John Galt Quotes

The victim of mind-manipulation does not know that he is a victim. To him, the walls of his prison are invisible, and he believes himself to be free.

The devil is no fool. He can get people feeling about heaven the way they ought to feel about hell. He can make them fear the means of grace the way they do not fear sin. And he does so, not by light but by obscurity, not by realities but by shadows; not by clarity and substance, but by dreams and the creatures of psychosis. And men are so poor in intellect that a few cold chills down their spine will be enough to keep them from ever finding out the truth about anything.

Take a good look around and you'll find people trying to mess with your mind.

I'm a con artist in that I'm an actor. I make people believe something is real when they know perfectly well it isn't.

Flattery is no more than what raises in a man's mind an idea of a preference which he has not.

Appearances are not reality; but they often can be a convincing alternative to it. You can control appearances most of the time, but facts are what they are. When the facts are too sharp, you can craft a cheerful version of the situation and cover the facts the way that you can covered a battered old four-slice toaster with a knitted cozy featuring images of kittens.

There is no talent so ardently supported, nor generously rewarded, as the ability to convince parasites they are victims.

Anyone would be able to be played by someone like him [Donald Trump], that's what he did, he played people.

Social engineers veil themselves in a cloak of believability.

The most successful tempters and thus the most dangerous are the deluded deluders.

Am I Machiavellian? I don't think I'm quite the mastermind people would have me be. Everything I do tends to be very successful and it may have something to do with the fact that I'm very good, not necessarily that I manipulate. But that doesn't often occur to people.

Like an audience entertained by a magician, we allow ourselves to be deceived by those with a stake in persuading us to ignore reality.

You have big names in Scientology running around pretending to be the nicest people, and they take the care to talk to you and look at you in the eye, but that's all part of the process. That's all part of being in the church - to be a good example, to ingratiate yourself to Hollywood so that they'll say, "Hey, I don't know why you're attacking Scientology." It's all purposeful. I did it, I know!

Lying is the only art form that the public sanctions and instinctively prefers to reality.

Illusions... are simple facts, but they have been created by the mind, by the spirit, and they are one of the justifications of the new spatial configuration.

Deception is a sort of seduction. In love and war, adultery and espionage, deceit can only succeed if the deceived party is willing, in some way, to be deceived.

People who wish to numb our caution in dealing with them by means of flattery are employing a dangerous expedient, like a sleeping draught, which, if it does not put us to sleep, keeps us all the more awake.

The most that can be said of flattery is that it is sometimes a cheap psychological trick with which charlatans and dishonest people lull others into a state of carelessness while they pick their pockets.

You will find ambiguity a great ally on your road to power. Give a sign of Slytherin on one day, and contradict it with a sign of Gryffindor the next; and the Slytherins will be enabled to believe what they wish, while the Gryffindors argue themselves into supporting you as well. So long as there is uncertainty, people can believe whatever seems to be to their own advantage. And so long as you appear strong, so long as you appear to be winning, their instincts will tell them that their advantage lies with you. Walk always in the shadow, and light and darkness both will follow.

I should say I am far more cleverer than any of the people who put me here. As a matter of fact, I could leave any time I wanted. It's only a doll house after all. Anyway, I don't mind. I like dolls. Particularly the live ones.

Get out of control, but appear under control. It?s not bad to alarm other people, though ? it?s good for them.

Your mind and a computer have one thing in common: neither of them know the difference between the truth... and what you tell it.

The audience knows the truth, the world is simple. It's miserable, solid all the way through. But if you could fool them, even for a second, then you can make them wonder, and then you got to see something really special.

The role of the scholar is to destroy chimeras, that of the statesman is to make use of them.

The realist lies for advantage. The fantasist lies to give his dreams a flavor of reality.