There is hardly anything in the world that some man cannot make a little worse and sell a little cheaper, and the people who consider price only are this man’s lawful prey.

The world is full of people with different characters and temperaments. We all have a dark side, a tendency to manipulate, and aggressive desires. The most dangerous types are those who repress their desires or deny the existence of them, often acting them out in the most underhanded ways.

When I was a child, I was very poor and wanted everything. So when I got money, I began buying things.

To affect the quality of the day, that is the highest of arts.

Self-centered leaders manipulate when they move people for personal benefit. Mature leaders motivate by moving people for mutual benefit.

It’s plain hokum. If you can’t convince ‚em, confuse ‚em. It’s an old political trick. But this time it won’t work.

When governments rely increasingly on sophisticated public relations agencies, public debate disappears and is replaced by competing propaganda campaigns, with all the accompanying deceits. Advertising isn’t about truth or fairness or rationality, but about mobilising deeper and more primitive layers of the human mind.

I don’t know the law, the kind of law of quantity and quality, but I think the opportunity of people being able to express themselves and to have the means of production is a great thing. It’s also changing how we’re telling stories.

There is good and mediocre writing within every genre.

You can fool some of the people all the time, and those are the ones you want to concentrate on.

History teaches that war begins when governments believe the price of aggression is cheap.

It is double pleasure to deceive the deceiver.

I don’t feel comfortable defending my clothes. But if you’ve got the money to afford them, then buy something from me. Just don’t buy too much.

Propaganda is amazing. People can be led to believe anything.

When the tyrant has disposed of foreign enemies by conquest or treaty, and there is nothing more to fear from them, then he is always stirring up some war or other, in order that the people may require a leader.

We are stripped bare by the curse of plenty.

Froth at the top, dregs at bottom, but the middle excellent.

Be a yardstick of quality. Some people aren’t used to an environment where excellence is expected.

If it’s good music, it’s good music.

Everybody, to some extent, manipulates. Even children learn to cry when they want something. There are all kinds of subtle things we do to get others to follow our lead, not bother us, and so on.

The Nihilistic Troll might pretend to be acting in the service of some cause or leader, but don’t be fooled. The cause and their supposedly strong convictions are simply a way to justify and provide cover for their abusive behavior.

The governments of the present day have to deal not merely with other governments, with emperors, kings and ministers, but also with the secret societies which have everywhere their unscrupulous agents, and can at the last moment upset all the governments‘ plans.

Fortune is like the market, where, many times, if you can stay a little, the price will fall.

Flattery corrupts both the receiver and the giver.

It seems like a lot of people seek their peace in things. And most of us are not even satisfied with the things we have… we always want more.

I think there is only one quality worse than hardness of heart and that is softness of head.

What consumerism really is, at its worst is getting people to buy things that don’t actually improve their lives.

Power is the measure of the degree of control you have over circumstances in your life and the actions of the people around you. It is a skill that is developed by a deep understanding of human nature, of what truly motivates people, and of the manipulations necessary for advancement and protection.

My father was a mean, controlling and manipulative person for most of his life. He was unpredictable and unstable. As a result, the atmosphere of our home was super-charged with fear because you never knew if what you did would make him mad or not.

To Sun-tzu and the ancient Chinese, doing something extraordinary had little effect without a setup of something ordinary. You had to mix the two – to fix your opponent’s expectations with some banal, ordinary maneuver, a comfortable pattern that they would then expect you to follow.

When our governments want to sell us a course of action, they do it by making sure it’s the only thing on the agenda, the only thing everyone’s talking about. And they pre-load the ensuing discussion with highly selected images, devious and prejudicial language, dubious linkages, weak or false ‚intelligence‘ and selected ‚leaks.‘

The propagandist’s purpose is to make one set of people forget that certain other sets of people are human.

What I’m always trying to say to the consumer is: buy less, choose well, make it last.

Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.

Sometimes negative news does come out, but it is often exaggerated and manipulated to spread scandal. Journalists sometimes risk becoming ill from coprophilia and thus fomenting coprophagia: which is a sin that taints all men and women, that is, the tendency to focus on the negative rather than the positive aspects.

Every secret of a writer’s soul, every experience of his life, every quality of his mind is written large in his works.

A first-rate soup is more creative than a second-rate painting.

One who deceives will always find those who allow themselves to be deceived.

In large states public education will always be mediocre, for the same reason that in large kitchens the cooking is usually bad.

For the bureaucrat, the world is a mere object to be manipulated by him.

Where quality is the thing sought after, the thing of supreme quality is cheap, whatever the price one has to pay for it.

Responsibility is the price of freedom.

All happiness or unhappiness solely depends upon the quality of the object to which we are attached by love.

If you think you can slander a woman into loving you, or a man into voting for you, try it till you are satisfied.

The quality of research in the U.S. is absolutely the best.

The elections are run by the same industries that sell toothpaste on television.

Civilization is the limitless multiplication of unnecessary necessities.

If we didn’t have the Chinese buying things, we’d be on the floor.

The usual method of finding a little dongly thing that actually matches a gizmo I want to use is to go and buy another one, at a price that can physically drive the air from your body.

Freedom is never dear at any price. It is the breath of life. What would a man not pay for living?

The price of anything is the amount of life you exchange for it.

I am called a dog because I fawn on those who give me anything, I yelp at those who refuse, and I set my teeth in rascals.

Our goal is to make the best devices in the world, not to be the biggest.

Your premium brand had better be delivering something special, or it’s not going to get the business.

As is a tale, so is life: not how long it is, but how good it is, is what matters.

Many a man thinks he is buying pleasure, when he is really selling himself to it.

Speculation is only a word covering the making of money out of the manipulation of prices, instead of supplying goods and services.

If one plays good music, people don’t listen and if one plays bad music people don’t talk.

To understand the true quality of people, you must look into their minds, and examine their pursuits and aversions.

It is wise to persuade people to do things and make them think it was their own idea.

If everyone demanded peace instead of another television set, then there’d be peace.