Quotes About Persuasion

I don't write things to shock people, necessarily, but sometimes, when making an argument… Let me put it this way: Some people go out into a field of wheat and they'll pick something- just one thing that they like. However, other people will drive a thresher through there. Sometimes, if I have a choice, I'll just drive the thresher through.

People write or speak sentences in order to produce an effect, and the success of a sentence is measured by the degree to which the desired effect has been achieved.

If you persuade liberalism that its dismissive marginalizing of religious discourse is a violation of its own chief principle, all you will gain is the right to sit down at liberalism's table where before you were denied an invitation; but it will still be liberalism's table that you are sitting at, and the etiquette of the conversation will still be hers.

parents are the most important influences on children, and that the best way to curb misbehavior is to insist on standards of decency. If we cannot persuade our children that they have the capacity to manage their lives and that the world is worth living in—and then work to create a world in which this is true—medical treatments will expand endlessly but will not be able to help us.

Después comprendí que esa mirada que atrae, que te envuelve y te desnuda a la vez, esa mirada de seductor consumado, era tu modo de mirar a todas las mujeres que se cruzaban en tu camino, a cualquier vendedora que te atendía, a cualquier criada que te abría la puerta. No eres consciente de la fuerza de esa mirada que tu ternura hacia las mujeres hace parecer más dulce y afectuosa en su insistencia.

My brand of persuasion doesn't work well at a distance.

He remembered lesson #76.5 from Man Decorum 101: Never tell a smart, pissed-off female what to do. Ask her. Nicely. Preferably with roses in hand.

An argument may remove doubt, but only the Holy Spirit can convict of truth.

Truth persuades by teaching, but does not teach by persuading.

An egoist can be won over by being respected, a crazy person can be won over by allowing him to behave in an insane manner and a wise person can be won over by truth.

I will only accept something as truth if I am actually convinced of it.

The habit of an opinion often leads to the complete conviction of its truth, it hides the weaker parts of it, and makes us incapable of accepting the proofs against it.

Politics determines who has the power, not who has the truth.

Anecdotes are sometimes the best vehicles of truth, and if striking and appropriate are often more impressive and powerful than argument.

I like to push people till I get the truth out of them. Get them drunk, or whatever. Then discover what they really think. Push them and push them and push them.

We spend our lives fighting to get people very slightly more stupid than ourselves to accept truths that the great men have always known.

A compelling story, even if factually inaccurate, can be more emotionally compelling than a dry recitation of the truth.

People don't like to be lectured to, but if you can make them laugh, their defenses come down, and for the time being they've accepted whatever truth is embedded in your humor.

Logic is the technique by which we add conviction to truth.

Could it be that simple? Tell one story to one generation and repeat it until it was accepted as fact?

I could tell you the truth about me... but to seduce you, I will tell you the truth about you.

Screw the truth into men's minds.

Intellectuals may like to think of themselves as people who "speak truth to power" but too often they are people who speak lies to gain power.

It matters enormously if I alienate anyone from the truth.