“But, and here comes the rub, all of us feel that we are in complete control of our desire for things. We would never admit to an ungovernable spirit of covetousness. The problem is that we, like the alcoholic, are unable to recognize the disease once we have been engulfed by it. Only by the help of others are we able to detect the inner spirit that places wealth about God. And we must come to fear the idolatrous state of covetousness because the moment things have priority, radical obedience becomes impossible.”
“Does the brain control you or are you controlling the brain?”
“All defensiveness stems from the need to be right and frustration over not being able to control others.”
“When you release yourself from the need for approval and control you can stop punishing yourself and others.”
“The chronicle of a man, the account of his life, his historiography, written as he lived out his life formed part of the rituals of his power. The disciplinary methods reversed this relation, lowered the threshold of describable individuality and made of this description a means of control and a method of domination.”
“Ironically, we often spend a great deal of time and effort trying to control our external conditions, while letting our internal reactions run wild.”
“to Vaneigem and the Situationists who by shrewd use of collage and juxtaposition exposed both the poverty and richness of slogans, and the thinly veiled hypocrisy of a spectacular society which by not respecting words abuses people, and by insulting the intelligence creates a state of political cretinisation in which the many and various forms of authoritarian control dominate.”
“When you release the illusion of control, you begin an effortless free-fall toward a grand reunion with your original self.”
“Western freedom is a sophisticated form of control.”
“there was a time when this home was her domain. Sometimes she felt proud of it, sometimes she felt tied to it, but whether it was a burden or a blessing, it was hers to keep. She’d known better than anyone what this house needed; lately it’d become one of the few aspects of her life she could control. there is no corner, no ridge along the steps or crack along the wall, that she doesn’t know like her own body. the house may never have been the sanctuary she’d always dreamed of, but at least it carried no surprises. It was comfortable.”
“Control is the basis of all true power. Authority and strength are matters of perception”
“Healing is a different type of pain. It’s the pain of becoming aware of the power of one’s strength and weakness, of one’s capacity to love or do damage to oneself and to others, and of how the most challenging person to control in life is ultimately yourself.”
“It is invisible hands that torment and bend us the worst”
“Fear owns me because I let it. Because I obsess over it, name it, raise it, and nurture it to become perfect. It is one of the few things in my life that I can control.”
“A leader did not slump. A leader was in control. Even when he least felt like he controlled anything. Especially then.”
“We have absolutely no control over what happens to us in life but what we have paramount control over is how we respond to those events.”
“Have you ever thought that if one thing hadn t happened, a whole set of things never would have either? Like dominoes in time, a single event kicked off an unstoppable series of changes that gained momentum and spun out of control, and nothing was ever the same again. Don t ever doubt that a mere second can change your life forever.”