Quotes About Persuasion

You can't push and force people to do what they don't want to do. If things need to change, it has to be gradual.

Brevity is a great charm of eloquence.

Obama is a great leader. He can fire people up and get them to do what he wants.

Put me in a room with 50 people, and I guarantee you 48 them are going to walk out saying, 'Ojeda's my guy.'

If you and I believe two different things, I can attack you verbally all day, but if I can make you laugh and show you the absurdity of your argument, it will lower you guard. People let you in then.

I wish all consumers were as gullible as advertising's biggest critics. Anyone who believes advertising is that powerful will believe almost anything.

We all flirt. When I go into a meeting with new clients I flirt with them; when I want 20p off a hamburger I'll flirt with them. It's not about being sexual - it's about getting someone's attention and getting your own way in a seductive way.

Do not be swayed by glowing testimonials and fancy brochures.

He fixed things with talk far more often than with force. But what people remembered and talked about was always the action.

During the dot-com bubble, most people did not use a persuasive theory to gauge whether stock prices were too high, too low, or just right. Instead, as they watched stock prices go up, they invented explanations to rationalize what was happening. They talked about Moore's Law, smart kids, and Alan Greenspan. Data without theory.

Even a man who courts a maid thinking he has no rivals has one, and that one is herself. She may give herself to him, but she may also choose to keep herself for herself. He has to convince her that she will be happier with him than by herself, and though men convince maids of that often, it isn't often true.

Magic," Martha whispered breathlessly, "is diplomacy. It isn't just saying the words. It's who says them, how he says them, and when he says them.

A knowing wife if she is worth her salt Can always prove her husband is at fault, And even though the fellow may have heard Some story told him by a little bird She knows enough to prove the bird is crazy And get her maid to witness she's a daisy

Milk-substitute manufacturers have worked very hard for almost a century to convince women that they are not mammals and have no business breast-feeding.

We know now that the soul is the body, and the body the soul. They tell us they are different because they want to persuade us that we can keep our souls if we let them make slaves of our bodies.

it annoys me to see people comfortable when they ought to be uncomfortable; and I insist on making them think in order to bring them to conviction of sin. If you don't like my preaching you must lump it. I really cannot help it. In the preface to my Plays for Puritans I

When you go to women," says Nietzsche, "take your whip with you.

I have as much authority as the Pope. I just don't have as many people who believe it.

Religion is just mind control.

You can take and nail two sticks together like they've never been nailed together before and some fool will buy it.

Mrs. Tulliver, as we have seen, was not without influence over her husband. No woman is; she can always incline him to do either what she wishes, or the reverse...

A man with an affectionate disposition, who finds a wife to concur with his fundamental idea of life, easily comes to persuade himself that no other woman would have suited him so well, and does a little daily snapping and quarreling without any sense of alienation.

Do you suppose the public reads with a view to its own conversion?

Arthur would so gladly have persuaded himself that he had done no harm! And if no one had told him the contrary, he could have persuaded himself so much better. Nemesis can seldom forge a sword for herself out of our consciences—out of the suffering we feel in the suffering we may have caused: there is rarely metal enough there to make an effective weapon.