Walter Isaacson Quotes

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

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

He wanted her. He knew where to find her. He waited. It amused him to wait, because he knew that the waiting was unbearable to her. He knew that his absence bound her to him in a manner more complete and humiliating than his presence could enforce. He was giving her time to attempt an escape, in order to let her know her own helplessness when he chose to see her again.

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

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.

Using a fetching face to make men do as you wish is no different from a man using muscle to force a woman to his will. Both are base, and both will fail a person as they age.

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

With many women I doubt whether there be any more effectual wayof touching their hearts than ill-using them and then confessing it. If you wish to get the sweetest fragrance from the herb at your feet, tread on it and bruise it.

Most fatal, most hateful of all things is bullying.... Sensual bullying of course is fairly easily detected. What is more dangerous is ideal bullying. Bullying people into what is ideally good for them.

If you want to control somebody, support them. Or marry them.

Knowing too much about other people puts you in their power, they have a claim on you, you are forced to understand their reasons for doing things and then you are weakened.

The people can be forced to fear, but not to love.

I personally always find something really scary about watching little girls learning to manipulate their dads by baby talking. Then they grow up and use the same technique on their boyfriends or husbands. That scares me because it's just so sick on so many levels.

Nobody can be kinder than the narcissist while you react to life in his own terms.

A sociopath is not just someone who doesn't care about human emotion. They're someone who understands people to the point that they can manipulate them to an extraordinary degree.

A lot of the things that involve power on the highest levels sometimes involve the darker side of human psychology. People can be very passive aggressive or they can be aggressive and they can conceal their intentions. There's this world that exists that nobody writes about or describes it's like a dirty little secret or taboo.

Pleasure can be used to enslave a people just as effectively as pain.

The heart of manipulation is to empathize without being touched.

I don't want to just mess with your head. I want to mess with your life.... I want you to miss appointments, burn dinner, skip your homework. I want you to tell your wife to take that moonlight stroll on the beach at Waikiki with the resort tennis pro while you read a few more chapters.

He had learned that close-held secrets could often be cracked by going all the way to the top and there making himself unbearably unpleasant. He knew that such twisting of the tiger's tail was dangerous, for he understood the psychopathology of great power.

As long as we respond predictably to what feels good and what feels bad, it is easy for others to exploit our preferences for their own ends.

...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.

It is slightly chilling to realize there are rational, functional people up there employed to spot, nurture, and exploit those down here among us who are irrational and can barely cope. If you want to know how stupid you’re perceived to be by the people up there, count the unsolicited junk mail you receive. If you get a lot, you’re perceived to be alluringly stupid.

A little tip for you, Winged Wonder. Don't threaten the woman you want to seduce." See Annabelle take control. He reached out, gently brushed his fingertip along her collarbone. "If it means saving your life, I'll do more than threaten you. I'll follow through. Best you realize that now, rather than cry foul later.