William Lyon Mackenzie King Quotes

What I'd really like to control is not machines, but people.

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

Attention isn't really earned. It's invoked; it's manipulated. It can be heady and make you feel powerful, but it isn't something you accomplish; you get it - or you don't.

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

Facts are only tools to gain control over yourself and other people.

Authoritarians tend to consolidate support by using fear, but more importantly by driving a wedge among the people that they want to control.

Most human beings, though in varying degrees, desire to control, not only their own lives but also the lives of others

I've had meetings where a guy actually told me, "What we're trying to figure out is how we can control you." In the meeting, to me! Why do you want to control me?

They try to make you think they care about what you do but they don't. They don't want you to act a certain way. So you're easy to understand. So you won't pose a threat to them.

People are submissive to power, and few of them can be influenced by doctrines of righteousness.

He cast off his friends as a huntsman his pack, For he knew when he pleas'd he could whistle them back.

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.

The word power has such a generally negative implication in our society. What are people talking about? Are they talking about muscles, or control?

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

Nobody will admit to playing power games in relationships, but they do.

The power to define the situation is the ultimate power.

Machiavelli taught me it was better to be feared than loved. Because if you are loved they sense you might be weak. I am a man of the people and help them but it is important to do so through strength.

Politics is the art of dominating men.

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

We lead them to believe that we are in complete control over every aspect of their lives.

What is politics, after all, but the compulsion to preside over property and make other people's decisions for them?

Owning media is power. That’s the way it is.

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.