Manipulation Quotes

A momentary smile appeared on Cogo's face before fading away. No matter how many times he saw it, he was still amazed by how Kuni's sincerity shaded into an instinct for political theater. He was, of course, moved by the loyalty of a man who would rather be in jail than betray him, but he also knew to play it for all it was worth to cement even more loyalty.

~ Ken Liu

You never see the entire script of political theater until long after the last scene has been acted out.

~ Gary Hopkins

All things are possible; if something seems like it’s not, it’s only because enough people aren't being deceived into the possibilities yet.

~ A.j. Darkholme

Sometimes terror and pain are not the best levers; deception, when it works, is the most elegant and the least expensive manipulation of all.

~ Vernor Vinge

I suffered my own battles. I suffer still.

~ Carla H. Krueger

Putting words onto paper—when it is done as an honest act of search or connection, rather than as an act of manipulation, performance, self-aggrandizement or self-protection—is a holy act.

~ Pat Schneider

Tell any grizzled old cutthroat a sob story about a double-cross and a broken heart and he'll eat right out of your hand.

~ Cassandra Rose Clarke

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.

~ Philip K. Dick

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.

~ Orson Scott Card

It is not easy to escape mentally from a concrete situation, to refuse its ideology while continuing to live with its actual relationships.

~ Albert Memmi

She’s fulfilled her obligation, assuaged her conscience by finding me in the hallway and giving me the chance to freak out, and I’ve played my role too, by remaining calm, pretending to be okay, and therefore giving her permission to cross me off her things-to-do list. Now she can move on, and I can too.Once you understand how adults are controlled by the system, manipulating them is elementary.

~ Matthew Quick

The time we spend caring about people and loving them could have also been used for manipulating and seducing.

~ M.f. Moonzajer

The more we look at anything, the more we see ourselves in the thing. This is called projection. There’s an ethics to projection, an unhinged sense of honesty. Honesty is complicated. The truth is fascinatingly flexible. Lying is boundless. It knows no limits. People lie all the time. Lying is an instinct. It’s human nature. We lie to each other; we lie to ourselves. It isn’t right, but we do.

~ Kris Kidd

Half of the people lie with their lips, the other half with their tears

~ Nassim Nicholas Taleb

We humans always seem to take a manipulative posture. No matter what the particulars of the situation, or the subject matter, we prepare ourselves to say whatever we want in order to prevail in the conversation. Each of us seeks to find some way to control and thus to remain on top in the encounter. If we are successful, or our viewpoint prevails, then rather than feel weak, we receive a psychological boost.

~ James Redfield

Speculation is only a word covering the making of money out of the manipulation of prices, instead of supplying goods and services.

~ Henry Ford

If money is the root of all evil, then China's manipulation of its currency, the yuan, is the tap root of everything wrong with the U.S.-China trade relationship.

~ Peter Navarro