Quotes About Control

This isn't an accident; this happens because to people at the top, the scariest thing is how many people there are below. They need to watch us. They need to monitor what we're thinking. It's the only thing between them and a guillotine.

Civilizations rose and fell; what caused them to be remembered was not their contribution to knowledge or culture, not even the size of their empires, but rather how much force they extorted upon the landscape.

You can't stop me. Your word voodoo, it doesn't work on me. Right? So how do you think you're going to-' Eliot produced a pistol. He didn't seem to pull it from anywhere. He just suddenly had it. Wil's eyes stung. 'See?' Eliot put away the gun. 'There are all kinds of persuasion.'

Roger picks up a sachet of sugar and shakes it as if it's in need of discipline: wap-wap-wap-wap.

somewhere along the line, this freedom stuff got way out of control.

In the military, we have always had a healthy disrespect for democracy.

If these guys had all the money, John wondered, who could stop them doing whatever they wanted?

The gods can make a man ridiculous through a woman, but they cannot make him ridiculous when they deal him a blow direct. The very greatness of their power makes them, in that respect, impotent.

Nothing is more thrilling, thought he, than to be treated as a cully by the person you hold in the hollow of your hand.

This is how all social, ideological, or religious movements police their members—by making clear that agreement will be rewarded with greater social standing and support, and disagreement punished with ostracism. This pressure is so amorphous and pervasive that, like oxygen, you are only aware of it when it is gone.

Gu was a worrier, a neurotic curmudgeon. If he had a headache, it was a brain tumor; if it looked like rain, this year's harvest was ruined. This was his way of controlling the situation, his lifelong strategy for always coming out ahead. Now, when reality looked more dire than any of his fatalisitic predictions, he had no choice but to turn tail and charge in the opposite direction.

North Koreans were indoctrinated from birth to believe that their lives were meaningless, that they existed only to serve the State, the Revolution, and the Great Leader.

It's a lot easier to blow up trains than to make them run on time. What is it that Mister Churchill used to say? "Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others.

Fear," he used to say, "fear is the most valuable commodity in the universe.

What do you call a dog on a leash? A meal on a string.

When you're feeling small and scared—which, let's be honest, is pretty much how I feel all the time—isn't it okay, just for a moment, to want someone, something bigger than you to have all the answers, to have everything under control?

I have the power to cause you pain.

fear is the most valuable commodity in the universe

My life was in her hands .

Though we may not be able to see His purpose or His plan, the Lord of heaven is on His throne and in firm control of the universe and our lives.

Fear corrodes our confidence in God's goodness. We begin to wonder if love lives in heaven. If God can sleep in our storms, if his eyes stay shut when our eyes grow wide, if he permits storms after we got on his boat, does he care? Fear unleashes a swarm of doubts, anger-stirring doubts. Fear at its center, is a perceived loss of control.

The presence of anxiety is unavoidable, but the prison of anxiety is optional.

What I urge is that you learn to master your life by living each day in a day-tight compartment and this will certainly ensure your safety throughout your entire journey of life.

That's why the most stressed-out people are control freaks. They fail at the quest they most pursue. The more they try to control the world, the more they realize they cannot. Life becomes a cycle of anxiety, failure; anxiety, failure; anxiety, failure. We can't take control, because control is not ours to take.