100 Quotes About Influence

It’s easy to be influenced by the people and events around us. It’s not always easy to see those who influence us, but we can learn from those who do. The library of motivational and inspirational quotes below provides a wonderful source of insight and inspiration for anyone seeking to better themselves and the world around them.

One of the best ways to influence people is to...
1
One of the best ways to influence people is to make them feel important. Roy T. Bennett
We never know which lives we influence, or when, or...
2
We never know which lives we influence, or when, or why. Stephen King
One of the best ways to influence people is to...
3
One of the best ways to influence people is to make those around you feel important. Roy T. Bennett
Influence is everything. One wrong influence can single handedly destroy...
4
Influence is everything. One wrong influence can single handedly destroy every bit of your innocence and innocence is the root of all wisdom. John Maiorana (oohGiovanni)
Separation Your absence has gone through me Like thread through...
5
Separation Your absence has gone through me Like thread through a needle. Everything I do is stitched with its color. W.S. Merwin
6
As the second decade of the twenty-first century has worn on, politicians of all stripes, aware of the political power of the unmarried woman yet seemingly incapable of understanding female life outside of a marital context, have come to rely on a metaphor in which American women, no longer bound to men, are binding themselves to government. Rebecca Traister
Reduce the influence of religion upon your life.
7
Reduce the influence of religion upon your life. Sunday Adelaja
8
There is no such thing as a good influence. Because to influence a person is to give him one's own soul. He does not think his natural thoughts, or burn with his natural passions. His virtures are not real to him. His sins, if there are such thing as sins, are borrowed. He becomes an echo of someone else's music, an actor of a part that has not been written for him. Oscar Wilde
The key to successful leadership is influence, not authority.
9
The key to successful leadership is influence, not authority. Kenneth H. Blanchard
10
Your influence on others is your net worth, treat it as such. Peprah Boasiako
11
Leadership is influencing others through modeling. Farshad Asl
12
When leaders lead in ways that people’s brains can follow, good results follow as well. Henry Cloud
13
As a leader, you are always going to get a combination of two things: What you create and What you allow. Henry Cloud
14
The power to influence flows to the person with the most information. Dr. Rob Pennington
15
The political mind is the product of men in public life who have been twice spoiled. They have been spoiled with praise and they have been spoiled with abuse. — Calvin Coolidge David Pietrusza
16
Now even reformers needed political machines. Rick Perlstein
17
I thought it best to add nothing further, to let the line of his thought lead him to his own conclusions. Geraldine Brooks
18
He disliked the social obligations of the captaincy. Erik Larson
19
Bring it down." Veteran leader Han Solo's correction to the overbearing swagger bike which his protégé is attempting to force his will on others. Unknown
20
The towering genius is not apolitical. Richard Brookhiser
21
I simply love Drosera plants! Those tentacles, I love those tentacles...~ Aarush Kashyap Kirtida Gautam
22
Music’s the soundtrack of my life and has been since I was a teenager. There’s always music. If I’m not playing it, I’m listening to it. With my writing…sometimes it inspires a story, sometimes it highlights something I’m working on, sometimes it simply helps me stay in the narrative mood. Charles De Lint
23
Led Zeppelin created their music from a diet of Bert Jansch, Memphis Minnie, John Fahey, Billy Fury, Phil Spector, Richard 'Rabbit' Brown, Moby Grape, Manitas De Plata and Om Kalsoum. Those who came afterwards were content with a diet of Led Zeppelin, which is not the same thing at all. David Hepworth
24
Power is nothing unless you can turn it into influence. Condoleezza Rice
25
They have influence, but no power." "In my experience, influence is power. Orson Scott Card
26
On Andrew Jackson: "His native strength compelled every man to be his tool that came within his reach; and the more cunning the individual might be, it served only to make him a sharper tool. Nathaniel Hawthorne
27
Perception, influenced by experience and knowledge creates an acceptable level of reality. Kamil Ali
28
Don’t accept any negative criticism and negative thoughts. Lailah Gifty Akita
29
A year from today, it will be Good if your life is positively different, but GREAT if your life has made a positive difference on others Fela Durotoye
30
You must maintain a state of happiness, state of joy to let the positive thoughts emanate from your mind.. If you are in a state of joy, your thoughts emanate positive energy, and you can influence others without much efforts. Girdhar Joshi
31
What is the good of influence if one can only use it on strangers? Chris Cleave
32
Through positive civil actions, the church can influence the society. Sunday Adelaja
33
It is the crimson tongue that paints the world others think they see. A.J. Darkholme
34
Nothing has a greater influence over your life than your thoughts rather they are negative or positive. Tasha Hoggatt
35
To wait at Monte Cristo for the purpose of watching like a dragon over the almost incalculable richs that had thus fallen into his possession satisfied not the cravings of his heart, which yearned to return to dwell among mankind, and to assume the rank, power, and influence which are always accorded to wealth – that first and greatest of all the forces within the grasp of man. Alexandre Dumas
36
How many people came and stayed a certain time, Uttered light or dark speech that became part of you Like light behind windblown fog and sand Filtered and influenced by it, until no part Remains that is surely you. John Ashbery
37
The past influences everything and dictates nothing. Adam Phillips
38
If you believe that your thoughts originate inside your brain, do you also believe that television shows are made inside your television set? Warren Ellis
39
What we are most passionate about becomes our legacy. Mike Crump
40
The best teachers are those that can influence even the poorest of all learners. Kim Panti
41
The circularity of influence was like a trail of dominoes falling in four dimensions. Each time one slapped another and fell to the ground, from a different vantage point it appeared knocked upright, ready to be slapped and fall again. Everything was not merely relative, it was--how to put it? --relevant. Representational. Revealing. Referential and reverential both. Gregory Maguire
42
It is safe to assume that any individual or group you wish to influence has access to more wisdom than they currently use. It is also safe to assume that they also have considerably more facts than they can process effectively. Giving them even more facts adds to the wrong pile. They don't need more facts. They need help finding their wisdom. Contrary to popular belief, bad decisions are rarely made because people don't have all the facts. Annette Simmons
43
Thought is yours only. Nobody can alter or influence the use you mean to make of it. Agatha Christie
44
A parent gives life, but as parent, gives no more. A murderer takes life, but his deed stops there. A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell where his influence stops. Henry Adams
45
I don’t think this kind of thing [satire] has an impact on the unconverted, frankly. It’s not even preaching to the converted; it’s titillating the converted. I think the people who say we need satire often mean, ‘We need satire of them, not of us.’ I’m fond of quoting Peter Cook, who talked about the satirical Berlin cabarets of the ’30s, which did so much to stop the rise of Hitler and prevent the Second World War. Tom Lehrer
46
My own personality, which was molded by the furnace of time and circumstances… strengthened by the touchstone of varied experiences, has changed a bit due to the benevolence and graciousness of people around me but I have never felt trapped in the nets of influence. Balroop Singh
47
The level of a leader is determined by his sphere of influence Sunday Adelaja
48
Great leadership is not about giving orders, it's about taking others Saji Ijiyemi
49
I find that, as a rule, when a thing is a wonder to us it is not because of what we see in it, but because of what others have seen in it. We get almost all our wonders at second hand. Mark Twain
50
He didn't realize that simply by mingling among various lunch tables, he was befriending people in different crowds, weaving together the fringes of the cafeteria. Alexandra Robbins
51
Chits knew no ideology. Rick Perlstein
52
The cost of independence has dropped. Jeff Jarvis
53
Whoever controls the media, the images, controls the culture. Allen Ginsberg
54
Don't walk in my head with your dirty feet. Leo Buscaglia
55
The secret of my influence has always been that it remained secret. Unknown
56
History would indicate that the majority of people have always been sheep. Scott Westerfeld
57
A life isn't significant except for its impact on other lives. Jackie Robinson
58
I am your opus. Sylvia Plath
59
There was something terribly enthralling in the exercise of influence. No other activity was like it. To project one's soul into some gracious form, and let it tarry there for a moment; to hear one's own intellectual views echoed back to one with all the added music of passion and youth; to convey one's temperament into another as though it were a subtle fluid or a strange perfume: there was a real joy in that--perhaps the most satisfying joy left to us in an age so limited and vulgar as our own, an age grossly carnal in its pleasures, and grossly common in its aims.. Oscar Wilde
60
The thing that struck me was his intensity. Whatever he was interested in he would generally carry to an irrational extreme." Jobs had honed his trick of using stares and silences to master other people. " One of his numbers was to stare at the person he was talking to. He would stare into their fucking eyeballs, ask some question, and would want a response without the other person averting their eyes. . Walter Isaacson
61
Steve's head dropped and stared at his feet. After a weighty, uncomfortable pause, he issued a challenge that would haunt me for days. " Do you want to spend the rest of your life selling sugared water, or do you want a chance to change the world?" Sculley felt as if he had been punched in the stomach. There was no response possible other than to acquiesce. " He had a uncanny ability to always get what he wanted, to size up a person and know exactly what to say to reach a person, " Sculley recalled. Walter Isaacson
62
You don't have to be a person of influence to be influential. In fact, the most influential people in my life are probably not even aware of the things they've taught me. Scott Adams
63
You can't truly, deeply and sustainably motivate anybody until you know what their motives are - what motivates them...? Rasheed Ogunlaru
64
My students often ask me, 'What is sociology?' And I tell them, 'It's the study of the way in which human beings are shaped by things that they don't see. Sam Richards
65
Women work a good many miracles and I have a persuasion that they may preform even that of raising the standard of manhood by refusing to echo such sayings. Let the boys be boys the longer the better and let the young men sew their wild oats if they must, but mothers, sisters and friends may help to make the crop a small one and keep many tares from spoiling the harvest by believing and showing that they believe in the possibility of loyalty to the virtues which make men manliest in good women's eyes. Louisa May Alcott
66
Influence is having people follow you because of what you represent, Paul Larsen
67
You can't make a difference, if you don't know what it is. R.A.Delmonico
68
Never underestimate the influence you have on others. Laurie Buchanan
69
Sometimes the most influential thing we can do is listen. Bob Burg
70
Writers are influenced by their upbringing and experiences. But they are also influenced by the writings of others, the major historical events of their times and the great public and literary figures to whom they are exposed. Joseph Kenyon
71
The only way to neutralize the effect of public journals is to multiply them indefinitely. Alexis De Tocqueville
72
Welcome to the ‘Age of Influence, ’ where anyone can build an audience and effect change, advocate brands, build relationships and make a difference. Ted Rubin
73
Let your gift of positive influence to be roused and spread like a wildfire from the east to the west and from the south to the north. All nations are waiting for it. Euginia Herlihy
74
You were born to influence, you were called to influence, your existence is a great influence to all nations. Euginia Herlihy
75
Your gift of positive influence will open the eyes of many people. They'll be able to recognise their personal values which will lead them to live authentic lives and achieve the impossible. Euginia Herlihy
76
Contemporaries of Alexander Hamilton noticed "his conspicuous sense of self-possession, his unique combination of serenity and energy. Joseph J. Ellis
77
Its size, the House was an environment in which, as one observer put it, members “could be dealt with only in bodies and droves. Robert A. Caro
78
While Lyndon Johnson was not, as his two assistants knew, a reader of books, he was, they knew, a reader of men– a great reader of men. Robert A. Caro
79
Few emotions are more ephemeral in the political world than gratitude: appreciation for past favors. Far less ephemeral, however, is hope: the hope of future favors. Far less ephemeral is fear, the fear that in the future, favors may be denied. Robert A. Caro
80
People fail to realize there's a difference in kinds of money. There is old money and there is new money. Old money has political power but new money has only purchasing power. (1963) LIFE Magazine
81
We Are Interested In Others When They Are Interested In Us Publilius Syrus
82
For the first time ever we sympathized with the President because we saw how wildly our sphere of influence was misrepresented by those in no position to know what was going on. Jeffrey Eugenides
83
We influence others most profoundly when we do not seek to change them at all, but simply go about straightforwardly doing the right and loving thing. C. Terry Warner
84
The cafeteria made him feel like an observer rather than a participant in the high school experience. Alexandra Robbins
85
Our own way is what our heart wants, and do not let others influence us. Jan Jansen
86
Jason (Elam, a Christian) is the kid in high school who gets along equally well with the jocks, the brains, the geeks, and the slackers, and influences their behavior. Stefan Fatsis
87
The newly-minted captain admits the irony between the gold on his shoulders and the lack of gold in his pockets. Patrick OBrian
88
Don't let others influence your life... make your own decisions if you want your life to be governed by self.... That's lesson for self... learn it to avoid tensions and problems in your life... Debolina Bhawal
89
The great actors always play themselves. Scott Farris
90
A newcomer could ascertain the identity of a town's true leaders — which storekeeper was respected, which farmer was listened to other farmers — only through endless hours of subtle probing of reticent men. Robert A. Caro
91
She thinks that charm is a form of intelligence, and she respects the intelligence. Brooke Hauser
92
One biographer said Kennedy lived along the line where charm became power. Scott Farris
93
The have influence, but no power."" In my experience, influence is power. Orson Scott Card
94
Steve's sales pitch on the NeXT operating system was dazzling, " according to Amelio. " He praised the virtues and strengths as though he were describing a performance of Oliver as Macbeth. Walter Isaacson
95
The gap (between intellectuals and politicians) divides writing hands, talking heads and thinking minds of this country into two sections. One section flaunts academic achievements to make up for shortfalls in intelligence. The other asserts intelligence to camouflage deficiencies in academic excellence. In short, our intellectuals are torn by the dilemma whether they ought to carry their brains in their mouths, or mouths in their brains. . Mohammad Badrul Ahsan
96
Most of the things you absorb you will ultimately secrete. Tom Waits
97
In my experience, influence is power. Orson Scott Card
98
As Friedland had done and as Jobs would learn to do, he was able to turn charm into a cunning force, to cajole and intimidate and distort reality with the power of his personality Walter Isaacson
99
Serving people is the best way to earn influence. Jeff Goins
100
In most cases, those who want power probably shouldn't have it, those who enjoy it probably do so for the wrong reasons, and those who want most to hold on to it don't understand that it's only temporary. John C. Maxwell