Quotes About Persuasion

Ask a man which way he is going to vote, and he will probably tell you. Ask him, however, why, and vagueness is all.

Sex-appeal is the keynote of our whole civilization.

Disputes are not to be decided by the weight of authority, but by the force of reason.

The others want to coerce her. I want her to want me... so he prayed to Aphrodite, goddess of love.

Io credo alla dolce violenza che la ragione usa agli uomini. A lungo andare, non le sanno resistere. […] Il pensare è uno dei massimi piaceri concessi al genere umano.

FILCH: Oh, you use them again? Why can't I do the better days act? PEACHUM: Because nobody can make his own suffering sound convincing, my boy. If you have a bellyache and say so, people will simply be disgusted.

La verità riesce ad imporsi solo nella misura in cui noi la imponiamo; la vittoria della ragione non può essere che la vittoria di coloro che ragionano.

Rhine laughed. "She bribed you?" "Sure did, and I took it like a politician at the state capital.

Accept of things, having procured them by persuasion, not by force.

Our military might and economic resources are necessary but not sufficient to lead us into this new century. It is our ideas and ideals that will allow us to exert the kind of leadership that persuades others to follow and to deal effectively with these forces of change.

Never tell anyone to go to hell unless you can make 'em go.

People around the world have always been more impressed by the power of our example than by the example of our power.

It's hard to win an argument with a smart person, but it's damn near impossible to win an argument with a stupid person.

You can get much farther with a kind word and a gun than you can with a kind word alone.

manipulatives

And despite promising "everything I've got," President Obama either did not know how, or chose not, to use the persuasive powers of the presidency, à la Lyndon Baines Johnson, to force them to act.11

If you can't win by reason, go for volume.

Never act like you want it, darlin'. Act like you wouldn't own it if they paid you. Tell them it's dirty, broken...a useless thing. Then make an offer.

You don't tell people who disagree with you they'd be better off somewhere else. And you don't reduce them to stereotypes; you address them as fully formed people worthy of respect. You try to persuade them.

I know that two and two make four - and should be glad to prove it too if I could - though I must say if by any sort of process I could convert 2 and 2 into five it would give me much greater pleasure.

I don't think any prosecutor should walk into a courtroom and think they're going to wow a jury with catchphrases and cliches and that kind of performance.

If you want to get across an idea, wrap it up in person.

If you want to go around saying that giving women the vote wrecked the country and still be taken seriously, it helps to be handing out $100 bills.

I don't know the rules of grammar... If you're trying to persuade people to do something, or buy something, it seems to me you should use their language, the language they use every day, the language in which they think. We try to write in the vernacular.