By Manipulation quotes involve the utilization of techniques to influence or pressurize individuals into carrying out actions according to their desires, even if those actions deviate from their typical behavior. At times, we all find ourselves manipulating others, whether consciously or inadvertently. Certain individuals exhibit a high degree of manipulative and controlling tendencies, demonstrating a refined mastery of manipulation. These individuals fall into the category of toxic personalities, from whom it is prudent to maintain a safe distance.
Regrettably, our awareness of how to avoid manipulative individuals often arises from personal encounters. If you have ever been subject to manipulation, you are familiar with its potential impact on your sense of self. However, such experiences do impart invaluable lessons.
Read on and discover 100 manipulation quotes that will help you understand this topic better and take back your power!
Quotes on Manipulators
1. Self-hatred is the best vehicle for making people do as they’re told because they are hungry to get approval.
Melinda Gebbie
2. People turned against each other cannot turn against those responsible.
DaShanne Stokes
3. Nothing manipulates people more than the desire to please.
Zoe Durlock
4. Appear weak when you are strong, and strong when you are weak.
Sun Tzu
5. 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
6. Half of the people lie with their lips; the other half with their tears.
Nassim Nicholas Taleb
7. It is invisible hands that torment and bend us the worst.
Friedrich Nietzsche
8. Manipulation is a contagious disease, much more dangerous than the flu because it can endure for a lifetime.
Dorothy McCoy
9. Manipulation can give you anything in life you want – if you can afford it.
M.F. Moonzajer
10. True love is built on free will and free choice, not control and manipulation.
Ken Poirot
11. We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of.
Edward Bernays
12. You can’t manipulate people who know how to think for themselves.
Trish Mercer
13. Guilt is a special kind of manipulation tactic.
D.T Bloom
14. The success of the manipulation depends on the level of conviction and force of the denial.
Tess Binder
15. When people learn no tools of judgment and merely follow their hopes, the seeds of political manipulation are sown.
Stephen Jay Gould
16. The best way to manipulate a man is to make him think he is manipulating you.
John Smith
17. When you know what a man wants, you know who he is, and how to move him.
George R.R. Martin
18. The art of pleasing is the art of deception.
Luc De Clapiers
19. Almost all people are hypnotics. The proper authority saw to it that the proper belief should be induced, and the people believed properly.
Charles Fort
20. It was easier to manipulate someone if they didn’t perceive you as a threat.
Stephanie Wrobel
Toxic Manipulative Quotes
Delve into a compilation of quotes that shed light on toxic manipulation. These succinct yet impactful phrases offer insights into recognizing, understanding, and guarding against manipulative behavior, fostering a heightened awareness in dealing with such challenges.
21. The people who would like to manipulate and use you won’t tell you your blind spots. They may plan to continue using them to their advantage.
Assegid Habtewold
22. Playing with people’s feelings through manipulation is a way of controlling their hearts.
Ron Prat
23. In a dependent relationship, the protégé can always control the protector by threatening to collapse.
Barbara W. Tuchman
24. Manipulating people always involves utilizing a half-truth or a lie in order to achieve a certain goal.
Ralf Juhre
25. When people learn no tools of judgment and merely follow their hopes, the seeds of political manipulation are sown.
Stephen Jay Gould
26. Manipulation for good purpose is still a manipulation. Sometimes actions triumph over intentions.
Sarvesh Jain
27. But it isn’t really words that manipulate reality, it is the manipulation of words and that is something speakers and writers do.
James Paul Gee
28. We cannot have a society, in which, if two people wish to communicate the only way that can happen is if it’s financed by a third person who wishes to manipulate them.
Jaron Lanier
29. A person who does not reign in their ambition can be persuaded and manipulated into doing things that are morally and ethically wrong just so that they can meet their goals.
James W. Williams
30. Vision without integrity is not mission – it’s manipulation.
Howard G. Hendricks
31. The publicists of mass-production economics have successfully altered public taste to believe it doesn’t make sense to repair something old when for the same price you can have something new.
John Taylor Gatto
32. You can’t manipulate people who know how to think for themselves.
Trish Mercer
33. Because of our built-in insecurity, we are very sensitive when it is manipulated.
Rick Tobin
34. I like to think of myself more as an outcome engineer.
J.R. Ward
35. 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
36. For to deceive someone by manipulation is to distort their relationship with the world, and that will always threaten to undermine the calmness and steadiness of mind upon which their retention of the practice of truth depends.
Jonardon Ganeri
37. 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
38. Often enough the manipulator approaches, stimulates, or even creates a powerful wish or a strong desire in the target’s mind.
Sapir Handelman
39. Guilt is a special kind of manipulation tactic.
D.T Bloom
40. Some people pretend to be the beach, but they are actually quicksand.
Steve Maraboli
Quotes About Manipulative People
Discover a selection of quotes that delve into the complex nature of manipulative individuals. These quotes provide a glimpse into the art of manipulation, shedding light on the tactics employed by such people and offering perspectives on how to navigate their influence. Gain valuable insights into identifying and dealing with manipulative behavior through the wisdom encapsulated in these thought-provoking quotes.
41. Nothing manipulates people more than the desire to please.
Zoe Durlock
42. Genuine sincerity opens people’s hearts, while manipulation causes them to close.
Daisaku Ikeda
43. Aggressive or manipulative people do not consider the other person’s point of view; they will take at the expense of others.
Richard Malthouse
44. A mind attacked and conquered is guided easily away from the paths of its own soul.
Ayi Kwei Armah
45. Manipulative people are those who wish to be loved on their own terms.
David S. Viscott
46. I know that we create our own reality, but dealing with manipulation is an uncomfortable lesson that many have had to learn.
Zoe Hagon
47. The most effective way to destroy people is to deny and obliterate their own understanding of their history.
George Orwell
48. Yes, he took care of me and helped me, but these good deeds were the water to make his seed of manipulation grow.
Abigail Osborne
49. Women work very hard to prevent or stop their sons from being manipulated by their women, like their sons’ fathers were or are being manipulated by their sons’ mothers.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
50. When someone tells you that there is no agenda, you can be certain there is nothing but an agenda.
Craig D. Lounsbrough
51. 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
52. 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
53. When we allow another to alter our thinking, it can take a long time to return to our previous reality. That’s the awesome power of manipulation.
Ryan James
54. 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
55. The maniacal lunatics in control of our society know exactly how human beings tick and they are masters at manipulation.
Bruce McDonald
56. When you know what a man wants you know who he is, and how to move him.
George R.R. Martin
57. The ultimate manipulation is to kill someone, and sociopathy is murderous in a psychological sense – there’s a kind of soul-murder going on.
Martha Stout
58. Manipulation is a contagious disease, much more dangerous than the flu because it can endure for a lifetime.
Dorothy Mccoy
59. Belief can be manipulated. Only knowledge is dangerous.
Frank Herbert
60. To toy with something is to manipulate it, to try it out within sets of contexts none of which is determinate.
Susan Stewart
Manipulators Quotes
61. Because to take away a man’s freedom of choice, even his freedom to make the wrong choice, is to manipulate him as though he were a puppet and not a person.
Madeline L’Engle
62. Full of wiles, full of guile, at all times, in all ways, are the children of Men.
Aristophanes
63. Love without sacrifice is like theft.
Nassim Nicholas Taleb
64. You can rule ignorance; you can manipulate the illiterate; you can do whatever you want when a people are uneducated, so that goes in line with corrupt business and corrupt politics.
will.i.am
65. Is there any point in public debate in a society where hardly anyone has been taught how to think, while millions have been taught what to think?
Peter Hitchens
66. Until you realize how easy it is for your mind to be manipulated, you remain the puppet of someone else’s game.
Evita Ochel
67. Why am I letting you comfort me?” He stared over her head. Because I’ve made sure you have no one else to turn to.
Kresley Cole
68. Good words are not persuasive; persuasive words are not good.
Lao Tzu
69. I’m constantly lying to my dog. He only responds to manipulation and blackmail.
Riley Keough
70. If you don’t give education to people, it is easy to manipulate them.
Pele
71. If you can manipulate news, a judge can manipulate the law. A smart lawyer can keep a killer out of jail, a smart accountant can keep a thief from paying taxes, a smart reporter could ruin your reputation – unfairly.
Mario Cuomo
72. Everybody has the ability to be manipulative, to be hateful and deceitful.
Neil LaBute
73. True love is built on free will and free choice, not control and manipulation.
Ken Poirot
74. The best way to manipulate a man is to make him think he is manipulating you.
John Smith
75. Manipulation can give you anything in life you want, if you can afford it.
M.F. Moonzajer
76. Manipulation. Domination. Control. These are the three watchwords of violent serial offenders.
John E. Douglas
77. Commercials … provide a slogan … that creates for viewers a comprehensive and compelling image of themselves.
Neil Postman
78. Things come apart so easily when they have been held together with lies.
Dorothy Allison
79. Joy bursts in our lives when we go about doing the good at hand and not trying to manipulate things and times to achieve joy.
C. S. Lewis
80. Rigged games are the easiest ones to beat.
Neil Gaiman
81. 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
82. The art of pleasing is the art of deception.
Luc De Clapiers
83. Those without heritage, history, and place are subject to exploitation, manipulation, and deception.
Wayne Gerard Trotman
84. 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
85. Will people ever be wise enough to refuse to follow bad leaders or to take away the freedom of other people?
Eleanor Roosevelt
86. When they can no longer control or manipulate you, they smear you.
Steve Maraboli
87. One must change one’s tactics every ten years if one wishes to maintain one’s superiority.
Napoleon Bonaparte
88. If you want to continue to play, never become a pawn!
Lamine Pearlheart
89. oxic people attach themselves like cinder blocks tied to your ankles, and then invite you for a swim in their poisoned waters.
John Mark Green
90. Words are, of course, the most powerful drug used by mankind.
Rudyard Kipling
Concluding our compilation of manipulation quotes, we trust that a selection of these quotes might aid you in attaining a sense of equilibrium and outlook when it comes to manipulative conduct within your personal sphere.
Navigating encounters with various forms of toxic individuals can present formidable hurdles, often eroding your mental well-being in the process.
