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Influence Quotes


"Poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world."


"If you hang out with chickens, you're going to cluck and if you hang out with eagles, you're going to fly."


"It's definitely an influence, I mean how can you not say you are influenced to play rock."


"In my opinion, Lenny Bruce was more of an influence on Zappa's satirical lyric's than anyone that I know of."


"But in simple substances the influence of one monad over another is ideal only."


"Who knows what would have become of me, if my parents had not had their influence on me."


"I consider every drummer that ever played before me an influence, in every way."


"It would be difficult to exaggerate the degree to which we are influenced by those we influence."


"Influence is a very unpleasant subject and I deal with it in a maybe irresponsible way, which is to really ignore it. It would be a nightmare if we started to really think about it; it would tie our hands, it would tie everyone else's hands."


"There was a writer in the '20s called Christopher Morley, who I remember a little bit of, who had some influence on me, but I couldn't tell you what it was."


"I'm proud of my mentors. Ray Charles is the strongest influence on me as a singer."


"The secret of my influence has always been that it remained secret."


"It's not about how smart you are--it's about capturing minds."


"I mean I think that Blondie's influence is a little bit in a way more eclectic than those bands."


"A guy called Arthur Brown... was a big influence of mine... and also Ian Anderson from Jethro Tull."


"Sergio Leone was a big influence on me because of the spaghetti westerns."


"I really do believe in the influence of your surroundings."


"Being with you makes people desire what you represent."



"There is only one way... to get anybody to do anything. And that is by making the other person want to do it."


"He could tell her that dogs used to look like cats and vice versa without a lick of proof and it would change the way she regarded the animals."


"They can shout down the head of the physics department at Cal Tech."


"Share your success stories with others. Don't brag, but don't hide your light. People want (and need) to be inspired and instructed. I know I want to follow and learn from successful people. Isn't that the basis for every business and self-help book? People will also give you good ideas to build on your own wins when you share openly. And when you write out your wins to an audience, your own ideas start to grow within you. Will you try? What's a win you've had lately? Don't be shy about it."


"And, well of course, Count Basie, and I think all of the black bands of the late thirties and early forties, bands with real players. They had an influence on everybody, not just drummers."


"Influence is to be measured, not by the extent of surface it covers, but by its kind."


"The speech of God's beautiful woman is a fountain of life to those around her."


"The rich are always advising the poor, but the poor seldom return the compliment."


"I think Stalin was afraid of Roosevelt. Whenever Roosevelt spoke, he sort of watched him with a certain awe. He was afraid of Roosevelt's influence in the world."


"In jazz, there is a lot of European influence harmonically."


"In order to influence a child, one must be careful not to be that child's parent or grandparent."


"Furthermore, and a point I really want to make very strongly, is that this is the first Administration since Herbert Hoover not to create a net gain in jobs in the course of its Administration."


"The interests of the United States are better served by demanding reform and seeing that reform takes place than by removing our influence from the UN."


"The other writer who had a very important early influence on me when I was about 17 was C.S. Lewis."


"The chief benefit, which results from philosophy, arises in an indirect manner, and proceeds more from its secret, insensible influence, than from its immediate application."



"When I was starting to write, the great influence was T.S. Eliot and after that William Butler Yeats."
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