Veronica Roth Quotes

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

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

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

That's what tyrants do, I guess. They make you covet their attention; they make you confuse attention for mercy.

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

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.

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.

I think there are two ways in which people are controlled - first of all frighten people and secondly demoralize them.

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

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

Never have so many been manipulated so much by so few.

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?

When you say or do anything to please, get, keep, influence, or control anyone or anything, fear is the cause and pain is the result.

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.

The true manipulator never has a reputation for manipulating.

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 concept of power we admire is power over someone else.

Power over others is weakness disguised as strength.

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

The urge to save humanity is almost always a false-face for the urge to rule it.

Once a person insists on how you are to think he immediately begins to insist on how you are to behave.

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

Don’t you shit me George. You and I know who has the power in Alabama.