Whatever starts in California unfortunately has an inclination to spread.

The next time someone tells you we can trim the budget by cutting aid, I hope you will ask whether it will come at the cost of more people dying.

I would be lying if I didn’t admit sadness that our wonderful airline is merging with another. Because I’m not American, the U.S. Department of Transportation stipulated I take some of my shares in Virgin America as non-voting shares, reducing my influence over any takeover. So there was sadly nothing I could do to stop it.

We are second-hand people. We have lived on what we have been told, either guided by our inclinations, our tendencies, or compelled to accept by circumstances and environment. We are the result of all kinds of influences, and there is nothing new in us, nothing that we have discovered for ourselves: nothing original, pristine, clear.

The multiplication force of technology on cognitive differences is massive.

If you’re in a confined aircraft; when one person sneezes, it goes all the way through the aircraft.

I have been influenced in my thinking by both west and east.

Hate and force cannot be in just a part of the world without having an effect on the rest of it.

Everybody is a political person, whether you say something or you are silent. A political attitude is not whether you go to parliament; it’s how you deal with your life, with your surroundings.

I found that the corridors of power in Delhi were littered with lobbies of various kinds.

Only God Himself fully appreciates the influence of a Christian mother in the molding of character in her children.

Music can change the world because it can change people.

Everything starts somewhere, although many physicists disagree.

The measure of a man is what he does with power.

Whatever words we utter should be chosen with care for people will hear them and be influenced by them for good or ill.

I can promise you that when I go to Sacramento, I will pump up Sacramento.

Celebrity is ridiculous and silly and it’s mad that people like me are listened to – you know, rap stars and movie stars.

I don’t think that a leader can control, to any great extent, his destiny. Very seldom can he step in and change the situation if the forces of history are running in another direction.

We shall never know all the good that a simple smile can do.

There are massive efforts on the part of the internet’s corporate owners to try to direct it to become a technique of marginalisation and control.

I have certain guys who I looked up to. Jordan, Kobe, those guys. Passing that on to doing my part to kind of keep that influence of basketball where it should be is kind of why I play the game.

As social animals, we are extremely susceptible to the moods of other people. This gives us the power to subtly infuse into people the appropriate mood for influencing them.

California is not just the Golden State. We are also the Internet State.

The more you are talked about the less powerful you are.

Physical strength can never permanently withstand the impact of spiritual force.

Reviews condition people. At the end of the day, a lot of human minds are malleable. They can be easily shaped with strong words.

Power is the great aphrodisiac.

He who molds the public sentiment… makes statutes and decisions possible or impossible to make.

I did not learn the flaws of the criminal-justice system in law school or college or by reading about it. I grew up knowing the flaws and how it was disproportionately impacting the black community. It’s not academic for me.

We shape our buildings; thereafter they shape us.

Widespread use of antibiotics promotes the spread of antibiotic resistance. Smart use of antibiotics is the key to controlling its spread.

Speeches that are measured by the hour will die with the hour.

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

Success is always dangerous, and we need to be alert and avoid becoming the victims of our own success. Will we influence the world for Christ, or will the world influence us?

The greatness of a man is not in how much wealth he acquires, but in his integrity and his ability to affect those around him positively.

Reputation is the cornerstone of power. Through reputation alone you can intimidate and win; once it slips, however, you are vulnerable, and will be attacked on all sides. Make your reputation unassailable.

I only hope that we don’t lose sight of one thing – that it was all started by a mouse.

A general is just as good or just as bad as the troops under his command make him.

A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell where his influence stops.

All great change in America begins at the dinner table.

In known history, nobody has had such capacity for altering the universe than the people of the United States of America. And nobody has gone about it in such an aggressive way.

The unsuccessful person is burdened by learning, and prefers to walk down familiar paths. Their distaste for learning stunts their growth and limits their influence.

The difference is slight, to the influence of an author, whether he is read by five hundred readers, or by five hundred thousand; if he can select the five hundred, he reaches the five hundred thousand.

Nothing is so strongly fortified that it cannot be taken by money.

I really like hip-hop and rap; that’s my main influence. I really wanna be more of a hip-hop artist.

Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence on society.

Many people listen to what I have to say and I appear a lot in media, so therefore I influence a lot of people and therefore I have a bigger responsibility because I have a bigger platform.

We have but one permanent home: heaven – that’s still the old truth that we always have to re-learn – and it’s only through the impact of sad experiences that we assimilate it.

The fragrance of flowers spreads only in the direction of the wind. But the goodness of a person spreads in all directions.

By gnawing through a dike, even a rat may drown a nation.

The influence of ‚Hidden Fortress‘ comes up a lot because it was printed in a book once. The truth is, the only thing I was inspired by was the fact that it’s told from the point of view of two peasants, who get mixed up with a samurai and princess and a lot of very high-level people.

I truly believe that when the history books are written, our age will be remembered for three things: the war on terror, the digital revolution, and what we did – or did not do – to put the fire out in Africa. History, like God, is watching what we do.

Billy Graham is one of my great lifetime heroes. I think he epitomizes the essence of what a Christian leader should be. I have participated in some of his crusades a couple of times in Atlanta. I’ve seen the profound impact he’s had on me personally, and on other people who were not Christians and accepted Christ as Savior.

Well-spent aid money is saving lives for a few thousand dollars per life saved.

The good opinion of mankind, like the lever of Archimedes, with the given fulcrum, moves the world.

People are generally better persuaded by the reasons which they have themselves discovered than by those which have come in to the mind of others.

The sway of alcohol over mankind is unquestionably due to its power to stimulate the mystical faculties of human nature, usually crushed to earth by the cold facts and dry criticisms of the sober hour.

The secret of my influence has always been that it remained secret.

Do something wonderful, people may imitate it.

People that’s in power – the central banks, these fiat currencies that are traded globally – they got influence over the messaging and the narrative in the media.

The biggest problem that we have is that California is being run now by special interests. All of the politicians are not anymore making the moves for the people, but for special interests and we have to stop that.