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Put simply, manipulation is the act of influencing another person using deceptive tactics. No one likes being manipulated, but far too many of us are subject to it every day—from misleading ads and dishonest politicians to all of the toxic people you can’t seem to shake from your life.
Along those lines, emotional manipulation is the act of influencing the emotions of others using lies or other dishonest methods. As you think about the people in your life, it’s important to be able to distinguish the positive, healthy relationships from the ones that are counterproductive to your happiness.
Unfortunately, this isn’t an easy thing to do. Many toxic and manipulative people exhibit long-conditioned behaviors. As a result, they might not even be conscious of the negative impact it is having on those around them. Even if they are, changing such deeply conditioned behavior presents its own set of challenges.
If you want to be the author of your own story in life, you need to start moving toward the people that bring you joy and away from those people holding you back. This is much easier said than done, but we’ve collected a set of quotes to help inspire your personal pursuit of happiness and freedom from the manipulative forces in your life.
Famous Quotes About Manipulation
You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time. — Abraham Lincoln
Words are, of course, the most powerful drug used by mankind. — Rudyard Kipling
The most effective way to destroy people is to deny and obliterate their own understanding of their history. — George Orwell
Men are used as they use others. — Bidpai
An apology without change is just manipulation. — Unknown
If we inspire people, they will give us more than we asked for. If we manipulate them, they will give us exactly what we paid for. — Simon Sinek
There are two ways to be fooled. One is to believe what isn’t true; the other is to refuse to believe what is true. — Søren Kierkegaard
The basic tool for the manipulation of reality is the manipulation of words. If you can control the meaning of words, you can control the people who must use the words. — Philip K. Dick
Welcome to the human race. Nobody controls his own life, Ender. The best you can do is choose to fill the roles given you by good people, by people who love you. — Orson Scott Card
You are a manipulator. I like to think of myself more as an outcome engineer. — J.R. Ward
When you know what a man wants, you know who he is, and how to move him. — George R.R. Martin
Whosoever desires constant success must change his conduct with the times. — Niccolo Machiavelli
One must change one’s tactics every ten years if one wishes to maintain one’s superiority. — Napoleon Bonaparte
Manipulation Quotes About Power
The measure of a man is what he does with power. — Greek Proverb
The mind starts to do things that you didn’t even realize it could do. I suppose it’s the manipulation. I suppose it’s the sense of power, the center of attention, and the me-ism. And performers have to have that. — Johnny Carson
The principle that human nature, in its psychological aspects, is nothing more than a product of history and given social relations removes all barriers to coercion and manipulation by the powerful. — Noam Chomsky
Emotional blackmail is the use of fear, obligation and guilt to control another person. — Unknown
In most cases, energy is lost in little games of manipulation, in little struggles of will, in the attempts to possess others, to wrap them up, to delude them, to shine them on. — Frederick Lenz
Remember that any time you’re filled with resentment, you’re turning the controls of your emotional life over to others to manipulate. — Wayne Dyer
Manipulation can give you anything in life you want, if you can afford it. — M.F. Moonzajer
Foreknowledge of the future makes it possible to manipulate both enemies and supporters. — Raymond Aron
One of the methods of manipulation is to inoculate individuals with the bourgeois appetite for personal success. — Paulo Freire
Whoever controls the money controls you. — Sharon Law Tucker
We are dominated by the relatively small number of persons who understand the mental processes and social patterns of the masses. It is they who pull the wires which control the public mind. — Edward Bernays
The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organised habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country. — Edward Bernays
Manipulation, fueled with good intent, can be a blessing. But when used wickedly, it is the beginning of a magician’s karmic calamity. — T.F. Hodge
I do respect people’s faith, but I don’t respect their manipulation of that faith in order to create fear and control. — Javier Bardem
You can’t control the weather, but that doesn’t stop some people from trying. — Frank Sonnenberg
The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don’t have any. — Alice Walker
Domineering-types may appear omnipotent but, inevitably, will smother everything they love and lose all. — Stewart Stafford
Controllers, abusers and manipulative people don’t question themselves. They don’t ask themselves if the problem is them. They always say that the problem is someone else. — Darlene Ouimet
Manipulation Quotes About Deception
Everybody has the ability to be manipulative, to be hateful and deceitful. — Neil LaBute
Vision without integrity is not mission — it’s manipulation. — Howard G. Hendricks
The best way to manipulate a man is to make him think he is manipulating you. — John Smith
Manipulation aims to modify another person’s choices by directly, but clandestinely modifying a person’s psychology. — Michael Cholbi
Appear weak when you are strong, and strong when you are weak. — Sun Tzu
Just because something isn’t a lie does not mean that it isn’t deceptive. A liar knows that he is a liar, but one who speaks mere portions of truth in order to deceive is a craftsman of destruction. — Criss Jami
For manipulation to be most effective, evidence of its presence should be nonexistent. It is essential, therefore, that people who are manipulated believe in the neutrality of their key social institutions. — Herbert Schiller
Manipulation Quotes About the Media
The media’s the most powerful entity on earth. They have the power to make the innocent guilty and to make the guilty innocent, and that’s power. Because they control the minds of the masses. — Malcolm X
All writing is a form of manipulation, of course, but you realize that a plain sentence can actually do so much. — Colm Toibin
It’s so easy to manipulate an audience, but it’s nearly always clear that you are being manipulated. I think even people that are not critically attuned are aware of cynical manipulation in film. — John Boorman
If you’re not careful, the newspapers will have you hating the people who are being oppressed, and loving the people who are doing the oppressing. — Malcolm X
Television is by nature the dominator drug par excellence. Control of content, uniformity of content, repeatability of content make it inevitably a tool of coersion, brainwashing, and manipulation. — Terence McKenna
Poetry is a street fighter. It has sharp elbows. It can look after itself. Poetry can’t be used for manipulation; it’s why you never see good poetry in advertising. — David Whyte
We live in a world where unfortunately the distinction between true and false appears to become increasingly blurred by manipulation of facts, by exploitation of uncritical minds, and by the pollution of the language. — Arne Tiselius
Manipulation Quotes About Lying
I lie to myself all the time. But I never believe me. — S.E. Hinton
A lie told often enough becomes the truth. — Vladimir Ilyich Lenin
Lying is not only a defense mechanism; it’s also a coping mechanism and a survival technique. — Monica Raymund
I’m constantly lying to my dog. He only responds to manipulation and blackmail. — Riley Keough
Manipulating people is what’s so fun about poker. I love that you can just look into someone’s eyes and lie – and it’s perfectly acceptable. — Cheryl Hines
When it comes to controlling human beings, there is no better instrument than lies. Because you see, humans live by beliefs. And beliefs can be manipulated. The power to manipulate beliefs is the only thing that counts. — Michael Ende
Things come apart so easily when they have been held together with lies. — Dorothy Allison
Half of the people lie with their lips; the other half with their tears. — Nassim Nicholas Taleb
No one believes a liar. Even when she’s telling the truth. — Sara Shepard
There are three types of lies — lies, damn lies, and statistics. — Benjamin Disraeli
Above all, don’t lie to yourself. The man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to a point that he cannot distinguish the truth within him, or around him, and so loses all respect for himself and for others. And having no respect he ceases to love. — Fyodor Dostoyevsky
I’m not upset that you lied to me, I’m upset that from now on I can’t believe you. — Friedrich Nietzsche
The art of pleasing is the art of deception. — Luc De Clapiers
When it comes to controlling human beings, there is no better instrument than lies. Because you see, humans live by beliefs. And beliefs can be manipulated. The power to manipulate beliefs is the only thing that counts. — Michael Ende
Manipulation Quotes About Love
No love is conditional. If love is conditional, it’s just some sort of manipulation masquerading as love. — Donald Miller
Love comes when manipulation stops; when you think more about the other person than about his or her reactions to you. When you dare to reveal yourself fully. When you dare to be vulnerable. — Joyce Brothers
Genuine sincerity opens people’s hearts, while manipulation causes them to close. — Daisaku Ikeda
Don’t resort to blackmail or manipulation to get your way in your marriage. They both undermine love and trust. — Kemmy Nola
True love is built on free will and free choice, not control and manipulation. — Ken Poirot
Are you trying to manipulate me? It’s working. — Bridget Moynahan
And if I could make you understand one truth, it would be this. Someone who manipulates your feelings through guilt isn’t loving you. That’s an attempt to control you. And that has nothing to do with love. — JmStorm
Just because they keep coming back doesn’t mean it’s out of love. They kiss your ass, play the victim card, make you feel guilty for trying to move on and promise to change. Not because they are crazy in love but because they’re testing and experimenting with their control over you, trying to see which buttons they can push to get you to take them back. — Horacio Jones
Quotes About How to Avoid Manipulation
If you don’t give education to people, it is easy to manipulate them. — Pele
People will often try to make you feel guilty in order to manipulate you into doing something they want. But if you know who you are and trust in yourself, and know that you are doing the right thing, then stand strong for who you are and don’t be drawn into games that other people play. — Unknown
If you want to know the outcome of a game before the game has even started, you need to control each side. — David Icke
When people learn no tools of judgment and merely follow their hopes, the seeds of political manipulation are sown. — Stephen Jay Gould
You can’t manipulate people who know how to think for themselves. — Trish Mercer
Guilt trips are a passive-aggressive form of manipulation and bullying. They are designed to give the manipulator exactly what they want at your expense. Your feelings and needs don’t matter. By refusing to play their games and act or feel guilty, you disarm them and they lose their power over you. — Unknown
Belief can be manipulated. Only knowledge is dangerous. — Frank Herbert
One should be able to control and manipulate experiences with an informed and intelligent mind. — Sylvia Plath
Free will does not mean one will, but many wills conflicting in one man. — Flannery O’Connor
Manipulation is moving someone’s settings away from the ideal in ways that are typically not in her self-interest, or likely not in her self-interest in the present context. — Robert Noggle
Psychopaths view any social exchange as a ‘feeding opportunity,’ a contest or a test of wills in which there can be only one winner. Their motives are to manipulate and take, ruthlessly and without remorse. — Robert D. Hare
The enemy of the black is not the white. The enemy of capitalist is not communist, the enemy of homosexual is not heterosexual, the enemy of Jew is not Arab, the enemy of youth is not the old, the enemy of hip is not redneck, the enemy of Chicano is not gringo and the enemy of women is not men. We all have the same enemy. The enemy is the tyranny of the dull mind. The enemy is every expert who practices technocratic manipulation, the enemy is every proponent of standardization and the enemy is every victim who is so dull and lazy and weak as to allow himself to be manipulated and standardized. — Tom Robbins
Manipulation is moving together for my advantage. Motivation is moving together for mutual advantage. — John C. Maxwell
A mind attacked and conquered is guided easily away from the paths of its own soul. — Ayi Kwei Armah
If there is no honesty, there is no relationship. The only degree to which there is a relationship is the degree to which you are honest. Expressing your clear desires does not make you a dictator and you telling what you think, feel, and what you want or don’t want, is just called being honest. It doesn’t control him at all. You’re trying to control others by withholding information by not getting involved and by not being honest. Withholding information is a form of manipulation. It is dishonest and it’s destructive to a relationship. — Stefan Molyneux
When you acquire enough inner peace and feel really positive about yourself, it’s almost impossible for you to be controlled and manipulated by anybody else. — Wayne Dyer
