Aren’t you at all curious about your past?” Rhys asked.“No, my present is who I am. Your identity is whoever you choose to be, not who your parents were.”“But as a scientist you know that prior events influence it, and the future.”“In physics, yes. In people, no.

“People tend to think their company will have an IPO and everyone will get rich. But for every eBay or Amazon out there, there's a lot more that go to the wayside. Options aren't everything they're cracked up to be — they're like buying a lottery ticket, except you get to influence it.”

The way to stifle China’s growth is to inhibit the flow of their connectivity. In order to slow down Chinese expansion, we need to cripple their cyber-kinetic-political connectivity. Indirect polarization, in all forms, must be at the forefront of the agenda when conducting influence operations on all things China.

Nothing makes time pass or shortens the way like a thought that absorbs in itself all the faculties of the one who is thinking. External existence is then like a sleep of which this thought is the dream. Under its influence, time has no more measure, space has no more distance.

I think people need to recognize that those of us who have been so much influenced by violence in the media- in particular pornographic violence- are not some kinds of inherent monsters. We are your sons, and we are your husbands. And we grew up in regular families.

Every time we decide to use our power to influence others, particularly if we`re gleeful and hasty, we damage the relationship. We move from enjoying a healthy partnership based on trust and mutual respect to establishing a police state that requires constant monitoring.

Timing is a critical issue when it comes to succession. Passing the baton too early or too late could both cause irreparable damage. The timing just has to be right, but again you are responsible for creating or influencing the right conditions over the course of your leadership tenure.

O my soul, is not this enough? Dost thou need more strength than the omnipotence of the United Trinity? Dost thou want more wisdom than exists in the Father, more love than displays itself in the Son, or more power than is manifest in the influences of the Spirit?

To gain the spiritual ascendancy over ourselves, and the influences with which we are surrounded, through a rigid course of self-discipline, is our first consideration, it is our first labor, before we can pave the way for our children to grow up without sin unto salvation.

As we Christians strive to be more influenced by God’s kingdom than by this world, we’re reminded we will sometimes slip, but ‘if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness’ (1 John 1:9).