Influencing Decisions Quotes

No adviser to a president is going to get his way all of the time, but at a minimum, that adviser should be able to defend the tilt of an administration's policy as if it were his own. If not, he should make room for those who can.

Win and keep the confidence of your leader. Never refuse or quash schemes he puts forward: but ensure that they are put forward in the first instance privately to you. Always approve them, and after praise modify them insensibly causing the suggestions to come from him, until they are in accord with your own opinion. When you attain this point, hold him to it, keep a tight grip of his ideas, and push him forward as firmly as possible, but secretly so that no one but himself (and he not too clearly) is aware of your pressure.

And what? What's the other choice? To passively let things happen and then say: "Tut-tut, what at botch that was"? Don't we all manipulate people? Even if we openly ask them to make a choice, don't we try to frame it so they'll chose as we think they should?

I think skilled salesmen have the ability to work out who you are and pick out aspects of your personality. They almost manipulate you, in a way, to make you buy their product.

One faces the future with one's past.

Deterrence is still fundamentally about influencing an actor's decisions. It is about a solid policy foundation. It is about credible capabilities. It is about what the U.S. and our allies as a whole can bring to bear in both a military and a nonmilitary sense.

The battle for the mind of Ronald Reagan was like the trench warfare of World War I: never have so many fought so hard for such barren terrain.

This liberating discovery enables me to proceed without any fear that I might inadvertently influence you to abandon promising careers in business, law or politics for the giddy delights of becoming a gay wizard.

It is acceptable to bring someone to tears if it explains to them in an emotional way why a product, a service, or a candidate is the right person, is the right thing to do.

The influencer strategy hasn't been built around celebrities. We're looking for influencers within every marketplace, who are the people who help influence decision-makers within that community.

It was the same thing as going into a business community and interesting the leading business men by giving them shares.