Manipulated Quotes

“The nature of psychological compulsion is such that those who act under constraint remain under the impression that they are acting on their own initiative. The victim of mind-manipulation does not know that he is a victim. To him the walls of his prison are invisible, and he believes himself to be free. That he is not free is apparent only to other people. His servitude is strictly objective.”
― Aldous Huxley, Brave New World / Brave New World Revisited

“so often victims end up unnecessarily prolonging their abuse because they buy into the notion that their abuser must be coming from a wounded place and that only patient love and tolerance (and lots of misguided therapy) will help them heal.”
― George K. Simon

“One of the greatest challenge facing young people today, is the
large scale availability of half truth’s and manipulated facts”
― Oche Otorkpa, The Unseen Terrorist

“There is nothing spiritual about a marriage that uses guilt, blame, shame or religious manipulations to keep a relationship together.”
― Shannon L. Alder

“Staying for your children is noble. However, staying with someone that teaches your children that "selective" evilness is okay is mental illness.”
― Shannon L. Alder

“I suppose the real reason Ginny Weasley's like this is because she opened her heart and spilled all her secrets to an invisible stranger."
"What are you talking about?" said Harry.
"The diary," said Riddle. "My diary. Little Ginny's been writing in it for months and months, telling me all her pitiful worries and woes- how her brothers tease her, how she had come to school with secondhand robes and books, how"- Riddle's eyes glinted- "how she didn't think famous, good, great Harry Potter would ever like her..."
All the time he spoke, Riddle's eyes never left Harry's face. There was an almost hungry look in them.
"It's very boring, having to listen to the silly little troubles of an eleven-year-old girl," he went on. "But I was patient. I wrote back. I was sympathetic, I was kind. Ginny simply loved me. No one's ever understood me like you, Tom... I'm so glad I've got this diary to confide in.... It's like having a friend I can carry around in my pocket...."
Riddle laughed, a high, cold laugh that didn't suit him. It made the hairs stand up on the back of Harry's neck.
"If I say it myself, Harry, I've always been able to charm the people I needed. So Ginny poured out her soul to me, and her soul happened to be exactly what I wanted.... I grew stronger and stronger on a diet of her deepest fears, her darkest secrets. I grew powerful, more powerful than little Miss Weasley. Powerful enough to start feeding Miss Weasley a few of my secrets, to start pouring a little of my soul into her..."
"What d'you mean?" said Harry, whose mouth had gone dry.
"Haven't you guessed yet, Harry Potter?" said Riddle softly. "Ginny Weasley opened the Chamber of Secrets. She strangled the school roosters and daubed threatening messages on the walls. She set the Serpent of Slytherin on four Mudbloods, and the Squib's cat."
"No," Harry whispered.
"Yes," said Riddle, calmly. "Of course, she didn't know what she was doing at first. It was very amusing. I wish you could have seen her new diary entries... far more interesting, they became... Dear Tom," he recited, watching Harry's horrified face, "I think I'm losing my memory. There are rooster feathers all over my robes and I don't know how they got there. Dear Tom, I can't remember what I did on the night of Halloween, but a cat was attacked and I've got paint all down my front. Dear Tom, Percy keeps telling me I'm pale and I'm not myself. I think he suspects me.... There was another attack today and I don't know where I was. Tom, what am I going to do? I think I'm going mad.... I think I'm the one attacking everyone, Tom!”
― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

“[E]ven our most personal decisions about caring for our bodies have long been influenced and manipulated by larger power structures.”
― James Hamblin, Clean: The New Science of Skin

“At the end, a journey based on my imagination will leave me imagining that I should have engaged the very thing I used my imagination to avoid.”
― Craig D. Lounsbrough

“One of the most dangerous things in life is to live in the worship of something that we don’t even realize we’re worshipping.”
― Craig D. Lounsbrough

“This is the lure of all things destructive, in that they have us equate what feels good as being good.”
― Craig D. Lounsbrough

“Don’t fool yourself with destructive ideals cloaked in clever justifications or soothingly wrapped in smooth verbiage. For in the end, these are not the things that fool you. Rather, it is the fact that you’ve granted them permission to fool you.”
― Craig D. Lounsbrough

“Everyone has been manipulated in one way or another, to some extent. by others or societies organisations.”
― Steven Redhead, Life Is A Circus

“It is my prayer that we would stop for a moment, turn off the voices that clamor for our allegiance, put aside the incessant rant of political agendas, and sit with ourselves for just a moment. And in the quiet of that moment, listen to your heart. For what you will hear is not all that far removed from the people that the ‘voices’ and ‘agendas’ claim to be your enemies.”
― Craig D. Lounsbrough

“Florida manipulated the world’s media to report a much lower number of dead than what was being found by law enforcement in the hurricane Ian disaster.”
― Steven Magee

“A manipulator puts his hand on your shoulder to sit on your neck.”
― Tamerlan Kuzgov

“It was nice that this type of peer pressure wasn’t going to get me arrested. I’d become so used to getting manipulated and talked into things, it took me a while to realize this was different. They weren’t pressing their ways on me at all. They were just grateful to live in God’s promises in the present and to be free from the binding ways of their own pasts. They cut time out each morning so they could slow down, be intentional, study an impactful life lesson, rest in God, and put on the right attitude before setting out on their day.”
― Michael J Heil, Pursued: God’s relentless pursuit and a drug addict’s journey to finding purpose