You can’t manipulate people who know how to think for themselves.

You like to claim that you’re in charge of the world, but it’s as if the world hasn’t noticed and it does whatever it pleases in spite of you. You claim the sky is blue, but almost on a daily basis it betrays you.

Education can so easily unseat one’s confidence about the truth of the world, Mal noted privately.

True love is built on free will and free choice, not control and manipulation.

When you accidentally assert power over someone or something, one of two things will happen: 1) you will be respected; or 2) you will be hated

If you are an approval addict, your behaviour is as easy to control as that of any other junkie. All a manipulator need do is a simple two-step process: Give you what you crave, and then threaten to take it away. Every drug dealer in the world plays this game.