control Quotes

“[L]et no one rule your mind or body.”

“Take special care that your thoughts remain unfettered. One may be a free man and yet be bound tighter than a slave.”

“If you wish to be happy, Eragon, think not of what is to come nor of that which you have no control over but rather of the now and that which you are able to change.”

“George said wonderingly, ‘S’pose they was a carnival or a circus come to town, or a ball game, . . . We’d just go to her . . . We wouldn’t ask nobody if we could. Jus’ say, ‘We’ll go to her,’ an’ we would. Jus’ milk the cow and sling some grain to the chickens an’ go to her.‘”

“And it’d be our own, an’ nobody could can us. . . . An’ if a fren’ come along, why we’d have an extra bunk, an’ we’d say, ‘Why don’t you spen’ the night?′ An’ . . . he would.”

“At length from us may find, who overcomes By force, hath overcome but half his foe.”

“They ordered the extermination of all minds they couldn’t control.”

“No” is a word that must never be negotiated, because the person who chooses not to hear it is trying to control you.

“I let the mop push me back to the wall and smile and try to foul her equipment up as much as possible by not letting her see my eyes --they can’t tell so much about you if you got your eyes closed.”

Worrying, obsessing, and controlling are illusions. They are tricks we play on ourselves.

It is when we lose control that we repress the emotions, not when we are in control.

“Fortune . . . shows her power where valour has not prepared to resist her, and thither she turns her forces where she knows that barriers and defences have not been raised to constrain her.”

“I didn’t plan on falling in love with you, and I doubt if you planned on falling in love with me. But once we met, it was clear that neither of us could control what was happening to us. We fell in love, despite our differences, and once we did, something rare and beautiful was created.”

“You may not control all the events that happen to you, but you can decide not to be reduced by them.”

You have no control. Who lives, who dies, who tells your story.

I am the one thing in life I can control.

“A feeling of exultation overtook her, as if some power of significant import had been given her to control the working of her body and her soul. She grew daring and reckless, overestimating her strength. She wanted to swim far out, where no woman had swum before.”

“If we weren’t trying to control whether a person liked us or his or her reaction to us, what would we do differently? If we weren’t trying to control the course of a relationship, what would we do differently? If we weren’t trying to control another person’s behavior, how would we think, feel, speak, and behave differently than we do now? What haven’t we been letting ourselves do while hoping that self-denial would influence a particular situation or person? Are there some things we’ve been doing that we’d stop? How would we treat ourselves differently? Would we let ourselves enjoy life more and feel better right now? Would we stop feeling so bad? Would we treat ourselves better? If we weren’t trying to control, what would we do differently? Make a list, then do it.”

“A year ago today, I was undoing my husband. Now I am almost done reassembling him.”

“The moony, girlish state her notes had left me in, it sickened me. It embarrassed me. Marrow-deep embarrassment, the kind that becomes a part of your DNA, that changes you. After all these years, Amy could still play me. She could write a few notes and get me back completely.”

“The one who has the little need is the one who controls the whole relationship. You can see this dynamic so clearly because usually in every relationship there is one who loves the most and the other who doesn’t love, who only takes advantage of the one who gives his or her heart. You can see the way they manipulate each other, their actions and reactions, and they are just like the provider and the drug addict.”

“Bought, did you say? All these things? Has my little spendthrift been wasting money again?”

“They control the food, they control us. Some people know how to grow food, some know how to process it, others know how to cook it. But none of us know how to do it all. We could never survive on our own.”

“But Taborlin knew the name of all things, and so all things were his to command.”

“The personality formed in an environment of coercive control is not well adapted to adult life. The survivor is left with fundamental problems in basic trust, autonomy, and initiative.”

″‘I discovered that maybe it was fate all along, that faith was just an illusion that somehow you’re in control.‘”

“Fear is how they control you. There’s so much in the world you don’t have to be afraid of, if you would only open your eyes.”

“It is not the demands of the job that cause the most stress, but the degree of control workers feel they have throughout their day.”

“Death ain’t nothing but a fastball on the outside corner.”

“… like all men of power, when he talked of prices worth paying, you could be sure of one thing. Someone else was paying.”

“Power is habitually buried. Think of the Protectorate bunkers on Harlan’s World. Or the Caverns the Envoy Corps hid you in while you were made over in their image. The essence of control is to remain hidden from view, is it not?”

“You have absolute control over but one thing, and that is your thoughts.”

“The practice of love offers no place of safety. We risk loss, hurt, pain. We risk being acted upon by forces outside our control.”

“Far from being a liability, a high turnover rate in the meatpacking industry—as in the fast food industry—also helps maintain a workforce that is harder to unionize and much easier to control.”

“You control what you can control—your image, the way you conduct yourself, the way you let men talk to and approach you—and use that to get the relationship you want.”

“But now George has TB and they tell me he may even die... Which adds to that darkness in my mind, all these DEATH things piling up suddenly -- But I cant believe old Zen Master George is going to allow his body to die.”

A man’s emotions are what define him, control is the hallmark of true strength. To lack feeling is to be dead, but to act on every feeling is to be a child.

“Your subconscious never sleeps. It is always on the job. It controls all your vital functions. Forgive yourself and every one else before you go to sleep, and healing will take place much more rapidly.”

“The Clayr saw me, the Wallmaker made me, the King quenched me, the Abhorsen wields me so that no Dead shall walk in Life. For this is not their path.”

“We have no control over the reality that in this world we will have trouble, but we have control over whether we decide to allow our hearts to be troubled.”

“The warrior knows that peace does not come from control but from relinquishing control. Everything in life that you try to control that is outside your control will steal from you your peace. You must choose to take hold of what you can control and let go of what you cannot. You cannot control your circumstances, but you can control your character. You cannot control the actions of others, but you can control the choices you make. You cannot control the outcome, but you can control the process.”

“Human beings are not reasonable creatures. Instead of being ruled by logic, we are ruled by emotions. The world would be a happier place if the opposite were true.”

“The rage rises again, and I don’t even want to control it. But what can I do about it? What can I do to avenge my brother, or even try to save the others?”

“Although he could not put it into words, he knew not only had they resolved to put him to death, but they were determined to make his death mean more than a mere punishment; that they regarded him as a figment of that black world which they feared and were anxious to keep under control.”

“You can’t control the weather. You aren’t in charge of the economy. You can’t undo the tsunami or unwreck the car, but you can map out a strategy. Remember God is in this crisis.”

“I sensed vaguely that she was going to pay dearly for it all. . . .”

“Once, indeed, I did have a friend. But I was already a tyrant at heart; I wanted to exercise unbounded sway over him; I tried to instill into him a contempt for his surroundings; I required of him a disdainful and complete break with those surroundings. I frightened him with my passionate affection; I reduced him to tears, to hysterics. He was a simple and devoted soul; but when he devoted himself to me entirely I began to hate him immediately and repulsed him – as though all I needed him for was to win a victory over him, to subjugate him and nothing else. But I could not subjugate all of them; my friend was not at all like them either, he was, in fact, a rare exception.”

“The ambition of Caesar and of Napoleon pales before that which could not rest until it had seized the minds of men and controlled even their unborn thoughts.”

“Bertha is not my name. You are trying to make me into someone else, calling me by another name. I know, that’s obeah too.”

“I scarcely recognized her voice. No warmth, no sweetness. The doll had a doll’s voice, a breathless but curiously indifferent voice.”

“I must know more than I know already. For I know that house where I will be cold and not belonging, the bed I shall lie in has red curtains, and I have slept there many times before, long ago. How long ago? In that bed I will dream the end of my dream. But my dream had nothing to do with England and I must not think like this, I must remember about chandeliers and dancing, about swans and roses and snow.”

“As free as it wanted to be—that’s how free the free will of Boaz was.”

“Everything that every Earthling has ever done has been warped by creatures on a planet one-hundred-and-fifty thousand light years away. The name of the planet is Tralfamador.”

″A purpose of human life, no matter who is controlling it, is to love whoever is around to be loved.”

“At the hospital they even had to explain to Unk that there was a radio antenna under the crown of his skull, and that it would hurt him whenever he did something a good soldier wouldn’t ever do. The antenna also would give him orders and furnish drum music to march to. They said that not just Unk but everybody had an antenna like that—doctors and nurses and four-star generals included. It was a very democratic army, they said.”

“I was a victim of a series of accidents, as are we all.”

“The nature of the criminal justice system has changed. It is no longer primarily concerned with the prevention and punishment of crime, but rather with the management and control of the dispossessed.”

“Anything that causes you to overreact or under react can control you, and often does.”

“The Lady Adeline resolved to take Such measures as she thought might best impede The farther progress of this sad mistake.”

“Nothing is easier than stamping your foot and shouting: ‘That’s mine!’ It is immeasurably harder to proclaim: ‘You may live as you please.’ ”

“Why worry about things you can’t control when you can keep yourself busy controlling the things that depend on you?”

“So, Ariadne was the babe with the ball of twine and the plan.”

“The Panopticon is a marvelous machine which, whatever use one may wish to put it to, produces homogeneous effects of power.”

“We are not inviting—we are guarded. Most of our energy is spent trying to hide our true selves, and control our worlds to have some sense of security.”

“For a long time, he leaned against the wall with his eyes closed, trying to control the hurricane of feelings that shook him to his marrow.”

“With every second that went past, with every sentence she spoke, she felt a little strength flowing back. And now that she was doing something difficult and familiar and never quite predictable, namely lying, she felt a sort of mastery again, the same sense of complexity and control that the alethiometer gave her.”

“You see, control can never be a means to any practical end...It can never be a means to anything but more control...”

“In time of trouble, I had been trained since childhood, read, learn, work it up, go to the literature. Information was control.”

“He didnt know what was defeating him, but he sensed it was something he could not cope with, something that was far beyond his power to control or even at this point in time comprehend. ”

“He knew it was shameful not to be able to control one’s feelings. Tears, tender words, unruly gestures, common familiarities, all seemed to him weaknesses unworthy of man. We, who were so fond of each other, never exchanged an affectionate word.”

“You may not be able to control other people . . . but you can control how you react to them and their actions. This is an easy thing to say but much more difficult to do.”

“Now, for the first time ever, a story had escaped his control. It had taken on a life of its own, and all the imagination in the world would be insufficient to halt it. He felt numb.”

“Most civilization is based on cowardice. It’s so easy to civilize by teaching cowardice. You water down the standards which would lead to bravery. You restrain the will. You regulate the appetites. You fence in the horizons. You make a law for every movement. You deny the existence of chaos. You teach even the children to breathe slowly. You tame.”

“Property and mastery: nothing else counts. Earth will be monetized until all trees grow in straight lines, three people own all seven continents, and every living organism is bred to be slaughtered.”

“Somehow she sensed that what she had been caught doing was of a magnitude beyond usual punishment. And, deeper than that, she was aware of the complicity of the orphanage that had fed her and all the others on pills that would make them less restless, easier to deal with.”

“It is true for all of us that when an emotionally painful event occurs, and we tell ourselves it is our fault, we are actually saying that we have control of it: if we change, the pain will stop.”

“He wanted to keep the birds in his power.”

“My mouth is sore. My throat is sore. But it’s my soreness. I have control.”

“She looked at her nine guests, all of whom now had their eyes obediently closed as they awaited her instructions. Their destinies were in her hands. She was going to change them not just temporarily, but forever.”

“The chief task in life is simply this: to identify and separate matters so that I can say clearly to myself which are externals not under my control, and which have to do with the choices I actually control. Where then do I look for good and evil? Not to uncontrollable externals, but within myself to the choices that are my own...”

“To others gardening is a form of creative abandon. To me it is a way of exerting control upon my surroundings.”

“But also, I watch. I see everything and it gives me a strange kind of power, even if I’m the only one who’s aware of it.”

’Till at last the child’s mind is these suggestions, and the sum of the suggestions is the child’s mind. And not the child’s mind only. The adult’s mind too--all his life long. The mind that judges and desires and decides--made up of these suggestions. But all these suggestions are our suggestions!

“I should hardly call it ‘reasonable’ to lose your head,” said Antony, getting up from his chair and coming towards them.

I used to gloat over Mark, thinking how utterly he was mine to ruin as I pleased, financially, morally, whatever way would give me most satisfaction.

“Your clutch is on his life, and you cause him to die daily a living death; and still he knows you not.”

“I consider that I am the best judge of the propriety of the marriage in question. I am the only person possessing the right to dispose of my daughter’s hand. It is my wish that she should marry M. Franz d’Épinay—and she shall marry him.”

“He, the sovereign lord and master of a world which grinds the bodies and souls of human beings into dollars—

“I think for you; that’s enough for you. If I want you, I know where to find you; I don’t want you to find me.

“They snapped words over our heads, and they made us put on the white shirts worn by persons condemned to death.

So they don’t care to hide that they are tracking me like a pack of dogs.