Quotes about Manipulation

If an EHM is completely successful, the loans are so large that the debtor is forced to default on its payments after a few years. When this happens, then like the Mafia we demand our pound of flesh. This often includes one or more of the following: control over United Nations votes, the installation of military bases, or access to precious resources such as oil or the Panama Canal. Of course, the debtor still owes us the money—and another country is added to our global empire.

Fear and debt. The two most powerful tools of empire... Most everybody thinks military might is the driver of empire, but war's important because it--and the threat of it--instills fear. People are terrified into parting with their money. They take on more debt... Whether we owe money or favors, debt shackles us. That's why the economic hit man approach is so effective. More so than war.

This got him to the door. There, ridiculously, he turned. It was only at the door, he decided in retrospect, that her conduct was quite in excusable: not only did she stand unncessarily close, but, by shifting the weight of her body to one leg and leaning her head sidewise, she lowered her height several inches, placing him in a dominating position exactly suited to the broad, passive shadows she must have known were on her face. ("Snowing in Greenwich Village)

The natural life in each of us is something self-centred, something that wants to be petted and admired, to take advantage of other lives, to exploit the whole universe.

Because to take away a man's freedom of choice, even his freedom to make the wrong choice, is to manipulate him as though he were a puppet and not a person.

The principle of tolerance and respect for freedom promoted by the reforms of the Second Vatican Council are today being manipulated and erroneously taken too far.

T requires only two things to win credit for a miracle: a mountebank and a number of silly women.

an enemy is not more baneful than a flatterer.

Unless it is by mutual consent, for a specific prayer need and for a brief period of time, sexual abstinence can become a tool of Satan. It is never to be used as pretense for spiritual superiority or as a means of intimidating or manipulating one's spouse. Physical love is to be a normal and regular experience shared by both marriage partners alike, as a gift from God.

In an age when all successful political candidates are surrounded by, if not at the beck and call of, difficult, even sociopathic, rich people pushing the bounds of their own power—and the richer they were, the more difficult, sociopathic, and power-mad they might be—Bob and Rebekah Mercer were quite onto themselves.

Trump did not want a White House that ran by any method other than to satisfy his desires.

just when you felt on top of the world in the Trump administration, you could probably count on getting cut down. That was the pattern and price of one-man leadership—insecure-man leadership.