W. Somerset Maugham Quotes

Economics, politics, and personalities are often inseparable.

So I still seized the power, but I felt that if I officially made myself the boss, in black and white, it would be too intimidating for the other producers and the other men who worked on the show. In other words, I had the power, but I gave them the title.

Real politics are the possession and distribution of power.

In 'The Insider,' I had violence - lethal, life-taking aggression - all happening psychologically, all with people talking to other people.

Politics exist in the boardroom, as well.

I've been lucky to work with people that I like most of the time. If I don't like them, I'll play head games with them to get their minds spinning.

Every combination of two or more human beings has both a useful aspect and a political aspect.

The world is run by monsters and you have to deal with them. Some of them run countries, some of them run banks, some of them run news corporations.

Gossip is easy, politics is hard.

Power is not an institution, and not a structure; neither is it a certain strength we are endowed with; it is the name that one attributes to a complex strategical situation in a particular society.

I don't care who does the electing, so long as I get to do the nominating.

Aggression is the most common behavior used by many organizations, a nearly invisible medium that influences all decisions and actions.

Win and keep the confidence of your leader. Never refuse or quash schemes he puts forward: but ensure that they are put forward in the first instance privately to you. Always approve them, and after praise modify them insensibly causing the suggestions to come from him, until they are in accord with your own opinion. When you attain this point, hold him to it, keep a tight grip of his ideas, and push him forward as firmly as possible, but secretly so that no one but himself (and he not too clearly) is aware of your pressure.

Politics is the art of putting people under obligation to you.

An expert is someone who is capable of articulating the interests of people with power.

Once a person insists on how you are to think he immediately begins to insist on how you are to behave.

You are for kings the ears with which they hear, the eyes with which they see, the tongues with which they speak, the hands with which they strike.

People may oppose you, but when they realize you can hurt them, they'll join your side.

What are the relationships between power and knowledge? There are two bad, short answers: 1. Knowledge provides an instrument that those in power can wield for their own ends. 2. A new body of knowledge brings into being a new class of people or institutions that can exercise a new kind of power.

In any court-like environment of power, you will inevitably find people who are drawn to those who are successful or powerful, not out of admiration, but out of secret envy.

On 'Veep,' people are connecting with each other, even if they're making backhanded comments about somebody behind someone else's back.

If you get to thinking you're a person of some influence, try ordering somebody else's dog around.

Ofttimes a very small man can cast a very large shadow. Tyrion smiled. Lord Varys, I am growing strangely fond of you. I may kill you yet, but I think I'd feel sad about it. I will take that as high praise.

I learned what a lot of women have to do is make the guys in the room think it was their idea, and then you back them up.

Drive-Bys want you to think that Donald Trump doesn't have a mind of his own. He's either doing what Steve Bannon tells him to do or he's either doing what Jared Kushner tells him to do or he's then doing what Gary Cohn tells him to do, and then sometimes he might do what Ivanka Trump tells him to do. They want you to believe he doesn't have a mind of his own, that he actually believes the last thing somebody tells him. I don't think that's how it happened.