Manipulative Tactics Quotes

If your opponent is of choleric temper, seek to irritate him. Pretend to be weak, that he may grow arrogant.

He who can lead you to believe an absurdity can lead you to commit an atrocity.

One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we’ve been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We’re no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It’s simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that we’ve been taken. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back.

It's easier to control people when they're afraid.

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.

They are playing a game. They are playing at not playing a game. If I show them I see they are, I shall break the rules and they will punish me. I must play their game, of not seeing I see the game.

There is nothing which so poisons princes as flattery, nor anything whereby wicked men more easily obtain credit and favor with them.

People who live in an age of corruption are witty and slanderous; they know that there are other kinds of murder than by dagger or assault; they also know that whatever is well said is believed.

The Devil ... is much better served by exploiting our virtues than by appealing to our lower passions; consequently, it is when the Devil looks most noble and reasonable that he is most dangerous.

Falsehood, like poison, will generally be rejected when administered alone; but when blended with wholesome ingredients may be swallowed unperceived.

If he be so resolved, I can o'ersway him; for he loves to hear That unicorns may be betrayed with trees And bears with glasses, elephants with holes, Lions with toils, and men with flatterers

The usual pattern of demagogues is to promise the moon, fail to deliver, and then blame vulnerable others for those failures.

Invisible government

Since a politician never believes what he says, he is surprised when others believe him.

When I talk about the polling, I'm talking about the principles. It shows these officials are knowingly attempting to shift public opinion, even though they know what they say is not factual.

Ideology…is an instrument of power; a defense mechanism against information; a pretext for eluding moral constraints in doing or approving evil with a clean conscience; and finally, a way of banning the criterion of experience, that is, of completely eliminating or indefinitely postponing the pragmatic criteria of success and failure.

Never have so many been manipulated so much by so few.

People are more likely to believe a big lie than a small one.

Machiavelli had some cold tricks for people who wanted to be demagogues and wanted to take over the world.

I would love to do the whole 'Anonymous General Manager' storyline again. The way it was supposed to turn out was that I was supposed to be this almost mob-boss style character with this Napoleon complex, throwing his power around while running Raw. Obviously things didn't work out that way.

The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum.

He [Martin Van Buren] is an artful, cunning, intriguing, selfish, speculating lawyer, who, by holding lucrative offices for more than half his life, has contrived to amass a princely fortune, and is now seeking the Presidency, principally for sordid gain, and to gratify the most selfish ambition.

It seemed to me to be entirely un-kosher, if that's a word, to try to put a debate about war right in front of the midterm to try to affect the midterm outcomes.

What valor cannot win, flattery may.

Fascism is a lie told by bullies.