Robert Jay Lifton Quotes

The most rapid way to change a root thought, or sponsoring idea, is to reverse the thought-word-deed process. Do the deed that you want to have the new thought about. Then say the words that you want to have your new thought about. Do this often enough and you'll train the mind to think a new way.

I'm in regular contact with people who are still in the military-friends, family, people I served with, men and women I taught at West Point-and I look at every military issue through that lens. What they say or think weighs heavily on my mind.

And I managed to arrange to get some research support and to stay in Hong Kong for another year and a half, interviewing people coming out of China, both Westerners and Chinese. And that was my first real research study on thought reform or so-called brainwashing.

I still have a lot of military contacts, and friends and readers who've served or are serving, and they react really strongly to G.I. Joe. I've lost count of the number who've said, 'Oh, I just loved it as a kid. I had all the figures; it really made me think.'

Well I started studying to help me with these commercial auditions and I just loved it.

The question is the propriety of how we go about influencing and changing behavior.

A President who has served in the military is better able to serve as Commander in Chief …. I was a better President for having served …

When I came back from Vietnam in 1965, I just had the greatest brainwashing anybody could get…

My stepfather was a military man: he was in the Air Force. Reserve. You thought he'd seen front-line action, but he was stationed in Cleveland.

The most important thing when you study hypnosis is that you learn that humans are irrational. Until you understand that, hypnosis is hard to do... For me, it was this great awakening to understand that humans are deeply irrational, and it's probably the greatest influence on me in terms of my writing.

If you're in somebody's head for 12 hours a day for four weeks, it's like your brain actually wires itself to start thinking that way.

In my 39 years in the military, I have learned that you are not a profession just because you say you are. You have to earn it and re-earn it and re-evaluate it from time to time.

The military is arguably the most significant social institution in our country.

I spent 23 years in the military. I think I'm in a good position to make those judgments on what is necessary in the military and what is not necessary, without buying a lot of things that would not really add to our security.

I think my being a combat pilot, being a woman who has had to break down barriers and succeed in a male-dominated environment, and, I think, just being in the military for 26 years have all helped me.

When I was growing up, it was a bad time to be in the military. It was the time of Vietnam, but I was never called up.

Leading the coalition military effort during the surge in Iraq in 2007 and 2008 was the most important endeavor - and greatest challenge - of my 37 years in uniform.

As a former Airman First Class in the United States Air Force, like many veterans in America, my military experience played an important part in instilling in me a sense of character and discipline that has served me throughout my life.

My entire adult life has been in military. That's a big part of my life and a big part of why I am the person with the experience to be the United States senator.

You know, because of my military background, I talk to voters who for the first two minutes think I'm a Republican.

I graduated from college December of 2017 and looking ahead and thinking about potentially starting a book, I just kept getting hung up before even starting because I didn't want to write a book that only people that have served in the military or that have been to combat could understand.

One of my secret nerdy things is that I love education.

My first live performance was when I was in the military. I went to some bar, and they had open mics. You could just sign up and perform. Nobody cared. Nobody liked it.

I wanted to learn Latin and Greek and become a poet and acquire power over language. I only understand this clearly in retrospect, that my ability to study came from a hunger to learn all the resources of articulation.

Everything I do in my political life is colored by my military service. It was the defining moment in my life and helped me develop the leadership skills that I still utilize.