“Manipulation is the use of power or influence to control or change someone’s behavior.” – Wikipedia.
It’s no secret that people often try to manipulate others in order to get what they want. Whether it’s a spouse trying to get their partner to do something, a boss trying to get their employee to work harder, or a friend trying to get another friend not to be mad, manipulation is everywhere. In some cases, it can be harmless; but in other cases, it can be harmful and abusive. Here are 150 quotes about manipulation that will help you stand up for yourself and make your voice heard!
Manipulation Quotes
- “Jealousy’s a weak emotion.” – Jay-Z
- “Men are used as they use others.” – Bidpai
- “No one has the patent on you.” – Katie St. Claire
- “Jealousy is such an ugly emotion.” – Cassandra Clare
- “Life is a constant daily manipulation.” – Deyth Banger
- “The magic of love manipulates our bodies.” – G. G. Bolich
- “An apology without change is just manipulation.” – Unknown
- “Guilt is a special kind of manipulation tactic.” – D.T Bloom
- “Whoever controls the money controls you. – Sharon Law Tucker
- “Betrayal, abandonment, deceit and manipulation.” – Bill Cosby
- “I measured love by the extent of my jealousy.” – Graham Greene
- “The art of pleasing is the art of deception.” – Luc De Clapiers
- “The only way to win a toxic person, is not to play.” – Mark Twain
- “The measure of a man is what he does with power.” – Greek Proverb
- “Are you trying to manipulate me? It’s working.” – Bridget Moynahan
- “The only way to win with a toxic person, is not to play.” – Unknown
- “A manipulator is a liar and liar never look in the eye while lying.”
- “I lie to myself all the time. But I never believe me.” – S.E. Hinton
- “I might be manipulating you to create risk for myself.” – Sharon Stone
- “Belief can be manipulated. Only knowledge is dangerous.” – Frank Herbert
- “Nothing manipulates people more than the desire to please.” – Zoe Durlock
- “Appear weak when you are strong, and strong when you are weak.” – Sun Tzu
- “No one believes a liar. Even when she’s telling the truth.” – Sara Shepard
- “Treat manipulative and toxic people not as villains but rather as patients.”
- “If you don’t give education to people, it is easy to manipulate them.” – Pele
- “A heart of manipulation is to be empathized without being touched.” – Unknown
- “Words are, of course, the most powerful drug used by mankind.” – Rudyard Kipling
- “The heart of manipulation is to empathize without being touched.” – Vernor Vinge
- “People who feel the need to control others, don’t have control over themselves.” – Unknown
- “You can’t manipulate people who know how to think for themselves.” – Trish Mercer
- “Beware; for I am fearless, and therefore powerful.” – Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
- “A heart of manipulation is to be empathized without being touched.” – Vernor Vinge
- “Vision without integrity is not mission – it’s manipulation.” – Howard G. Hendricks
- “I’m manipulating the audience. I’m making sure people sympathize.” – Melinda Clarke
- “When they can no longer control or manipulate you, they smear you.” – Steve Maraboli
- “Manipulation is when they blame you for your reaction to their disrespect.” – Unknown
- “There are three types of lies – lies, damn lies, and statistics.” – Benjamin Disraeli
- “I have no interest in trying to manipulate people’s emotions or opinions.” – Sarah Kane
- “Some people pretend to be the beach, but they are actually quicksand.” – Steve Maraboli
- “Everybody has the ability to be manipulative, to be hateful and deceitful.” – Neil LaBute
- “Toxic people will pollute everything around them. Don’t hesitate. Fumigate.” – Mandy Hale
- “You are a manipulator. I like to think of myself more as an outcome engineer.” – J.R. Ward
- “Manipulative people are those who wish to be loved on their own terms.” – David S. Viscott
- “People turned against each other cannot turn against those responsible.” – DaShanne Stokes
- “The best way to manipulate a man is to make him think he is manipulating you.” – John Smith
- “Things come apart so easily when they have been held together with lies.” – Dorothy Allison
- “Manipulation can give you anything in life you want, if you can afford it.” – M.F. Moonzajer
- “If they can no longer score on you, then they can no longer manipulate you.” – Dorothy McCoy
- “True love is built on free will and free choice, not control and manipulation.” – Ken Poirot
- “Resentment is like drinking poison and waiting for the other person to die.” – Carrie Fisher
- “When ambition gets out of hand we are vulnerable to manipulation by others.” – Keith Campbell
- “When you know what a man wants you know who he is, and how to move him.” – George R.R. Martin
- “When the power of love overcomes the love of power, the world will know peace.” – Jimi Hendrix
- “Because of our built-in insecurity, we are very sensitive when it is manipulated.” – Rick Tobin
- “I’m constantly lying to my dog. He only responds to manipulation and blackmail.” – Riley Keough
- “The thing women have yet to learn is nobody gives you power. You just take it.” – Roseanne Barr
- “It was easier to manipulate someone if they didn’t perceive you as a threat.” – Stephanie Wrobel
- “I know when I’m being manipulated, and I warn you now that I do not react well.” – Nick Westwood
- “Half of the people lie with their lips; the other half with their tears.” – Nassim Nicholas Taleb
- “You can’t control the weather, but that doesn’t stop some people from trying.” – Frank Sonnenberg
- “Our envy always lasts longer than the happiness of those we envy.” – François de La Rochefoucauld
- “The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don’t have any.” – Alice Walker
- “Jealousy, that dragon which slays love under the pretense of keeping it alive.” – H. Havelock Ellis
- “He seems like a man who knows what he wants, and the problem is he wants what I want.” – Abbi Glines
- “Biggest tool of manipulation is words so always interpret the meaning rather than the words.” – Unknown
- “Toxic people make you think you’re holding a grudge when you’re really holding a boundary.” – Mel Robins
- “Foreknowledge of the future makes it possible to manipulate both enemies and supporters.” – Raymond Aron
- “The less you respond to negative people, the more powerful your life will become.” – Robert E. Baine, Jr.
- “I’m not upset that you lied to me, I’m upset that from now on I can’t believe you.” – Friedrich Nietzsche
- “The success of the manipulation depends on the level of conviction and force of the denial.” – Tess Binder
- “Anger, resentment and jealousy doesn’t change the heart of others- it only changes yours.” – Shannon L. Alder
- “One should be able to control and manipulate experiences with an informed and intelligent mind.” – Sylvia Plath
- “While you can’t control someone’s negative behavior, you can control how long you participate in it.” – Unknown
- “Look like the innocent flower but be the Serpent underneath it.” – Lady Macbeth, Macbeth by William Shakespeare
- “One must change one’s tactics every ten years if one wishes to maintain one’s superiority.” – Napoleon Bonaparte
- “You have power over your mind – not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength.” – Marcus Aurelius
- “Don’t become manipulated by the illusion of who you think you are, or who you think you should be.” – Steven Redhead
- “Envy is when you want what someone else has. Jealousy’s when you also don’t want them to have it.” – Kirsten Hubbard
- “Manipulating people always involves utilizing a half-truth or a lie in order to achieve a certain goal.” – Ralf Juhre
- “Dealing with manipulation is all about reading between the lines and recognizing the lies for what they are.” – Unknown
- “Domineering-types may appear omnipotent but, inevitably, will smother everything they love and lose all.” – Stewart Stafford
- “Manipulation is a contagious disease, much more dangerous than the flu because it can endure for a lifetime.” – Dorothy McCoy
- “The most effective way to destroy people is to deny and obliterate their own understanding of their history.” – George Orwell
- “Until you realize how easy it is for your mind to be manipulated, you remain the puppet of someone else’s game.” – Evita Ochel
- “All writing is a form of manipulation, of course, but you realize that a plain sentence can actually do so much.” – Colm Toibin
- “One of the methods of manipulation is to inoculate individuals with the bourgeois appetite for personal success. – Paulo Freire
- “When manipulation flutters around everywhere, neither pull nor push anyone. Just do one thing – don’t trust anyone!” – Ashish Patel
- “Manipulative people do not consider the other person’s point of view; they will take at the expense of others.” – Richard Malthouse
- “Every day you must unlearn the ways that hold you back. You must rid yourself of negativity, so you can learn to fly.” – Leon Brown
- “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
- “When you notice someone does something toxic the first time, don’t wait for the second time before you address it.” – Shahida Arabi
- “Manipulation is a contagious disease which is much more dangerous than a pandemic because it can endure you for a lifetime.” – Unknown
- “Manipulation aims to modify another person’s choices by directly, but clandestinely modifying a person’s psychology.” – Michael Cholbi
- When people learn no tools of judgment and merely follow their hopes, the seeds of political manipulation are sown. – Stephen Jay Gould
- “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
- “Pay attention when people react with anger and hostility to your boundaries. You have found the edge where their respect for you ends.”
- “There are two ways to be fooled. One is to believe what isn’t true; the other is to refuse to believe what is true.” – Søren Kierkegaard
- “I know that we create our own reality, but dealing with manipulation is an uncomfortable lesson that many have had to learn.” – Zoe Hagon
- “If you walked away from a toxic, negative, abusive, one-sided, dead-end low vibrational relationship or friendship – you won.” – Lalah Delia
- “Don’t let toxic people infect you with the fear of giving and receiving one of the most powerful forces in this world… LOVE!” – Yvonne Pierre
- “Life is short. Don’t waste it with negative people who don’t appreciate you. Keep them in your heart but keep them out of your life.” – Unknown
- “Often enough the manipulator approaches, stimulates, or even creates a powerful wish or a strong desire in the target’s mind.” – Sapir Handelman
- “When people pressure you to engage in negative decisions and actions, look at them boldly in the eyes and dare them to do good.” – Edmond Mbiaka
- “Stay away from people who can’t take responsibility for their actions and who make you feel bad for being angry at them when they do you wrong.”
- “Expose yourself to your deepest fear; after that, fear has no power, and the fear of freedom shrinks and vanishes. You are free.” – Jim Morrison
- “Toxic people attach themselves like cinder blocks tied to your ankles, and then invite you for a swim in their poisoned waters.” – John Mark Green
- “A narcissist parent is easily frustrated by a healthy independent child that they can’t control through parental emotional manipulation.” – Unknown
- “Manipulation, fueled with good intent, can be a blessing. But when used wickedly, it is the beginning of a magician’s karmic calamity.” – T.F. Hodge
- “Manipulating people is what’s so fun about poker. I love that you can just look into someone’s eyes and lie – and it’s perfectly acceptable.” – Cheryl Hines
- “Don’t waste your time on jealousy. Sometimes you’re ahead, sometimes you’re behind. The race is long, and in the end, it’s only with yourself.” – Baz Luhrmann
- “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
- “If there is someone in your life that you can’t speak the truth to, and you walk on eggshells to avoid upsetting them, you are being controlled or manipulated.”
- “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
- “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
- “People don’t want to hear this, but words not matching actions is called manipulation. And refusing to be held accountable for it is called gaslighting.” – Unknown
- “If you allow people to make more withdrawals than deposits in your life, you will be out of balance and in the negative. Know when to close the account.” – Auliq Ice
- “When we have access to all of our inner balance, we are able to manipulate our world on a more profound level. This leads us out of fear, and out of danger.” – Brian Germain
- “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
- “If you feel confused because someone tells you that they love you, but they don’t act like they do, judge them by their actions alone. You will have your answer.” – Adelyn Birch
- “Manipulative people do not understand the concept of boundaries. They are relentless in their pursuit of what they want, and they have no regard for who gets hurt along the way.”
- “Such people are not serving Christ our Lord; they are serving their own personal interests. By smooth talk and glowing words they deceive innocent people.” – Romans 16:18, The Bible
- “Welcome to the human race. Nobody controls his own life, Ender. The best you can do is choose to fill the roles given you by good people, by people who love you.” – Orson Scott Card
- “The basic tool for the manipulation of reality is the manipulation of words. If you can control the meaning of words, you can control the people who must use the words.” – David Icke
- “Controllers, abusers and manipulative people don’t question themselves. They don’t ask themselves if the problem is them. They always say the problem is someone else.” – Darlene Ouimet
- “There are those whose primary ability is to spin wheels of manipulation. It is their second skin and without these spinning wheels, they simply do not know how to function.” – C. Joybell
- “The basic tool for the manipulation of reality is the manipulation of words. If you can control the meaning of words, you can control the people who must use the words.” – Philip K. Dick
- “Manipulation is moving someone’s settings away from the ideal in ways that are typically not in her self-interest, or likely not in her self-interest in the present context.” – Robert Noggle
- “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
- “Gaslighting is a form of insidious and covert manipulation where a bully, narcissist, or an abuser targets the victim by making them question their judgements, memory, mind and reality.” – Unknown
- “Love comes when manipulation stops; when you think more about the other person than about his or her reactions to you. When you dare to reveal yourself fully. When you dare to be vulnerable.” – Joyce Brothers
- “It’s so easy to manipulate an audience, but it’s nearly always clear that you are being manipulated. I think even people that are not critically attuned are aware of cynical manipulation in film.” – John Boorman
- “Just because something isn’t a lie does not mean that it isn’t deceptive. A liar knows that he is a liar, but one who speaks mere portions of truth in order to deceive is a craftsman of destruction.” – Criss Jami
- “The principle that human nature, in its psychological aspects, is nothing more than a product of history and given social relations removes all barriers to coercion and manipulation by the powerful.” – Noam Chomsky
- “And if I could make you understand one truth, it would be this. Someone who manipulates your feelings through guilt isn’t loving you. That’s an attempt to control you. And that has nothing to do with love.” – JmStorm
- “At a deep psychological level, convincing young people that they will get the respect, admiration, love that they are looking for through consumerism is a manipulation of a deep human instinct to want to belong.” – Helena Norberg-Hodge
- “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
- “The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organised habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country.” – Edward Bernays
- “Emotional blackmail is a powerful form of manipulation. It leaves you in a FOG when there is haze of Fear, Obligation, and Guilt. Often the emotional blackmailer is not a deliberate tactic on the others’ part – it’s just the method that gets them what they want! And have found that it works!” – Carey West
- “The ultimate tyranny in a society is not control by martial law. It is control by the psychological manipulation of consciousness, through which reality is defined so that those who exist within it do not even realize that they are in prison. They do not even realize that there is something outside of where they exist.” – Barbara Marciniak
- “Manipulative people don’t want to solve their problems. They want other people to solve their problems. As soon as you show empathy and start helping them, you are on their hook: you solve one problem – they create another one and so on, blaming you for not doing enough for them, creating more and more chaos and turning your life into a stressful mess.”
- “When you confront a person, with what they did wrong, and they don’t want to take responsibility for their own actions, they will manipulate you by putting the focus back on you. They will bring up something you did or need to do, using your imperfection as away to avoid taking responsibility for their own actions. They actually like knowing your difficulties or imperfections. This gives them ammunition, and they have something to hold over your head to use against you. (put the focus back on them where it belongs.)” – Maria Consiglio
Wrapping Up
There you have it! These 150 manipulation quotes should help you stand up for yourself the next time someone tries to control or take advantage of you. Remember, it’s always okay to say no, and you don’t owe anyone an explanation for your decisions. You are in control of your life, so make choices that empower you and make you happy.
