Ansel Elgort Quotes

I'm not trying to twist people's heads around. I'm not trying to say, "Believe in me."

Decent people are so easy to manipulate, Potter.

Honestly, it’s so easy to get what you want from people if they think you’re a psycho.

Am I Machiavellian? I don't think I'm quite the mastermind people would have me be. Everything I do tends to be very successful and it may have something to do with the fact that I'm very good, not necessarily that I manipulate. But that doesn't often occur to people.

You have big names in Scientology running around pretending to be the nicest people, and they take the care to talk to you and look at you in the eye, but that's all part of the process. That's all part of being in the church - to be a good example, to ingratiate yourself to Hollywood so that they'll say, "Hey, I don't know why you're attacking Scientology." It's all purposeful. I did it, I know!

People who wish to numb our caution in dealing with them by means of flattery are employing a dangerous expedient, like a sleeping draught, which, if it does not put us to sleep, keeps us all the more awake.

The most that can be said of flattery is that it is sometimes a cheap psychological trick with which charlatans and dishonest people lull others into a state of carelessness while they pick their pockets.

Manipulating people, that's what I'm good at

Take a good look around and you'll find people trying to mess with your mind.

It's easier to control people when they're afraid.

...counselling man to treat her as a slave while persuading her that she is a queen.

People who want to manipulate you will fear your joy, because it's not easily controlled.

Influencing people is dangerous. Their acts and thoughts become your illegitimate children. You can't get away from them and Heaven knows what they mayn't grow up into.

Social engineers veil themselves in a cloak of believability.

The most successful tempters and thus the most dangerous are the deluded deluders.

Everything was so designed by Hannibal to break down Will in the first season, until Will's sanity became questionable. It's so much easier to believe that somebody losing their mind is capable of terrible things than it is to consider Frasier Crane, a charming, fun doctor who invites you to dinner. If you put those two in a police lineup, you're going to pick the guy who's melting down.

Women, when they have made a sheep of a man, always tell him that he is a lion with a will of iron.

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

... motivating people, forcing them to your will, gives you a cynical attitude toward humanity. It degrades everything it touches.

There should be a name for this, for the process whereby one knows one is being yanked and concedes it has been done successfully - that one is grateful to have been spun. In the theater, it is called the willing suspension of disbelief. That's what allows the play to make an impact on the audience: they have to be able to make believe that what's happening on the stage is really happening. Maybe to a degree it is a requirement for all political participation, all effective political communication, too.

I'm told I'm very charming when people do what I want.

Some people give gifts in order to bewilder, confuse, and manipulate their recipients.

I don't like people that try to psyche other people out.

This is real. This is the real mad man theory. We have to be irrational and vindictive, so people don't know what we're up to. This is not [Donald] Trump and [Steve] Bannon, it's from the [Bill] Clinton era.

I won’t snatch, harm, or scare to death people with you or use checking up on you as an excuse to cause trouble. You’re worse than my mother, Rachel.” “Mine, too,” Jenks muttered.