Mengele said pointing to Marlene. She cried and shock. My mother flung her body in front of Marlene's and said, You can't have her. I love her, my daughter. My father said, Take the younger one. She's smarter, as he pushed me over forward.Marlene cried because father said I was smarter even though he was just trying to manipulate Mengele. The doctor's chest grew large.

~ Wendy Hoffman

Instruction would be wasted on me. Just to give me the form and I'll sign on the dotted line.

~ Evelyn Waugh

I guess the higher up on the food chain you go, the admiration isn’t just for the hungry, but for the ones that go the extra mile to take a bite.

~ Angela Richardson

I too often allow people to become a sterile commodity to be bartered in the service of my greed, and in doing something so absurdly reckless I foolishly barter away everything that meets my need.

~ Craig D. Lounsbrough

People are more willing to change based on their perceived insecurities than by an attack on their beliefs.

~ A.j. Darkholme

A part of me expects more of my only sister....Dorothy has always been exactly who she is, and for me to hope for anything better reminds me of a quote attributed to Einstein: Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. Dorothy is predictable. She does the same thing repeatedly and expects not a different result but the same one she got the last time she did whatever she wants with little regard for anyone else. So maybe she's the sane one....

~ Patricia Cornwell

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!'.

~ Ray Bradbury

Most of what you have read or watched in the media is true and 100% accurate. But HOW you are told the stories, and When, there lies the manipulation!

~ Waseem Kanjo

Always have there been great numbers of individuals who were very much eager to fight for good causes. Always there were these, but then there were even greater numbers of trendies who would then become wholly and completely misguided in the efforts.

~ Criss Jami

Listen, dis foreign TV channels dey spoil de image of our country. Dese white stations dey make billions of dollars to sell your war and blood to de world… We no bad like dis. OK, why dem no dey show corpses of deir white people during crisis for TV? Abi, people no dey kill for America or Europe?”“You dey speak grammar!” someone shouted. “Wetin concern us wid America and Europe? Abeg, give us cable TV.”“Remove dis toilet pictures!” said another.“So our barracks be toilet now?” the police answered. What an insult!“ You na mad mad police,” Monica said.“Ok, cable TV no be for free anymore!” the police said.“But it’s our pictures we are watching on cable TV,” Madam Aniema said. “Why should we pay you to see ourselves and our people?”The police answered, “Because government dey complain say cable TV dey misrepresent dis religious crisis.

~ Uwem Akpan

Don’t become manipulated by the illusion of who you think you are, or who you think you should be.

~ Steven Redhead

I am sure that I am in possession of a soul that is at the very least, a thousand years old. And I say this not on a whim; I say this as someone who is sure of something, who is not thinking fancifully but who is thinking solidly and fully. So why is it that I am childlike and playful? There is only one answer to this, and that is, after existing for a very long time, one learns the skill of retaining childlikeness and the state of childlikeness, which is called playfulness. The immature are not childlike and they are not playful; rather, they are manipulative and insecure. Manipulation is the game of the immature and insecurity is their state of being. I’m saying this because I want to draw the great distinction in the sand very clearly. The older your soul becomes, the more childlike it will be in texture. But we only make playtime out of small and joyful things; there is no playtime when it comes to bravery, honesty, and trust.

~ C. Joybell C.

Convincing someone to have sex is the same as manipulation and does not actually count as getting consent.

~ Shahla Khan

As usual, small towns like this were full of those who needed entertainment and whilst money was difficult to earn, the philosophy of giving the people what they wanted, which Franco lived by, had paid dividends.

~ Christopher Byford

Get out of this office! I'll have no feelings here.

~ Charles Dickens

The Holy Spirit never uses guilt or shame to persuade us to give. For that matter, he never persuades us to give in the first place. That's called manipulation, a device employed by a different spirit.

~ Ron Brackin

We worked through the “alien abduction” memory and discovered that the “spaceship” was parked in the courtyard of the cult training centre. An insider had been instructed that if the survivor began to remember the ritual abuse, she was to make her remember the alien abduction, so that nobody would believe her account of the ritual abuse. This programme did not work in this case, but you can imagine the larger consequences of such a ruse.

~ Alison Miller

Fact be virtuous, or vicious, as Fortune pleaseth

~ Thomas Hobbes

In the age of facebookerism and tweeterism, people have been manipulated to behave foolishly. Look at me, i am here culture has thrived.

~ Kamil Toume

He said he owned the land,He said he owned the sea,Through his sweet lies and manipulation,He was trying to own me

~ Charmaine J Forde

They’re called sock puppets. We create armies of artificial online personas – user accounts that espouse views certain interested parties want espoused. We flood forums, online comment sections, social media. ... It’s amazing what a few people and a little money can accomplish online. Our puppets have turned whole elections. … Everything the public sees is managed. If there’s a valuable brand to protect – whether it’s a person or a dish soap – these fuckers are out there protecting it, shaping the narrative. I mean… who the hell follows dish soap on Twitter? How does anyone believe that shit’s real? (p. 292-294)

~ Daniel Suarez

The secret lies of manipulative folks, however hidden and cunningly twisted shall eventually come out. Never trust manipulative politically motivated, sly liars while they pretend to be true friends with noble and just cause. ~ Angelica Hopes, K.H. Trilogy

~ Angelica Hopes