In the ancient and medieval world, the exploration of physical influences among heavenly bodies, and between the heavenly bodies and objects on earth, was generally called ‘astrology.’ But we must not confuse this with the current socially acceptable form of bigotry that seems to entitle the human beings who believe in it to prejudge the character of others based solely on their dates of birth.

“You can't always do what you would like to do, so you just hope the situation presents itself. You're aware of how much they're throwing, how hard (the starters) are working. That influences what you do. But we're still going to play the games and try to win them.”

In order to exert influence over people, there were other things that could be used besides love. Knowledge seemed to be an equally strong force, perhaps even stronger. Whoever possessed knowledge not only had power over the changeable passions of people, but also power over their thinking, over their minds, hearts and souls.

Once a person has made some sort of stable, symbolic connection between two things, the connection will influence his subsequent behavior and will generate its own 'proof.' This is why it is idle and foolish to try to 'refute' religious, political, and similar beliefs with empirical arguments about referents that are symbols to the believer but not to the non-believer.

“Those companies get sued for their disreputable conduct, lose in a court of law on the merits of a case, and then try to paint their victims as the abusers. Their conduct is, to put it mildly, egregious, and includes abusing the process of law to bankrupt the people whose property they steal ... and using political influence to try and sway the courts and to definitely sway the patent office.”

Emotions or feelings stem from your attitude and they become the basis on which you decide or act. All decisions, choices and actions have some kind of underlying emotional influence. To change the way you feel about someone or something you must first change the way you think about them.

It is not the fault of the slaveholder that he is cruel, so much as it is the fault of the system under which he lives. He cannot withstand the influence of habit and associations that surround him. Taught from earliest childhood, by all that he sees and hears that the rod is for the slave's back, he will not be apt to change his opinions in maturer years.

You may cry out tears for misplacing your money, but you got to cry out blood if you have misplaced your dreams. Sadly, you may not even know the great deal of influence you loss when you misplace your dreams, so how will you cry for such a loss?

To think that because those who wield power in society wield in the end that of government, therefore it is of no use to attempt to influence the constitution of the government by acting on opinion, is to forget that opinion is itself one of the greatest active social forces. One person with a belief is a social power equal to ninety-nine who have only interests.

What I like about this belief is that it makes people look for a big picture, and think more about how they behave in this life and what they achieve, as it might influence their next lives. I alsolike another aspect of it: that negative experiences teach us as much as positive experiences do; sometimes they teach us more.