Influence may refer to:
In science and technology:
- Sphere of influence (astrodynamics), the region around a celestial body in which it is the primary gravitational influence on orbiting objects
- Sphere of influence (astronomy), a region around a black hole in which the gravity of the black hole dominates that of the host bulge
- Social influence, in social psychology, influence in interpersonal relationships
- Minority influence, when the minority (which can include the status quo) affect the behavior or beliefs of the majority
In entertainment:
- Influence (band), a rock band formed in the 1960s
- Influence (Little Caesar album), 1992 album by Little Caesar
- Influence (Sister Machine Gun album), the seventh album by industrial rock band Sister Machine Gun
Other uses:
- Undue influence, in contract law, where one person takes advantage of a position of power over another person
- Sphere of influence, in political science, an area over which a state or organization has some indirect control
- Office of Strategic Influence, a short-lived U.S. government department
- Driving under the influence, the criminal act of driving while intoxicated
- Influence: Science and Practice, or Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion; two books by Robert Cialdini
Famous quotes containing the word influence:
“The improvements of ages have had but little influence on the essential laws of man’s existence: as our skeletons, probably, are not to be distinguished from those of our ancestors.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The talk shows are stuffed full of sufferers who have regained their health—congressmen who suffered through a serious spell of boozing and skirt-chasing, White House aides who were stricken cruelly with overweening ambition, movie stars and baseball players who came down with acute cases of wanting to trash hotel rooms while under the influence of recreational drugs. Most of them have found God, or at least a publisher.”
—Calvin Trillin (b. 1935)
“Books, the oldest and the best, stand naturally and rightfully on the shelves of every cottage. They have no cause of their own to plead, but while they enlighten and sustain the reader his common sense will not refuse them. Their authors are a natural and irresistible aristocracy in every society, and, more than kings or emperors, exert an influence on mankind.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)