Limited Influence Quotes

I don't control the political world.

… lame duck

Presidential campaign and White House are two aggressively separate things. They still think I'm the weird kid in the corner, so I don't have much power. But I'll definitely do something to help.

I'm not up in the front office or anything; I just control what I can control: playin' ball and playin' the best I can play.

We don't have control over many things. We're always grasping for it, but in reality, we don't have a lot of control.

I sit here all day trying to persuade people to do the things they ought to have the sense to do without my persuading them. That's all the powers of the President amount to.

Many events in our lives are the result of things beyond our control. While it is comforting to think, 'I'm in charge,' in truth, most changes effected by individuals are very limited in scope.

I don't think I've worked with anyone where I haven't seen some progress. Now sometimes you can't take someone where they want to go, not all the way, and sometimes you stop, and they do it or don't do it on their own thereafter.

In opposition, there's not much one can do. One doesn't have the carrot and one doesn't have the stick. One can't promote and one can't fire. And persuasion has its limits.

Nothing really changes: the individual's ability to project his message or throw his weight around remains minuscule.

I believe that each person can make a difference, but it's so slight that there's basically no point.

I was born dirt-poor with barely a stitch on my back, and no name or prestige attached to me, and no real clout or connections.

In many respects we now live in a society that is only formally democratic, as the great mass of citizens have minimal say on the major public issues of the day, and such issues are scarcely debated at all in any meaningful sense in the electoral arena

On the back benches, you can have your say but no power to do anything.

We are a small country and we have limited influence so we are neutral.

A film is one small voice among other large ones. The film is a tiny part of the discourse. You do what you can but under no illusions of what a film can do.

When I started off in journalism, you knew there was an audience out there and that you wanted people to read what you produced. But it also felt like you had a limited ability to shape the audience, or to acquire an audience, for what you were doing. So you didn't really think too much about that.

Being president, you may have more power than anyone else in the country, but you quickly discover that you have much, much less than you thought you'd have going in. You're hamstrung in ways you never dreamed of.

People might ask me, What do you propose instead? I propose nothing. I am a mere novelist, I just write about the world as I see it. It is not my job to transform it. I cannot transform it all by myself, and I wouldn't even know how to. I limit myself to saying what I believe the world to be.

I just really want to make a good show and make it as interesting as I can, and anything else is kind of above my pay grade.

When you've wised up enough, there is a very clear conclusion that you have to reach after a while, which is, at the end of the day, it is really impossible for one person to make a difference.

Be not over solicitous about education. It may be able to do much, but it does not do as much as expected from it. It may mould and direct the character, but it rarely alters it.

The President cannot, with success, constantly appeal to the country. After a time he will get no response.

History contains heroes, but no one is a hero entirely, and no one is a hero for very long.

I have to just worry about my own opinion and the opinions of the people I'm working with and people who are close to me.