Quotes About Control

The masters of the underground citadel are committed to a 'war' they cannot bring to an end, with weapons whose ultimate effects they cannot control, for purposes that they cannot accomplish.

The megamachine is an elephant that fears even the smallest mouse.

Through the army, in fact, the standard model of the megamachine was transmitted from culture to culture.

The production of the atom bomb was in fact crucial to the building of the new megamachine, little though anyone at the time had that larger objective in mind. For it was the success of this project that gave the scientists a central place in the new power complex and resulted eventually in the invention of many other instruments that have rounded out and universalized the system of control first established to meet only the exigencies of war.

It is the system itself that, once set up, gives orders.

In short, the Germans not merely enlarged the dimensions of the ancient megamachine, but made important innovations in the techniques of mass control: innovations that later corporate megamachines are now perfecting with the aid of spying devices, opinion polls, market research, and computerized dossiers on private life. In the background, the torture chamber and the crematorium, if not planetary incineration, are still ready to complete the job.

With this new 'megatechnics' the dominant minority will create a uniform, all-enveloping, super-planetary structure, designed for automatic operation. Instead of functioning actively as an autonomous personality, man will become a passive, purposeless, machine-conditioned animal whose proper functions, as technicians now interpret man's role, will either be fed into the machine or strictly limited and controlled for the benefit of de-personalized, collective organizations

The great secret of centralized power was secrecy itself. That holds of all totalitarian states down to our own day.

Christians... get Christmas under control. Seriously. It won't stop! It doesn't stop does it? It's always Christmas now! Make it the whole year! It's the only time you pricks are happy!

Aging is beyond our control, but how we age is up to us.

Comedy chose me. I always had this urge to be silly that I couldn't control. I remember my father having me read 'The Three Little Pigs' to him, and I would improv all around the story, like when one pig's house got blown over, he put on his gym shoes and took off.

In our urge to automate, in our eagerness to adopt the latest innovations, we appear to have developed a habit of unthinkingly handing over power to machines.

Still, whether we like it or not, the task of speeding up the decrease of the human population becomes increasingly urgent.

Mosquito control in the United States is very much a local and state activity. Some states have excellent programs, other states not so much. It's one of the reasons it's so urgent to identify and spread best practices to try and track and reduce mosquito populations.

You cannot control the primitive urges and hormones that drive your eating behavior.

Anger, if not restrained, is frequently more hurtful to us than the injury that provokes it.

The use of solar energy has not been opened up because the oil industry does not own the sun.

The world is in your hands, now use it.

The most important thing about power is to make sure you don't have to use it.

This used to be a government of checks and balances. Now it's all checks and no balances.

I never used to believe in fate. I used to think you make your own life, and then you call it fate.

A lot of people do impulsive things. They just go with their moves. I used to do that. Once I was able to control my mind, I was able to control my actions.

I used to get so nervous and upset at stuff... I'd always be angry.

I used to think religion was just more of the same thing. Dump responsibility on the big guy. Now I see an importance in that. It's a relief to accept that not everything is under your control.