Quotes About Control

Censorship is serious and drastic business; it should never set merely upon guesswork and more particularly not upon the guesses of men so staunch in morals that they are obviously of distant kin to the rest of humanity.

Nature takes no notice of the thoughts of men.

It is easier to command a lapdog or a mule for a whole day than one's own fate for half-an-hour.

It is in the irony of Providence that the more man comes to control the material world about him, the more does he lose control over the effects of his action; and it is when he is remaking the world most speedily that he knows least whither he is driving.

The control of the production of wealth is the control of human life itself.

And you are going to close the gates, because I told you to close the gates.

There's a feeling of power in reserve, a power that drives right through the bone, like the shiver you sense in the shaft of an axe when you take it into your hand. You can strike, or you can not strike, and if you choose to hold back the blow, you can still feel inside you the resonance of the omitted thing.

There is a pause, while she turns the great pages of her volume of rage, and puts her finger on just the right word.

When have I, when have I ever forced anyone to do anything, he starts to say: but Richard cuts in, "No, you don't, I agree, it's just that you are practiced at persuading, and sometimes it's quite difficult, sir, to distinguish being persuaded by you from being knocked down in the street and stamped on." -Richard (?) nee Cromwell to Thomas Cromwell,358

there is an art to being in a hurry but not showing it." 390

The fate of peoples is made like this, two men in small rooms. Forget the coronations, the conclaves of cardinals, the pomp and processions. This is how the world changes: a counter pushed across a table, a pen stroke that alters the force of a phrase, a woman's sigh as she passes and leaves on the air a trail of orange flower or rose water; her hand pulling close the bed curtain, the discreet sigh of flesh against flesh.

Movements are restricted. Even a duke must manage with only six men to guard and serve him. Strangers are barred. Delivery men must quit the precincts as soon as they have dropped off their loads, and the royal nursery be scrubbed out twice a day.

I wonder," he says, "how it can be that, though all these people think they know the king's pleasure, the king finds himself at every turn impeded." At every turn, thwarted: maddened and baffled.

I am no one's agent. I am the agent of the law. All the conspiracies pass through my hands. The Committee, you know, draws its present unity from being conspired against. I do not know what would happen if the policy of believing in conspiracies were changed.

And Louis is weak. Let him give an inch, and some Cromwell will appear.

This is what Henry does. He uses people up. He takes all they give him and more. When he is finished with them he is noisier and fatter and they are husks or corpses.

it's just that you are practiced at persuading, and sometimes it's quite difficult, sir, to distinguish being persuaded by you from being knocked down in the street and stamped on.

Nobody knows how long the arrests wil go on and who else will be taken. He feels even he does not know, and he is in charge of it.

If Mary's blood is Spanish, at least it is royal. And at least she can walk straight and has control of her bowels.

Then the patriots will have de facto control of the city.' Gabrielle: 'What does de facto mean?' 'It means they'll do it now and make it legal later,' Lucile

You think the king ever loved you? No. To him you were an instrument. As I am. A device. You and me, my son Surrey, we are no more to him than a trebuchet, a catapult, or any other engine of war. Or a dog. A dog who has served him through the hunting season. What do you do with a dog, when the season ends? You hang it.

was proud of what he did. He thought if you let the people read God's word for themselves, Christendom would fall apart. There would be no more government, no more justice.' 'He believed this? Truly?' 'That we needed the constraint of ignorance? Yes.' 'He did not give much credit to his fellow man.

Do you know what I hate? I hate to be part of this play, which is entirely devised by him. I hate the time it will take that could be better spent, I hate it that minds could be better employed, I hate to see our lives going by, because depend upon it, we will all be feeling our age before this pageant is played out.

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