Quotes About Control

Our destiny is not written for us, but by us.

We choose hope over fear. We see the future not as something out of our control, but as something we can shape for the better through concerted and collective effort.

CONTRARY TO THE BELIEFS of many in the Arab world (and more than a few American reporters), the United States is not a grand puppet master whimsically pulling the strings of the countries with which it does business.

Both Marty and Smalls knew that in politics, like religion, power lay in certainty—and that one man's certainty always threatened another's.

Too bad for any parent who has become accustomed to ruling by force, because at some point the kids just get too big to slap around.

Somehow human authority is never enough; we must have special effects.

las grandes empresas cada vez se parecen más a lo que llamamos sectas: organizaciones que exigen total sumisión a un líder de inspiración divina.

The real issue was control: male upper-class healing under the auspices of the Church was acceptable, female healing as part of a peasant subculture was not.

algunos de los regímenes más despiadados y autoritarios del mundo han exigido de sus súbditos un optimismo irredento y un constante buen humor.

Inadvertently, I had stumbled across what has been called the Harvard law of animal behavior, which is related to Murphy's law: You can have the most beautifully designed experiment with the most carefully controlled variables, and the animal will do what it damn well pleases.

En la Unión Soviética, igual que en los países del Este y en Corea del Norte, los censores exigían que el arte, la literatura y el cine estuvieran llenos de alegría, que los héroes fueran felices, que la trama hablara de lograr las cuotas de producción y que el final feliz pasara por un glorioso futuro revolucionario.

To make a mess that another person will have to deal with - the dropped socks, the toothpaste sprayed on the bathroom mirror, the dirty dishes left from a late-night snack - is to exert domination in one of its more silent and intimate forms.

N]o matter how much effort we expend, not everything is potentially within our control, not even our own bodies and minds. [...] The body - or, to use more cutting-edge language, the mindbody - is not a smooth-running machine in which each part obediently performs its tasks for the benefits of the common good. It is at best a confederation of parts - cells, tissues, even thought patterns - that may seek to advance their own agendas, whether or not they are destructive of the whole.

La gran ventaja de este pensamiento positivo al estilo americano es que uno puede contar con que sean las personas quienes se lo impongan a sí mismas. Los regímenes estalinistas tenían que apoyarse en el aparato del Estado (escuelas, policía secreta, etcétera) para imponer el optimismo, pero las democracias capitalistas confían en el mercado para que les haga el trabajo.

Los regímenes estalinistas tenían que apoyarse en el aparato del Estado (escuelas, policía secreta, etcétera) para imponer el optimismo, pero las democracias capitalistas confían en el mercado para que les haga el trabajo.

It was a calculated ruling class campaign of terrorization.

Until the Crone figure was suppressed, patriarchal religions could not achieve full control of men's minds. Such religions tended not only to ascetic rejection of the physical experiences of life, but also to fearful rejection of the Divine Old Woman, and by extension of old women generally.

The Dead always find ways," Ysidro said, "to get the living to serve them.

We command the fire and the serpents and the stinging insects, but we cannot wield the power that sends fever away.

Why is an untaught mage so dangerous?" The wizard glanced back at him. "A mage will have magic," he said quietly. "It's like love, Rudy. You need it and you will find it. You will be driven to find it. And if you can't find good love, you will have bad, or what passes in some circles for love. And it can hurt you and destroy everyone you touch.

Race is not, as I have often been reminded while working on this project, a system of classification: it is a system of oppression. There has never been, and I can't imagine how there could ever be, a way of classifying the peoples of the world that isn't also a way of controlling people.

For time and eternity there have been fathers like Nathan who simply can see no way to have a daughter but to own her like a plot of land. To work her, plow her under, rain down a dreadful poison upon her. Miraculously, it causes these girls to grow. They elongate on the pale slender stalks of their longing, like sunflowers with heavy heads. You can shield them with your body and soul, trying to absorb that awful rain, but they'll still move toward him. Without cease they'll bend to his light.

When men fear the loss of what they know, they will follow any tyrant who promises to restore the old order.

My life is a pitiful, mechanical thing without a past, like a little wind-up car, ready to run in any direction someone points me.