Reza Aslan Quotes

Let people hate you so long as they fear you.

People who are divided are easier to control.

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

In a society like this there is no negotiation, no discussion, except to tell you that power can crush you any time they want — not only you, your whole family and all people like you.

Next to enjoying ourselves, the next greatest pleasure consists in preventing others from enjoying themselves, or, more generally, in the acquisition of power.

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.

I call the discourse of power any discourse that engenders blame, hence guilt, in its recipient.

Fear of death has been the greatest ally of tyranny past and present.

The concept of power we admire is power over someone else.

Power does not corrupt. Fear corrupts... perhaps the fear of a loss of power.

Sometimes fear is used as a way to control.

The thing about Republicans is that they don't care so much about respect, but they love fear, at least in others.

I have never been able to conceive how any rational being could propose happiness to himself from the exercise of power over others.

Power corrupts; but absolute power is really neat.

The effect of dominance is not always the result of an intention to dominate.

I think the greatest lesson that power has to teach us is, once you've had it, once you are a part of it, you're never free.

The Authority has the power to turn everyone against me, and they have.

The fear tactic is a tactic that's used by people who want to maintain control, and it's very effective.

I've always found that you can control people better if you don't see too much of them.

To repress rebellion is to maintain the status quo, a condition which binds the mortal creature in a state of intellectual or physical slavery. But it is impossible to chain man merely by slaving his body; the mind also must be held, and to accomplish this, fear is the accepted weapon. The common man must fear life, fear death, fear God, fear the Devil, and fear most the overlords, the keepers of his destiny.

People with real power never fear of losing it. People with control think of little else.

We would rather be feared than respected.

Guilt was the grease in which the wheels of the authority turned.

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

In real life, what scares me is politicians, corporations and people that think they know what the world should be.