Power leads to more power, no matter what your racket, and not only were they rich and influential but they were smart as hell, too.
Donald Trump is so universally despised, because he so often says the wrong thing and has absolutely no moral code outside of just wanting to be powerful and influential.
He was not hip-hop's most gifted emcee. Still, Shakur may be the most influential and compelling rapper of them all, he was more than the sum of his artistic parts.
It is a terrible thought, to contemplate that an immense number of mediocre thinkers are occupied with really influential matters.
A lot of people inspire me. I'm a huge movie buff. From studying and watching movies, over and over again, directly influential are Terrence Malik and his naturalism, Robert Altman and his exploration of improvisation, and Judd Apatow, in terms of his comedic process.
The devil doesn't care how big your church is - he cares how influential it is.
In the past some of the most influential Jewish, Christian and Muslim theologians, such as Maimonides, Aquinas and Ibn Sina, made it clear that it was very difficult to speak about God, because when we confront the ultimate, we are at the end of what words or thoughts can do.
I am so credible and so influential and so relevant that I will change things.
Das Kapital, I think, is very difficult to read, and for me, it was not very influential.
If any influential nation had the great spiritual strength to lay down its arms and appear with clean hands before the world, the world would be changed. I see no evidence that any influential nations has such great spiritual strength and courage. Therefore disarmament will be a slow process, motivated by the wish to survive.
Paul Bearer was very influential in the early stages of my career. He constantly hounded me and I just think he realized the potential that was there. He convinced me that I was in the right place and doing the right thing.
I was never really that aware of commercial things. The stuff that was really influential to me were bands like the Misfits or the Birthday Party, or things like that. If someone said, "Do you love Judas Priest?" - I never really even had a Judas Priest record. That's not what I grew up with. That wasn't really my scene, you know? That's why, musically, White Zombie never really fit. I still don't fit.
Blade Runner was an incredibly influential movie, in terms of the way that it envisioned what the future was going to look like.
Music is very influential to my writing, as are theater and film.
With the advent of radical and accessible technology, each one of us, for the first time in history, is creating an influential mark forever - we are all mini-digital celebrities and heroes to someone.
Phil Collins sold five times as many records as I did. Does that make him nearly as influential as I am? Nope.
Public opinion can be influential, the media can be influential.
The influential man is the successful man, whether he be rich or poor.
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton is the most influential woman in Washington - for what she has accomplished and for what she may yet do: win the presidency.
Could it be that my circle is largely black and that it is why I am influential in black circles but not in white circles?