Octavia E. Butler Quotes

I'm Machiavelli's offspring, I'm the king of New York, king of the coast, one hand, I juggle them both.

To be honest, the fact that people trust you gives you a lot of power over people. Having another person's trust is more powerful than all other management techniques put together.

So I still seized the power, but I felt that if I officially made myself the boss, in black and white, it would be too intimidating for the other producers and the other men who worked on the show. In other words, I had the power, but I gave them the title.

All men having power ought to be distrusted to a certain degree.

One must do things in such a way that people believe that they want it to be done this way.

Choose your leaders with wisdom and forethought. To be led by a coward is to be controlled by all that the coward fears. To be led by a fool is to be led by the opportunists who control the fool. To be led by a thief is to offer up your most precious treasures to be stolen. To be led by a liar is to ask to be lied to. To be led by a tyrant is to sell yourself and those you love into slavery.

In conspiracies, men who know what they wanted commonly ended by controlling the men who did not.

Politics. The art of governing mankind by deceiving them.

When we think we lead, we are most led.

There's a lot of false prophets around and that's the trouble. People say they think they know what's right and other people get people to follow them because they have a certain type of charisma, and there's always people willing to take over. People want a leader. And there will be more and more of them.

Power always impresses the young and foolish.

Putin knows how to run the KGB playbook. I mean, he knows how to work people.

All rulers in all ages have tried to impose a false view of the world upon their followers.

Be wary of great leaders.

To the fool-king belongs the world.

Some people represent authority without ever possessing any of their own.

It's often said that leadership is the art of getting people to do what you want, and making them think it's what they want. This captures a lot of what Abraham Lincoln did.

The first clergyman was the first rascal who met the first fool.

When it comes to controlling human beings there is no better instrument than lies. Because, you see, humans live by beliefs. And beliefs can be manipulated. The power to manipulate beliefs is the only thing that counts ... Who knows what use they’ll make of you? Maybe you’ll help them to persuade people to buy things they don’t need, or hate things they know nothing about, or hold beliefs that make them easy to handle, or doubt the truths that might save them.

Always remember that as long as other people are gullible, there's no limit to what you can achieve.

The hand that controls the supper dish rules the world!

The only way you can control people is to lie to them. You can write that down in your book in great big letters. The only way you can control anybody is to lie to them.

You will find ambiguity a great ally on your road to power. Give a sign of Slytherin on one day, and contradict it with a sign of Gryffindor the next; and the Slytherins will be enabled to believe what they wish, while the Gryffindors argue themselves into supporting you as well. So long as there is uncertainty, people can believe whatever seems to be to their own advantage. And so long as you appear strong, so long as you appear to be winning, their instincts will tell them that their advantage lies with you. Walk always in the shadow, and light and darkness both will follow.

Whatever I want,' he says. 'Yes.' 'I'm afraid you haven't been privy to that dream yet.

Flattery corrupts both the receiver and the giver; and adulation is not of more service to the people than to kings.