Quotes about Manipulation

Statistics can be made to prove anything - even the truth.

Victory is a political fiction.

The propagandist's purpose is to make one set of people forget that certain other sets of people are human.

I know how irritating it is when a producer puts his hand in everything.

The gift of words is the gift of deception and illusion.

If you think of yourselves as helpless and ineffectual, it is certain that you will create a despotic government to be your master. The wise despot, therefore, maintains among his subjects a popular sense that they are helpless and ineffectual.

Are you already training my replacement? Piter demanded. Replace you? Why, Piter, where could I find another Mentat with your cunning and venom? The same place you found me, Baron. Perhaps I should at that, the Baron mused. You do seem a bit unstable lately. And the spice you eat! Are my pleasures too expensive, Baron? Do you object to them? My dear Piter, your pleasures are what tie you to me. How could I object to that?

All of history is a malleable instrument in my hands. Ohhh, I have accumulated all of these pasts and I possess every fact—yet the facts are mine to use as I will and, even using them truthfully, I change them.

Power bases are very dangerous because they attract people who are truly insane, people who seek power only for the sake of power.

She had quoted a Bene Gesserit proverb to him: "When religion and politics travel in the same cart, the riders believe nothing can stand in their way. Their movement becomes headlong—faster and faster and faster. They put aside all thought of obstacles and forget that a precipice does not show itself to the man in a blind rush until it's too late." Paul

The man without emotions is the one to fear. But deep emotions…ah, now, those can be bent to your needs.

Understand yourself, Piter. You want her because she was a Duke's woman, a symbol of his power—beautiful, useful, exquisitely trained for her role.