Quotes about influence
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“I never touched Cubism myself, you know, although I was attracted by it one time. When I was painting at Céret and at Cagnes [1919, and from 1923]. I yielded to its influence in spite of myself, and the results were not entirely banal. But then... Céret itself is anything but banal. There is so much foreshortening in the landscape that, for that very reason, a picture may seem to have been painted in some specific style”

Chaim Soutine (1893–1943) painter

quote in 1927
Source: Life with the painters of La Ruche, Vorobëv Marevna, Macmillan, New York, 1972, p. 156

Quotes, Time, Painting

“We must call attention, among the workers parties or the extremist tendencies within those parties, to the need to undertake an effective ideological action in order to combat the emotional influence of.”

Guy Debord (1931–1994) French Marxist theorist, writer, filmmaker and founding member of the Situationist International (SI)

Our Immediate Tasks
Report on the Construction of Situations (1957)

“The use of practically any computing technique itself raises a number of mathematical problems. There is thus a very considerable impact of computation on mathematics itself, and this may be expected to influence mathematical research to an increasing degree.”

George Forsythe (1917–1972) Stanford University computer scientist

George Forsythe (1958) cited in: Computers and people Vol 23. (1974). p. 11 Pagina 11

Mathematics, Problem

“A country of our size, with its focus on exports and thus reliance on foreign trade, must be aware that … military deployments are necessary in an emergency to protect our interests -- for example when it comes to trade routes, for example when it comes to preventing regional instabilities that could negatively influence our trade, jobs and incomes.”

Horst Köhler (1943) German politician (CDU); president of Germany, 2004-2010

http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/controversy-over-afghanistan-remarks-german-president-horst-koehler-resigns-a-697785.html

Country

“The sun, as we have already said, is placed in the middle of our system, as a source of light and heat, to illuminate and vivify all the planets subordinate to it. Without his benign influence the earth would be a mere block, which in hardness would surpass marble and the most compact substances with which we are acquainted; no vegetation, no motion would be possible: in a word, it would be the abode of darkness, inactivity and death. The first rank therefore among inanimate beings cannot be refused to the sun; and if the error of addressing to a created object that adoration which is due to the Creator atone could admit of excuse, we might be tempted to excuse the homage paid to the sun by the ancient Persians, as is still the ease among the Guebres, their successors, and some savage tribes in America.”

Jacques Ozanam (1640–1718) French mathematician

Jacques Ozanam, Recreations in mathematics and natural philosophy : Volume 3 van Recreations in Mathematics and Natural Philosophy. Published 1803. p. 140

Death, Error, Light, Sun

“The spirit of the National Assembly was not our spirit…On that account we stood for and still stand for the old flag of the Reich. On that account we hold fast to the memory of our glorious army and our fleet that we have now passed away, and of the pioneers of German colonisation, whose civilising influence was greater than that of other nations that now dispute our right to any colonial activity.”

Gustav Stresemann (1878–1929) German politician, statesman, and Nobel Peace Prize laureate

Speech to the Congress of the People's Party in Hanover (March 1924), quoted in W. M. Knight-Patterson, Germany. From Defeat to Conquest 1913-1933 (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1945), pp. 346-347
1920s

Memory

“I assure you that I shall never cease to exert myself to the utmost in the cause of reform, and that I will never decline any office which may increase my power to effect it. I am nearly certain of being nominated to the office of Moderator in the year 1818-1819, and as I am an examiner in virtue of my office, for the next year I shall pursue a course even more decided than hitherto, since I shall feel that men have been prepared for the change, and will then be enabled to have acquired a better system by the publication of improved elementary books. I have considerable influence as a lecturer, and I will not neglect it. It is by silent perseverance only, that we can hope to reduce the many-headed monster of prejudice and make the University answer her character as the loving mother of good learning and science.”

George Peacock (1791–1858) Scottish mathematician

Letter to a friend (1817) discussing, as a representative of the Analytical Society, the use of the "French" differential notation, as opposed to the "English" or "Newtonian" dot notation, for mathematical analysis, in the examination of the Mathematical Tripos at Cambridge. As quoted by Alexander Macfarlane, Lectures on Ten British Physicists of the Nineteenth Century https://books.google.com/books?id=43SBAAAAIAAJ (1916)

Love, Men, Books, Hope

“Ideas appropriate to a past social order have a strange power of influencing thought and action within a later institutional frame work.”

Eric Roll, Baron Roll of Ipsden (1907–2005) British economist

Introduction, p. 17
A History of Economic Thought (1939)

Idea, Past

“Democracy must be lived and practiced every day. It entails much more than periodic voting, which in many cases is only pro forma, in the absence of public influence on the choice of candidates and scarce possibility of policy change.”

Alfred de Zayas (1947) American United Nations official

“Much more than periodic voting” – UN Independent Expert calls for more direct democracy worldwide http://www.ohchr.org/en/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=20482&LangID=E. <br class="br">2016, “Much more than periodic voting” – UN Independent Expert calls for more direct democracy worldwide

Democracy, Change

“Because in spite of this longing, I know that I shall purchase happiness at high price if I return; that new falsehood may betray me, new tyranny oppress me, and above all I feel that with this man I must lose more and more the love of all good things, so strong is his influence, so unprincipled his nature. My only hope is that I may save his soul and yet not lose my own. Can I, dare I do this?”

Louisa May Alcott A Long Fatal Love Chase

A Long Fatal Love Chase (1866)

Love, Hope, Feeling, Soul

“The recognition of Russia on November 16, 1933, started forces which were to have considerable influence in the attempt to collectivize the United States.”

Herbert Hoover (1874–1964) 31st President of the United States of America

Source: The Memoirs of Herbert Hoover: The Great Depression, 1929-1941 (1952), p. 484

“Johann Herbart’s work on education and particularly mathematical psychology influenced me. I think mathematics is the pure instance of construct functioning—the model of human behaviour.”

George Kelly (psychologist) (1905–1967) American psychologist and therapist

Attributed to George A. Kelly in Hinkle (1970, p. 91), as cited in: Fay Fransella and Robert A. Neimeyer. "George Alexander Kelly: The man and his theory." International handbook of personal construct psychology (2003): 21-31.

Education, Mathematics, Thinking

“For genuine omniscience and omnipotence are only to be realised in the control of free beings, and in inducing the divine image in them by moral influences instead of metaphysical and physical agencies: that is, by final instead of efficient causation.”

George Holmes Howison (1834–1916) American philosopher

Source: The Limits of Evolution, and Other Essays, Illustrating the Metaphysical Theory of Personal Ideaalism (1905), Modern Science and Pantheism, p.65

“If so, her motion must be influenced by it; perhaps she is retained in her orbit thereby. However, though the power of gravity is not sensibly weakened in the little change of distance, at which we can place ourselves from the centre of the earth, yet it is very possible that, so high as the moon, this power may differ much in strength from what it is here. To make an estimate what might be the degree of this diminution, he considered with himself that, if the moon be retained in her orbit by the force of gravity, no doubt the primary planets are carried round the sun by the like power. And, by comparing the periods of the several planets with their distances from the sun, he found that if any power like gravity held them in their courses, its strength must decrease in the duplicate proportion of the increase of distance. This he concluded by supposing them to move in perfect circles concentrical to the sun, from which the orbits of the greatest part of them do not much differ. Supposing therefore the power of gravity, when extended to the moon, to decrease in the same manner, he computed whether that force would be sufficient to keep the moon in her orbit. In this computation, being absent from books, he took the common estimate, in use among geographers and our seamen before Norwood had measured the earth, that 60 English miles were contained in one degree of latitude on the surface of the earth. But as this is a very faulty supposition, each degree containing about 691/2 of our miles, his computation did not answer expectation; whence he concluded, that some other cause must at least join with the action of the power of gravity on the moon. On this account he laid aside, for that time, any farther thoughts upon this matter.”

Henry Pemberton (1694–1771) British doctor

Republished in: Stephen Peter Rigaud (1838) Historical Essay on the First Publication of Sir Newton's Principia http://books.google.com/books?id=uvMGAAAAcAAJ&pg=RA1-PA49. p. 50-51 <br class="br">Preface to View of Newton's Philosophy, (1728)

Books, Change, Time, Sun

“The British representative was an ambassador, and had a spacious, suitable, and well-furnished house in which he could entertain fitly and largely, and to which the highest Russian officials thought it an honor to be invited. The American representatives were simply ministers; from time immemorial had never had such a house; had generally no adequate place for entertaining; had to live in apartments such as they might happen to find vacant in various parts of the town—sometimes in very poor quarters, sometimes in better; were obliged to furnish them at their own expense; had, therefore, never been able to obtain a tithe of that social influence, so powerful in Russia, which was exercised by the British Embassy.”

Andrew Dickson White (1832–1918) American politician

Source: Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White, Vol. 2 (1922), p. 19

Exercises, Time, Parting, Housing

“I will repeat what I once said to Guillaume Apollinaire: "For my part I have never avoided the influence of others. I would have considered it cowardice and a lack of sincerity toward myself."”

Henri Matisse (1869–1954) French artist

original version in French: Je vous répéterai ce que je disais naguère à Guillaume Apollinaire: "Je n'ai, pour ma part, jamais évité l'influence des autres, j'aurais considéré cela comme une lâcheté et un manque de sincérité vis-à-vis de moi-même."
'Interview with Henri Matisse' by Jacques Guenne, in 'L'Art Vivant' (15 September 1925)
1920s

Parting, Sincerity

“Peoples views on how the government should conduct its financial operations are heavily influenced by their political philosophies.”

Harvey S. Rosen (1949) American economist

Getting Started, p. 1
Public Finance - International Edition - Sixth Edition

People

“Smart people learn to fit into different cultures without being influenced by them.”

Bethany Kennedy Scanlon (1975)

"Adam Taylor", in The Prosperity Preacher (2009)

People, Learning

“Can any rational person believe that the Bible is anything but a human document? We now know pretty well where the various books came from, and about when they were written. We know that they were written by human beings who had no knowledge of science, little knowledge of life, and were influenced by the barbarous morality of primitive times, and were grossly ignorant of most things that men know today.”

Clarence Darrow (1857–1938) American lawyer and leading member of the American Civil Liberties Union

Why I Am An Agnostic (1929)

Life, Men, Books, Knowledge

“For our purposes then, the bureaucratic model refers to an organization which attempts to control extra-organizational influences (stemming from the characteristics of personnel and changes in the environment) through the creation of specialized (staff) positions and through such rules and devices as regulations and categorization.”

Charles Perrow (1925–2019) American sociologist

Source: 1970s, Organizational Analysis: A Sociological View, 1970, p. 59

Change

“How lasting the impact of social media will have is yet to be determined, but one thing for sure, it has turned the chain of influence upside down. Today the reader, the lowly reader, that presumably passive consumer of all the great insight handed down by the reporter, confirmed by the analyst, attested to by the reference customer—this reader, I say, has now become the writer! Except it is not a reader/writer. It is reader/writers at large, many readers, the wisdom (or madness) of crowds. We have embarked upon the world's largest and longest cocktail party, and every issue imaginable is up for grabs.”

Geoffrey Moore (1946) American business writer

Paul Gillin, ‎Geoffrey A. Moore (2009), The New Influencers: A Marketer's Guide to the New Social Media. p. vii

Wisdom, World, Imagination, Madness

“The scholars of European Enlightenment who were influenced by Hindu, Chinese, Greek and Roman traditions of spirituality and culture, have judged Jehovah quite correctly and identified him as the main source of darkness which prevailed in Europe during the Middle Ages. But they have so far neglected Allah of the Quran and not weighed him in the same balance of rationalism, humanism and universalism on which Jehovah was weighed and found wanting.”

Sita Ram Goel book The Calcutta Quran Petition

The Calcutta Quran Petition (1986)

Age, Universe

“Nobody can influence me, nobody. Still less a woman. Women are important in a man's life only if they're beautiful and charming and keep their femininity.”

Mohammad Reza Pahlavi (1919–1980) Shah of Iran

Oriana Fallaci (December 30, 1973), The Mystically Divine Shah of Iran (interview), Chicago Tribune
Interviews

Life, Women, Beauty

“On Hillary Clinton's watch at the State Department, America's interests were diminished in every corner of the world. She compromised our national secrets, dissembled to the families of the slain, and jettisoned her most profound beliefs to gain presidential power. For the last three decades, the Clintons have lived at the intersection of money and politics, trading their political influence to enrich their personal finances. They embody the term “.” It disgusts the American people and causes them to lose faith in our political process.”

Mitt Romney (1947) American businessman and politician

2016, Remarks on Donald Trump and the 2016 race

Money, People, Secret, World

“This return of Republics back to their principles also results from the simple virtue of one man, without depending on any law that excites him to any execution: none the less, they are of such influence and example that good men desire to imitate him, and the wicked are ashamed to lead a life contrary to those examples.”

Niccolo Machiavelli book Discourses on Livy

Book 3, Ch. 1
Discourses on Livy (1517)

Life, Men, Law, Dependency

“Women have everything to do with bringing culture into everyday life, with the expression of it, with the helping and influencing of a nation, not only because they are mothers but also because they themselves are an example as individuals. The modern world needs a new force for the revitalizing of its ideals. India’s art has always been unconscious, unconscious of its own beauty, unconscious of others’ admiration, unconscious of the physical though expressed in Form. India is now beginning to be conscious and we do not know how to express ourselves consciously. A great dancer’s art must depend first on the life he or she expresses, secondly upon the beauty of technique and lastly only, upon its arrangement, costume, and presentation…. Though form, technique and skill are essential, great Art must have the impetus of genius, and inspiration. Then there is permanency.”

Rukmini Devi Arundale (1904–1986) Indian Bharatnatyam dancer

pdf, A Century of Negotiations: The Changing Sphere of the Woman Dancer in India, 1 December 2013, Performancestudies.ucla.edu, 15-16 http://www.performancestudies.ucla.edu/downloads/SarkarNegotiation.pdf.,

Life, Women, World, Beauty

“In our Gaian world, everything is connected to and influences everything else.”

Tim Flannery book The Weather Makers

Source: The Weather Makers (2005), Chapter 16 (p. 160)

World

“Whether the influence of increasing returns on trade and geography is rising or falling, one thing is clear: much was learned from the intellectual revolution that brought increasing returns into the heart of how we think about the world economy. It wasn't just that economists could make sense of previously puzzling data, we found ourselves able to see things that had previously been in an intellectual blind spot. Many people contributed to this process of enlightenment; I'm proud to have been a part of the journey.”

Paul Krugman (1953) American economist

"The Increasing Returns Revolution in Trade and Geography", The American Economic Review (Jun., 2009)

People, World, Thinking, Sense

“There are many who say in effect that public opinion has little to do with war, that it is explained by the influence of the vested interests who profit by it — armament makers or groups of capitalists. But even when we have admitted that those interests do exert great influence, it only pushes the question further back. Why are the mass of men, millions, powerless in this matter as against a tiny minority, a few dozen or a few score or a few hundred who profit by the general disaster? There are undoubtedly some who say to the millions in effect: "We should like you to go to war because it would expand our profits."”

Norman Angell (1872–1967) British politician

But why do the millions obey?
Peace and the Public Mind (1935)

Men, War, Question

“Disordered nerves are the origin of much religious despair, when the individual does not suspect it; and then the body and mind have a reciprocal influence upon each other, and it is difficult to tell which influences the other most. The physician is often blamed, when the fault lies with the minister. Depression never benefits body or soul. We are saved by hope.”

Ichabod Spencer (1798–1854) American minister

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 191.

Hope, Soul, Despair

“A new factor enters the situation when we encounter the influence of ‘scientific socialism.’ It is true, the party platform declares that ‘religion is a private affair.’ The saving of souls is the only industry that socialism distinctly relegates to private enterprise.”

Walter Rauschenbusch (1861–1918) United States Baptist theologian

Source: Christianizing the Social Order (1912), p. 108

Religion, Soul

“(He was) tall and lean, an aristocrat by inclination, born into money and influence and never recovered.”

Jack McDevitt (1935) American novelist, Short story writer

Source: Academy Series - Priscilla "Hutch" Hutchins, Odyssey (2006), Chapter 41 (p. 391)

Money

“In 1938 and at the age of eighty, Hobson decided to republish Imperialism: A Study. By the late 1930s, public opinion was becoming much more critical of empire and imperialism: one prominent imperial historian of the time, W. K. Hancock, wrote that 'to… an increasing proportion of the ordinary public the "imperialist" is a robber and a bully'. Under growing Marxist influence there was also an increasing tendency to offer economic interpretations of imperial expansion and control. Encouraged by these trends and convinced that the looming conflict between Britain and France on the one side, and Germany, Italy and Japan on the other, was basically an attempt to re-divide the imperial spoils, Hobson decided that his ancient text was worth reprinting. But in republishing it, and despite adding a long preface, Hobson gave no indication that he had ever held different views.”

Peter Cain (1958) figure skater

Source: J. A. Hobson's Imperialism: A Study: A Centennial Retrospective (2002), p. 3.

Age, Study, Time

“Writers, especially when they act in a body and with one direction, have great influence on the public mind.”

Edmund Burke book Reflections on the Revolution in France

Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790)

“The first duty of an historian is to be on his guard against his own sympathies; but he cannot wholly escape their influence.”

James Anthony Froude (1818–1894) English historian, novelist, biographer, and editor of Fraser's Magazine

The Divorce of Catherine of Aragon http://books.google.com/books?id=Y1wLAAAAYAAJ&q=&quot;The+first+duty+of+an+historian+is+to+be+on+his+guard+against+his+own+sympathies+but+he+cannot+wholly+escape+their+influence&quot;&pg=PA19#v=onepage (1891)

“There is only one thing I wast to say about Ohio that has a political tinge, and that is that I think a mistake has been made of recent years in Ohio in failing to continue as our representatives the same people term after term. I do not need to tell a Washington audience, among whom there are certainly some who have been interested in legislation, that length of service in the House and in the Senate is what gives influence.”

William Howard Taft (1857–1930) American politician, 27th President of the United States (in office from 1909 to 1913)

Speech before the Ohio Society, Washington, D.C.; quoted in the Congressional Record (May 23, 1916), vol. 53, p. 8527.

People, Thinking, Housing

“Speak… of the separation of ownership and active leadership. Ordinarily the problem is stated in terms of the divorce between ownership and "control". This last word is badly overused, and it needs to be precisely defined… Our procedure… will be to study the ownership of officers and directors and then to ascertain the extent to which non-management stockholdings are sufficiently concentrated to permit through ownership the wielding of considerable power and influence (control?) over management by an individual, group or another corporation.”

Robert Aaron Gordon (1908–1978) American economist

Source: Business Leadership in the Large Corporation (1945), p. 24, footnote 20; as cited in: Marco Becht et al. Corporate Governance and Control, 2005. p. 61

Problem, Study

“I submit that religious values and political realities are so inter-linked in the origin and perpetuation of this nation that we cannot lose the influence of religion in our public life without seriously jeopardizing our freedoms.”

Dallin H. Oaks (1932) Apostle of the LDs Church

" Dallin H Oaks - Religious Liberty's Canterbury Medal http://www.deseretnews.com/topics/561/Dallin-H-Oaks.html", Becket Fund for Religious Liberty Statement

Life, Religion, Reality, Freedom

“Food probably has a very great influence on the condition of men. Wine exercises a more visible influence, food does it more slowly but perhaps just as surely. Who knows if a well-prepared soup was not responsible for the pneumatic pump or a poor one for a war?”

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (1742–1799) German scientist, satirist

A 14
Aphorisms (1765-1799), Notebook A (1765-1770)

Men, War, Food, Exercises

“I do not want other artists to imitate my work – they do even when I tell them not to – but only [ imitate] my example for freedom and independence from all external, decadent and corrupting influences..”

Clyfford Still (1904–1980) American artist

1960s
Source: 'A period of Exploration', McChesney, as quoted in The New York school – the painters & sculptors of the fifties, Irving Sandler, Harper & Row, Publishers, 1978, p 35

Freedom

“Today we know that on the sub-atomic level the fate of an electron or a whole atom is not determined by its past. But this discovery has not led to any basically new departure in the philosophy of nature, only to a state of bewildered embarrassment, a further retreat of physics into a language of even more abstract symbolism. Yet if causality has broken down and events are not rigidly governed by the pushes and pressures of the past, may they not be influenced in some manner by the "pull" of the future—which is a manner of saying that "purpose" may be a concrete physical factor in the evolution of the universe, both on the organic and unorganic levels. In the relativistic cosmos, gravitation is a result of the curvature and creases in space which continually tend to straighten themselves out—which, as Whittaker remarked, "is a statement so completely teleological that it certainly would have delighted the hearts of the schoolmen."”

Arthur Koestler (1905–1983) Hungarian-British author and journalist

Epilogue [footnote referenced E.T. Whittaker's Space and Spirit (1946)]
The Sleepwalkers: A History of Man's Changing Vision of the Universe (1959)

Fate, Departure, Nature, Universe

“Reporter: The “Protocols” trial is on today. I’ve been assigned to report on it for my paper.
Reporter 2: What’s your hurry Carl? The Jewish community’s lawyer is trying to show the damage done by the “Protocols of Zion” book.
Lawyer: Your honor, we have demonstrated that the “Protocols” is ‘’’smut…’’’ I would conclude by exhibiting evidence of its influence on public opinion as a fraud.
Judge: You may proceed!
Lawyer: Since its first publication in Russia by Dr. Nilus in 1905, four printings have been distributed there!
In 1919, type script copies were distributed to delegated at the Versailles peace conference by white Russians.
In England Victor Marsden translated the “protocols” into English in 1922.
In 1920, the first polish language edition was brought into the United States and South America by Polish immigrants.
In 1921, the first Arabic and the first Italian copies appeared!
In 1921, “The Times” of London published its famous expose of this false document!
And because of his fame, Henry Ford’s work deserves recounting.
Lawyer: In 1920, Henry ford the American auto magnate, bought a small newspaper, the “Dearborn Independent.” He began a series, “The International Jew,” made up of borrowings from the “Protocols of the Elders on Zion.”
Later, in 1922, it was published in sxteen language for a world-wide distribution. It sold over a ‘’’half million’’’ copies in America alone!
Reporter: Actually, Ford recanted in 1926 when he was threatened with a libel suit.

Reporter 2: Really?
Reporter 3: What did he say?
Reporter: He said in part, “…To my great regret I learn that in the ‘Dearborn Independent’ there appeared articles which induced the Jews to regard me as their enemy promoting anti-Semitism!”
HE WENT ON TO SAY, “…I am…mortified that this Journal…is giving currency to ‘The Protocols of the wise men of Zion,’ which I learn to be gross forgeries…I deem it my duty…to make amends for the wrong done to the Jews as fellow men and brothers by asking their forgiveness.
HE GOES ON BY RECITING SOME OF THE MORE “evil ingredients” in the “Protocols” AND HE REFERS TO IT AS AN “infamous forgery.”
Reporter 3: DID HIS APOLOGY CHANGE ANYTHING?? HENRY FORD WAS FAMOUS the world over…his apology must have had influence!
Reporter: Not very much. In fact publication increased all over the globe.
Reporter 3: Look! Here I have two French translations of the “Protocols of the Elders of Zion” that were published in ‘’’France,’’’ dated 1934. Later they had many printings!
Judge: …I hope to see the day when nobody will be able to understand why otherwise sane and reasonable men should torment their brains for fourteen days over the authenticity or fabrication of the “Protocols of Zion”’’’…I regard the “protocols” as ridiculous nonsense!
Reporter: Good news! …judge Meyer found against the Nazis and imposed a fine on them…

Publisher: We will publish the judge’s decision!
Reporter: This should put an end to the “Protocols” at last!”

Will Eisner (1917–2005) American cartoonist

Source: The Plot: The Secret Story of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion (10/2/2005), pp. 102-107

Men, Books, World, Peace

“Influence must ever be in proportion to property; and it is right it should.”

James Boswell (1740–1795) Scottish lawyer, diarist and author

Quoting Samuel Johnson (18 August 1773)
The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson, LL.D. (1785)

“No quality of human nature is more remarkable, both in itself and in its consequences, than that propensity we have to sympathize with others, and to receive by communication their inclinations and sentiments, however different from, or even contrary to our own. This is not only conspicuous in children, who implicitly embrace every opinion propos’d to them; but also in men of the greatest judgment and understanding, who find it very difficult to follow their own reason or inclination, in opposition to that of their friends and daily companions. To this principle we ought to ascribe the great uniformity we may observe in the humours and turn of thinking of those of the same nation; and ’tis much more probable, that this resemblance arises from sympathy, than from any influence of the soil and climate, which, tho’ they continue invariably the same, are not able to preserve the character of a nation the same for a century together. A good-natur’d man finds himself in an instant of the same humour with his company; and even the proudest and most surly take a tincture from their countrymen and acquaintance. A chearful countenance infuses a sensible complacency and serenity into my mind; as an angry or sorrowful one throws a sudden dump upon me. Hatred, resentment, esteem, love, courage, mirth and melancholy; all these passions I feel more from communication than from my own natural temper and disposition. So remarkable a phaenomenon merits our attention, and must be trac’d up to its first principles.”

David Hume book A Treatise of Human Nature

Part 1, Section 11
A Treatise of Human Nature (1739-40), Book 2: Of the passions

Love, Men, Children, Feeling

“We wanted to show the influence Cuban music has had on musicians from all over, so we invited 25 of the top Latin musicians in the world, and it was a great honor they paid me. Some of them are actually inventors, like Cachao, the Cuban bassist creditied with creating mambo.”

Gloria Estefan (1957) Cuban-American singer-songwriter, actress and divorciada

Latina Magazine (September, 2007)
2007, 2008

World, Music

“With Alexander the stage of Greek influence spread across the world.”

John Pentland Mahaffy (1839–1919) Irish classicist and polymathic scholar

Alexander's Empire, p. 8

World

“[T]he intelligence and ability of a colored person are in pretty direct proportion to the amount of white blood he has, and … most of the positions of leadership, influence, and prominence in the Negro race are held not by real Negroes but by Mulattoes, many of whom have very little Negro blood.”

Madison Grant (1865–1937) American lawyer, eugenicist, and conservationist

The Conquest of a Continent (1933)

Color, Intelligence, Personality

“Much of the time, the question goes unasked in prosperous liberal democracies like Britain or the United States, because most of us see political equality as exhausted by “one person, one vote” and dig no deeper; we know that one person, one vote coexists with the better-off and better-organized buying influence through lobbying, campaign contributions, and use of the mass media, but we find ourselves puzzled to balance a belief that everyone has the right to use his or her resources to influence government—which is certainly one form of political equality—with our sense that excessive inequality of political resources undermines democracy.”

Alan Ryan (1940) British philosopher

Introduction: Thinking about Politics.
On Politics: A History of Political Thought: From Herodotus to the Present (2012)

Democracy, Question, Sense, Time

“Scientific management consists in correct interpretation of phenomena, in exact knowledge of laws, principle and the influence of conditions upon results: and in the skilled use of methods adapted to the almost infinitely varying circumstances of individual cases
- Engineering magazine”

Herbert N. Casson (1869–1951) Canadian journalist and writer

Source: 1910s, Ads and Sales (1911), p. 2

Law, Knowledge

“Non-local influences do not diminish with distance. They are as potent at a million miles as at a millimeter.
Non-local influences act instantaneously. The speed of their transmission is not limited by the velocity of light.
A non-local interaction links up one location with another without crossing space, without decay, and without delay. A non-local interaction is, in short, unmediated, unmitigated, and immediate.”

Nick Herbert (1936) American physicist

Source: Quantum Reality - Beyond The New Physics, Chapter 12, Bell's Interconnectedness Theorem, p. 214

Light, Speed

“Why to bring revolution? They are also human beings. Why don’t we treat ourselves as human beings? I speak Hindi and you speak your native language, but we are all human beings. Why do you treat them as foreigners? They also want to adapt to our tradition- some are visiting temples, they become vegetarians, some have given up spoons and eat using their hands, they try to become Sadhus. Why do you want to treat them as foreigners, they are human beings! If we get influenced by their tradition, it’s okay. If they get influenced by our tradition, it’s okay. Younger generation who try to emulate them will eventually come back to their native tradition!”

Hariprasad Chaurasia (1938) Indian bansuri player

On Western Culture and the so-called Revolution.
Melodies of Brindavan: Pandit Hariprasad Chourasia

“An important object of the Journal should be the publication of papers dealing with attempts at statistical verification of the laws of economic theory, and further the publication of papers dealing with the purely abstract problems of quantitative economics, such as problems in the quantitative definition of the fundamental concepts of economics and problems in the theory of economic equilibrium.
The term equilibrium theory is here interpreted as including both the classical equilibrium theory proceeding on the lines of Walras, Pareto, and Marshall, and the more general equilibrium theory which is now beginning to grow out of the classical equilibrium theory, partly through the influence of the modern study of economic statistics. Taken in this broad sense the equilibrium problems include virtually all those fundamental problems of production, circulation, distribution and consumption, which can be made the object of a quantitative study. More precisely: The equilibrium theory in the sense here used is a body of doctrines that treats all these problems from a certain point of view, which is contrasted on one side with the verbal treatment of economic problems and on the other side with the purely empirical-statistical approach to economic problems”

Ragnar Frisch (1895–1973) Norwegian economist

Frisch (1927). as quoted in: Bjerkholt, Olav, and Duo Qin. A Dynamic Approach to Economic Theory: The Yale Lectures of Ragnar Frisch. Routledge, 2010: About "Oekonometrika"
1920

Law, Problem, Sense, Study

“I imagine that as one penetrated out from some enormous forest of the tropics, the wild beasts would become fewer, the gloom would lighten, and the horror of the place would slowly lift. Yet as one emerges nearer to the edge of London, and nearer to the beautiful influence of the hills, the houses become uglier, the streets viler, the gloom deepens, the errors of civilisation stand bare to the scorn of the fields.
Where ugliness reaches the height of its luxuriance, in the dense misery of the place, where one imagines the builder saying, "Here I culminate. Let us give thanks to Satan," there is a bridge of yellow brick, and through it, as through some gate of filigree silver opening on fairyland, one passes into the country.”

Lord Dunsany (1878–1957) Irish writer and dramatist

A Dreamer's Tales http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext05/8drem10.txt, The Field

Beauty, Error, Imagination, Housing

“I was a vocal opponent of the George W. Bush Administration's decision to invade Iraq, a strategic blunder made worse by slapdash execution. As we have seen, this star-crossed action took our eye off the ball in Afghanistan, breathed new life into a moribund al Qaeda, and enhanced Iranian influence in this critical region - all outcomes which damaged both the United States and our ally Israel.”

Merrill McPeak (1936) United States Air Force general

How to Secure Israel: Demilitarized land for peace is the key to a settlement (April 2008)

Life, Star, Decision

“…the position of the body significantly influences the emotions and sensations during the desired stage of hypnotism; also, whatever the passion which one wants to express by the attitude of the patient, when the muscles necessary to this expression are brought into play, the passion itself bursts forth suddenly and the whole organism responds accordingly. The upright body, the expanded chest, the contracted extensors, all that suggests the feeling of self-esteem, self-determination, resolve and unconquerable pride. As soon as one decreases the contraction of these muscles, that gives to the patient a depressed attitude, with a sunken chest, the expression of the features changes in a very manifest way, the voice and the whole manner of being of the individual now express humility, abasement and pity.”

James Braid (1795–1860) Scottish surgeon, hypnotist, and hypnotherapist

Original Philosophy of Hypnotism The International College of Hypnosis & Hypnotherapy

Way, Feeling, Passion, Change

“No Mr Huckabee, history –and criminal statistics- have both shown that tragedies will only increase, the more religious any society becomes. The more influence religion has over law, the lower our quality of life, and the more human rights are violated. It is true that any population of hundreds of millions will produce a proportionate percentage of sociopaths. But what we need there is more efficient provisions of mental health care –so that those suffering dementia and other disorders will be identified, treated, or isolated as need be –BEFORE they go berserk. Religion doesn’t want that either –as a matter of self-preservation. Because a fair amount of divine revelation can be cured with the same medications that treats schizophrenia. Where would the churches be if that many of their clergymen were clothed in straight-jackets?”

Aron Ra (1962) Aron Ra is an atheist activist and the host of the Ra-Men Podcast

Patheos, Fukkenuckabee http://www.patheos.com/blogs/reasonadvocates/2012/12/21/fukkenuckabee/ (December 21, 2012)

Life, Health, Religion, Law

“The Fabians laid the groundwork for modern social democracy, and their influence on the world would end up being at least as powerful as that of Marx.”

Alan Greenspan (1926) 13th Chairman of the Federal Reserve in the United States

Source: 2000s, The Age of Turbulence (2008), Chapter Twelve, "The Universals of Economic Growth", p. 265.

World, Democracy

“I really wanted to retire and rest and spend more time with my children, my grandchildren and of course with my wife. But the problems are such that for anybody with a conscience who can use whatever influence he may have to try to bring about peace, it's difficult to say no.”

Nelson Mandela (1918–2013) President of South Africa, anti-apartheid activist

On why he continues to be active in social and political issues.
2000s, Newsweek interview (2002)

Children, Peace, Problem, Time

“The world socialist system, which includes in its fold over 1 billion people with a big economic and military potential continually growing at unprecedented rates, has become today the decisive factor in the development of the world history. It exerts a tremendous influence on the world; it has become a great attractive and revolutionizing force. The world socialist system is showing with every passing day its indisputable superiority over the capitalist system. It has become the shield of all the progressive forces of the world, the impregnable bulwark of freedom and peace, democracy and socialism.”

Enver Hoxha (1908–1985) the Communist leader of Albania from 1944 until his death in 1985, as the First Secretary of the Party of L…

Speeches, 20th Party Anniversary Address

People, World, Peace, Democracy

“Perhaps the best answer is that the writer that I am has been shaped by the stammering kid that I was, and that although my stammer didn’t make me write, it did, in part, inform and influence the writer I became. It’s true that stammerers can become more adept at sentence construction. Synonyms aren’t always neatly interchangeable. Sometimes choosing word B over word A requires you to construct a different sentence to house it—and quickly, too, before your listener smells the stammering rat.”

David Mitchell (1969) English novelist

Paris Review

Parting, Housing

“1945
As the Allies rummages through documents in the wreckage of defeated Germany, evidence of the influence of the “Protocols” was found by American Intelligence.
Allied soldier: Hey, Sarge whatcha got there?
Sarge: Wow!! Joseph Goebbels’ private diaries! Look at this…volume 13…here’s a translation.
I have devoted exhaustive study to the Protocols of Zion. In the past objection was always made that they were not suited to present day propaganda. In reading them now I find that we can use them very well. The Protocols of Zion are as modern today as they were when published the first time! At noon I mentioned this to the Fuhrer. He believed the protocols to be absolutely genuine!”

Will Eisner (1917–2005) American cartoonist

Source: The Plot: The Secret Story of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion (10/2/2005), p.110

Intelligence, Study, Time, Reading

“No one can examine this record and escape the conclusion that in the great outline of its principles the Declaration was the result of the religious teachings of the preceding period. The profound philosophy which Jonathan Edwards applied to theology, the popular preaching of George Whitefield, had aroused the thought and stirred the people of the Colonies in preparation for this great event. No doubt the speculations which had been going on in England, and especially on the Continent, lent their influence to the general sentiment of the times. Of course, the world is always influenced by all the experience and all the thought of the past. But when we come to a contemplation of the immediate conception of the principles of human relationship which went into the Declaration of Independence we are not required to extend our search beyond our own shores. They are found in the texts, the sermons, and the writings of the early colonial clergy who were earnestly undertaking to instruct their congregations in the great mystery of how to live. They preached equality because they believed in the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man. They justified freedom by the text that we are all created in the divine image, all partakers of the divine spirit.”

Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933) American politician, 30th president of the United States (in office from 1923 to 1929)

1920s, Speech on the Anniversary of the Declaration of Independence (1926)

God, People, World, Search

“In my poetry, I am just as influenced by musicians or composers. As I am by people who create with words.”

Jan Zwicky (1955) Canadian philosopher

Griffin Prize Questionnaire June 2012
Griffin Poetry Prize Questionnaire

People

“The word Imperialism still has to many people in this country a rather sinister meaning. They associate it—wrongly in my view and in your view—the idea of exploitation, of riding roughshod over the world, of jingoism and of selfishness in public policy. It was not that to Lord Milner, and it is not that to us. It is rather this—the spreading throughout such parts of the world as we control, or in which we have influence, of all those ideas of law, order, and justice which we believe to be peculiar to our own race. It is to help people who belong to a backward civilisation, wisely to raise them in the scale of civilisation—an extraordinarily difficult task, and one which needs wisdom for its consummation. There is no country in the world upon whom that task has been imposed to the same degree as our own country, and it is undoubtedly by the way in which we fulfil that task that we shall be judged at the bar of history, not perhaps to-day, but by those who come after us of our own blood.”

Stanley Baldwin (1867–1947) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Speech in Oxford (15 May 1925), quoted in On England, and Other Addresses (1926), pp. 185-186.
1925

Wisdom, People, World, Justice

“In making the four-channel video work Dachau, my experience as a weaver directly influenced the basic structuring of the work. The content itself was taped in 1974 at the former concentration camp Dachau. The symmetry of the architecture and the present ambience of the space were the focus of the recordings. The past was recorded only insofar as the sounds of the voices of the present commingled with the feeling absorbed in the wood and revealed in the structure of forms which has no amount of time can erase.”

Beryl Korot (1945) American artist

Source: Dachau 1974, by Beryl Korot, p. 75

Feeling, Time, Past

“All of us can be influenced through psychological techniques. For example, if I say “don’t think of a black cat” what do you do? You think of a black cat because the command ‘think of a black cat’ was there in the sentence. Techniques like this can be used to influence people’s thoughts, behaviour, even their memory.”

Derren Brown (1971) British illusionist

TV Series and Specials (Includes DVDs), Mind Control (1999–2000) or Inside Your Mind on DVD

People, Cats, Thinking, Memory

“The left has, in practice, been prevented from taking advantage of its own frequent disagreements with public opinion by its historically contingent attachment to democratic politics as the primary means to its ends. This allegiance has forced leftist political and cultural critics to presuppose the possibility of rational democratic politics—if only the corrupting influences of money, commercialization, and corporate control could be excised. Libertarians have the basis for a deeper critique of modern culture: they understand that what corporations sell, consumers want to buy. But, precluded by their own ideology—which effectively celebrates whatever consumers choose as, ipso facto, good—from criticizing consumerism, libertarians end up being as unthinkingly apologetic about mass culture in its commercial manifestations as the left is about mass culture in its political guise.”

Jeffrey Friedman (political scientist) (1959) American political scientist

Source: “What’s wrong with Libertarianism”, p. 453

Money, Understanding

“She had a womanly instinct that clothes possess an influence more powerful over many than the worth of character or the magic of manners.”

Louisa May Alcott book Little Women

Source: Little Women (1868), Ch. 34 : Friend

Clothes

“The government has, in all countries, a vast influence, in determining the character of the national consumption; not only because it absolutely directs the consumption of the state itself, but because a great proportion of the consumption of individuals is gained by its will and example.”

Jean-Baptiste Say (1767–1832) French economist and businessman

Source: A Treatise On Political Economy (Fourth Edition) (1832), Book III, On Consumption, Chapter IV, p. 400

Country

“But neither approach seems to lead to the kind of answer which those who ask the question are seeking. What they seem to want to know is—Are the Modern Greeks the same as the Ancient Greeks? Are their racial and national characteristics the same? Do the Modern Greeks behave in the same kind of way as the Ancient Athenians, Spartans, and Corinthians behaved? If one looks among the Modem Greeks will one find the equivalents of Pericles and Sophocles and Plato? By their nature such questions are vague and contain within them a host of assumptions—about human nature, genetics and race, the influence of environment on behaviour, and the reliability of our knowledge of ancient history—all of which are questionable and some of which are simply unfounded.”

William St Clair (1937) author

Source: That Greece Might Still be Free (1972), p. 15-16.

Way, History, Question, Nature

“There iz no alternativ. Every possible reezon that could ever be offered for altering the spelling of wurds, stil exists in full force; and if a gradual reform should not be made in our language, it wil proov that we are less under the influence of reezon than our ancestors.”

Noah Webster (1758–1843) lexicographer, textbook pioneer, English-language spelling reformer, writer, editor and author

Preface to A Collection of Essays and Fugitiv Writings (1790) http://books.google.com/books?vid=0q9zW406vxSXI6op5n8&id=pcIgAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA1&lpg=PA1&dq=%22Fugitiv+Writings%22#PPR11,M1 <br class="br">This quote illustrates the reformed spelling advocated by Webster.

“This article outlines a social information processing approach to explain job attitudes. In comparison with need-satisfaction and expectancy models of job attitudes and motivation, the social information processing perspective emphasizes the effects of context and the consequences of past choices, rather than individual predispositions and rational decision-making processes. When an individual develops statements about attitudes or needs, he or she uses social information - information about past behavior and about what others think. The process of attributing attitudes or needs from behavior is itself affected by commitment processes, by the saliency and relevance of information, and by the need to develop socially acceptable and legitimate rationalizations for actions. Both attitudes and need statements, as well as characterizations of jobs, are affected by informational social influence. The implications of the social information processing perspective for organization development efforts and programs of job redesign are discussed.”

Gerald R. Salancik (1943–1996) American organizational theorist

Source: A social information processing approach to job attitudes and task design. 1978, p. 224; Abstract

Behavior, Motivation, Thinking, Decision

“.. my favorite artist, when I first began to paint, was actually Cézanne. Later, between 1920 – 1930, I developed a great interest in Chardin [famous for his still-life], w:Vermeer and Corot, too.... that's why you have been able to detect in my works of between 1912 – 1916 some recognizable influences of the early Paris cubists and above all, of Cézanne.”

Giorgio Morandi (1890–1964) Italian painter

Source: 1945 - 1964, Interview, 1960, p. 106

Life, Painting

“Ikenobo Sen'o remarked on another occasion (this too is in his Sayings) that "the mountains and strands should appear in their own forms". Bringing a new spirit into his school of flower arranging, therefore, he found "flowers" in broken vessels and withered branches, and in them too the enlightenment that comes from flowers. "The ancients arranged flowers and pursued enlightenment." Here we see awakening to the heart of the Japanese spirit, under the influence of Zen. And in it too, perhaps, is the heart of a man living in the devastation of long civil wars.”

Yasunari Kawabata (1899–1972) Japanese author, Nobel Prize winner

Japan, the Beautiful and Myself (1969)

War, School, Mountain, Flowers

“One has very little influence upon one's children. Their characters are what they are and one can do nothing to change them.”

André Maurois (1885–1967) French writer

Un Art de Vivre (The Art of Living) (1939), The Art of Family Life

Children, Change

““That the historic systems of philosophy, not only those which have been directly influenced by the historic systems of religion and theology, but also those which have originated more or less in opposition to these, or in correction of them, are unequal to meeting the conditions essential to the existence of a moral order and to the possibility of a moral life in individuals, will appear plainly upon a brief analysis of their leading conceptions.”

George Holmes Howison (1834–1916) American philosopher

The Limits of Evolution, and Other Essays, Illustrating the Metaphysical Theory of Personal Ideaalism (1905), Appendix B: The System in its Ethical Necessity and its Practical Bearings

Life, Religion, Appearance

“Here is the basis of the modern critical biblical science, which treats the documents of Christianity and Judaism according to the same principles of historical investigation which are valid in all other historical domains, particularly in that of the history of the ethnic religions.
The attempt has been crowned with brilliant success. Everywhere, where formerly miracles and oracles, the activity of supernatural persons, and the appearance on the scene of supernatural beings were thought to be discerned, there shows itself now a constant succession of events that are natural, i. e. in accord with the universal laws of human experience. The prophets appear no longer as media of supernatural oracles, but as men whose works and words are perfectly explicable from the character regarded in connection with the conditions of their age and environment. They stand, indeed, in a certain respect above their contemporaries, so far as they contest the modes of thought and action of the latter, and hold before them higher ideals of purer piety and morality; yet these ideals were not communicated to them from without by supernatural revelation, but sprang from their own spirit as products of an especially powerful and happy religious-moral nature, which, under the influence of historical relations, had been so developed that they saw clearly what was perverted in the mode of thought of others, and gave to the better a potent expression.”

Otto Pfleiderer (1839–1908) German Protestant theologian

Source: Evolution and Theology (1900), pp. 10-11.

Men, Age, Religion, Law

“Whoever imposes severe punishment becomes repulsive to the people; while he who awards mild punishment becomes contemptible. But whoever imposes punishment as deserved becomes respectable. For punishment when awarded with due consideration, makes the people devoted to righteousness and to works productive of wealth and enjoyment; while punishment, when ill-awarded under the influence of greed and anger or owing to ignorance, excites fury even among hermits and ascetics dwelling in forests, not to speak of householders.”

Chanakya book Arthashastra

Book I : "Concerning Discipline" Chapter 4 "Determination of the Place of Varta and of Dandaniti"
Arthashastra

People, Anger, Wealth

“It's like Impressionism. They all do it at the Salons. Oh, very discreetly! I too was an Impressionist. I don't conceal the fact. Pissarro had an enormous influence on me. But I wanted to make out of Impressionism something solid and lasting like the art of the museums.”

Paul Cézanne (1839–1906) French painter

Source: Quotes of Paul Cezanne, after 1900, Cézanne, - a Memoir with Conversations, (1897 - 1906), p. 164, in: 'What he told me – I. The motif'

Art

“The copious literature on the work of artist Robert Smithson has made very little of the many parallels between the inventor of earthworks and the nineteenthcentury author of pataphysics, despite the established fact that the artist read and made notes from Alfred Jarry’s Dr. Faustroll (1898) while working on the Spiral Jetty in 1970, which undoubtedly influenced the subsequent Broken Circle &/ Spiral Hill (1971, Emmen). Given the insightful literature reassessing Jarry’s influence on twentieth-century artists including Marcel Duchamp, John Cage and Rodney Graham, a consideration of Smithson’s spiral earthworks in connection with Jarry is long overdue. In contrast to prevailing art research practices today, Smithson’s work is much more aligned with the pataphysical pursuit of ‘imaginary solutions’ that examine ‘the laws governing exceptions’ and describe ‘a universe which can be – and perhaps should be – envisaged in place of the traditional one’.”

Edward A. Shanken (1964) American art historian

Edward A. Shanken (2013). " Broken Circle &/ Spiral Hill: Smithson’s Spirals, Pataphysics, Syzygy, and Survival http://artexetra.files.wordpress.com/2009/02/shanken-smithson-2013.pdf."

Law, Art, Literature, Universe

“The two great conceptual revolutions of twentieth-century science, the overturning of classical physics by Werner Heisenberg and the overturning of the foundations of mathematics by Kurt Gödel, occurred within six years of each other within the narrow boundaries of German-speaking Europe. … A study of the historical background of German intellectual life in the 1920s reveals strong links between them. Physicists and mathematicians were exposed simultaneously to external influences that pushed them along parallel paths. … Two people who came early and strongly under the influence of Spengler's philosophy were the mathematician Hermann Weyl and the physicist Erwin Schrödinger. … Weyl and Schrödinger agreed with Spengler that the coming revolution would sweep away the principle of physical causality. The erstwhile revolutionaries David Hilbert and Albert Einstein found themselves in the unaccustomed role of defenders of the status quo, Hilbert defending the primacy of formal logic in the foundations of mathematics, Einstein defending the primacy of causality in physics. In the short run, Hilbert and Einstein were defeated and the Spenglerian ideology of revolution triumphed, both in physics and in mathematics. Heisenberg discovered the true limits of causality in atomic processes, and Gödel discovered the limits of formal deduction and proof in mathematics. And, as often happens in the history of intellectual revolutions, the achievement of revolutionary goals destroyed the revolutionary ideology that gave them birth. The visions of Spengler, having served their purpose, rapidly became irrelevant.”

Freeman Dyson (1923) theoretical physicist and mathematician

The Scientist As Rebel (2006)

Life, People, History, Mathematics

“The situation has deteriorated considerably since last year. In foreign affairs I consider the Locarno-Geneva policy wrong because it ties us and brings no advantage. We are still too weak to give any direction, and are thus always led by others, never leading, at most a compliant ally whom one can drop when one gets reconciled or can find a better one. We could have waited and become internally stronger first, above all we could have kept an entirely free hand towards the east. This we no longer have. We have succumbed to British influence and are serving British interests. Our representatives are, after all, little men who are no match for British diplomacy and its kind condescension, like the chancellor, and ambitious busy-bodies who must have their fingers in every pie, like Stresemann, the man of general distrust; but it seems impossible to get rid of him…My opposition to our foreign policy is generally known.”

Hans von Seeckt (1866–1936) German general

Letter to his sister (4 April 1926), quoted in F. L. Carsten, The Reichswehr and Politics 1918 to 1933 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1966), pp. 207-208.

Men, Business, Waiting

“The importance of the lesson which this Society was formed to teach would be hard to overestimate. Its main purpose is to impress upon the people the necessity for reverence. This is the beginning of a proper conception of ourselves, of our relationship to each other, and our relationship to our Creator. Human nature cannot develop very far without it. The mind does not unfold, the creative faculty does not mature, the spirit does not expand, save under the influence of reverence. It is the chief motive of an obedience. It is only by a correct attitude of mind begun early in youth and carried through maturity that these desired results are likely to be secured. It is along the path of reverence and obedience that the race has reached the goal of freedom, of self-government, of a higher morality, and a more abundant spiritual life.”

Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933) American politician, 30th president of the United States (in office from 1923 to 1929)

1920s, Authority and Religious Liberty (1924)

Life, People, Youth, Motivation

“Empires are synonymous with centralized—if occasionally schismatized—hierarchical power structures in which influence is restricted to an economically privileged class retaining its advantages through—usually—a judicious use of oppression and skilled manipulation of both the society’s information dissemination systems and its lesser—as a rule nominally independent—power systems. In short, it’s all about dominance.”

Iain Banks Culture series

Source: Culture series, The Player of Games (1988), Chapter 1 (p. 91).

“God calls you — alike by Scripture, by your reason, by your conscience, by the events of His providence, by heavenly influences — to consecrate all you have to His service and the good of man; Heaven appeals to you, and the world appeals to you, not to live in vain.”

Albert Barnes (1798–1870) American theologian

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 342.

God, World

“Individual perception untainted by others' influence does not exist.”

Howard Bloom (1943) American publicist and author

Source: Global Brain: The Evolution of Mass Mind from the Big Bang to the 21st Century (2000), Ch.8 Reality is a Shared Hallucination

“The monopoly of a single bank is certainly an evil. The multiplication of them was intended to cure it; but it multiplied an influence of the same character with the first, and completed the supplanting the precious metals by a paper circulation. Between such parties the less we meddle the better.”

Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) 3rd President of the United States of America

Letter to Albert Gallatin, 1802. ME 10:323
Posthumous publications, On financial matters

Evil

“In his book Modern Times, the historian Paul Johnson referred to Hitler, Stalin, and Mussolini as the three devils of the twentieth century. Interestingly, Nietzshean dogma influenced each of them.”

Ravi Zacharias (1946) Indian philosopher

[The Real Face of Atheism, 2004, 9780801065118, 3293056M, http://books.google.com/books?id=0SD0mYaYz3sC&pg=PA25&dq=%22in+his+book+Modern+Times%22, 25]
2000s

Books, Time

“Even random differences in pay lead to the backward inference of differences in skill and hence to the development of unequal influence. It's an element of personal and office dynamics that can't be ignored.”

Leonard Mlodinow book The Drunkard's Walk

Source: The Drunkard's Walk, Chapter 10, The Drunkard's Walk, p. 211

Personality

“At the beginning of the 1980s the world community faces much greater dangers than at any time since the Second World War. It is clear that the world economy is now functioning so badly that it damages both the immediate and longer-run interests of all nations…The problems of poverty and hunger are becoming more serious; there are already 800 million absolute poor and their numbers are rising; shortages of grain and other foods are increasing the prospect of hunger and starvation…Between 20 and 25 million children below the age of five die every year in developing countries…A number of poor countries are threatened with the irreversible destruction of their ecological systems while many more face growing food deficits and possibly mass starvation. In the international economy there is the possibility of… a collapse of credit with defaults by major debtors, or bank failures… [and] an intensified struggle for influence or control over resources leading to military conflicts.”

Willy Brandt (1913–1992) German social-democratic politician; Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany

Attributed in "Are We Nearing Armageddon?", article on The Watchtower magazine, 1980, 10/15.

Hunger, War, Children, Age

“Truth', written 'in capital letters', is an orphan in this world, without power and influence… ['Reason'] cannot stand diverging opinions - it calls them 'lies'; it puts itself 'above' the real lives of human beings, demanding, in a way characteristic of all totalitarian ideologies, the right to rebuild the world from the height of 'what it should be', i. e. in accordance with its own 'invincible' precepts. It refuses to recognize the many ideas, actions, feelings, laws, institutions, racial features which separate one nation (culture, civilization) from another… The reason of ordinary people trying to create a better and safer world for themselves and their children (which is reason with a small 'r' and not Reason 'written in capital letters') has very little in common with these ignorant dreams of domination.”

Paul Karl Feyerabend book Farewell to Reason

pg 102.
Farewell to Reason (1987)

Children, People, Truth, World

“The president has very little effect on the economy. If you want to put blame or credit, the main person who influences the business cycle is the head of the Federal Reserve Bank.”

Robert Fogel (1926–2013) American economist, historian

Robert Fogel, in: " Transcript from an interview with Professor Robert W. Fogel, 2004 http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/economic-sciences/laureates/1993/fogel-interview-transcript.html" at nobelprize.org.

Business, Personality

“Fascism's most direct ideological inspiration came from the collateral influence of Italy's most radical 'subversives'.”

A. James Gregor (1929–2019) American political scientist

The Marxists of revolutionary syndicalism p. 130
The Faces of Janus: Marxism and Fascism in the Twentieth Century, (2000)

“Jazz music is a lifestyle. It’s not notes, chords and arpeggios. Today’s improvisation is too based on the knowledge of chords and the way they practice the chords. It’s not a melodic thing anymore like the older days. It was much more important to play shorter and to play more variable, valid stuff. Today, a lot of solos are long and uninteresting and the influence usually comes from John Coltrane’s group. He himself was a master musician, but he put so much emphasis on chord knowledge and technique, and now the kids want to show how fast they can play. This is the same with piano players and most instrumentalists—it’s speed. That’s gonna change again and hopefully the kids who are now 16 and 17 years old have a little more sense and maybe some more stories to tell.”

Joe Zawinul (1932–2007) austrian composer and pianist

Reflecting on the new generation's take on jazz music
Prasad interview (1997)

Music, Way, Knowledge, Sense

“A church that exists in the midst of a non-Christian social order is liable to be influenced through assimilation or reaction by the false ideas of the age.. The problem is to cast out the infection and to do this with proper humility. To stand aloof is no remedy, but a form of pride.”

Michael Roberts (writer) (1902–1948) English schoolteacher and man of letters

Religion and Critique of Satisfaction in ' T E Hulme ',Carcanet Press,Manchester, 1982

Age, Idea, Problem, Falseness

“Has, then, the influence of the crown increased since the Revolution? Down to the period of 1782 I believe the fact will not be much disputed. It was upon the notoriety of the fact, and the bad consequences it had produced, that the motions of the right hon. gentleman in favour of reform were founded. That it has increased, I think every impartial man must be compelled to admit…If, then, while the influence of the crown has so manifestly advanced, while the cause of liberty has remained the same, or has sustained a diminution of its strength, can it be said that we are standing upon the establishment of the Revolution, and adhering to the principles which it ascertained? It is, then, upon this ground of experience and the evidence of facts, upon proof of positive inconvenience and real declination from its original purity, that I should propose to recall our constitution to its true principles and to amend the system of our representation.”

Charles Grey, 2nd Earl Grey (1764–1845) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland

Speech in the House of Commons (25 April 1800), reported in The Parliamentary History of England, from the Earliest Period to the Year 1803. Vol. XXXV (London: 1819), pp. 91-93.
1800s

Thinking

“Dwight L. Moody was changed from a shoe salesman into an evangelist whose influence has reached around the world. In all parts of the earth are men and women whose characters were transformed as a direct result of contact with the changed Moody.”

Kirby Page (1890–1957) American clergyman

Source: Something More, A Consideration of the Vast, Undeveloped Resources of Life (1920), p. 37

Women, Men, World, Shoe

“Some people believe themselves to be independent of surrounding influences because their lives have made rebels of them. But rebellion is not a guarantee of independence. On the contrary, it is an acute form of prejudice. The writer who has been too much dominated in childhood will put himself forward as a free thinker in his attacks on religion and family life, but this revolt is the revolt of a slave.”

André Maurois (1885–1967) French writer

Un Art de Vivre (The Art of Living) (1939), The Art of Friendship

Life, People, Family, Religion