Quotes About Persuasion

1. Man is a MORAL animal. 2. You can get human beings to do anything — IF you convince them it is moral. 3. You can convince human beings anything is moral.

Strategy is buying a bottle of fine wine when you take a lady out for dinner. Tactics is getting her to drink it.

What's the point of quoting the Bible to people who don't believe it's true" Dad would say.

The art of advice is to make the recipient believe he thought the thought of it himself.

The true work of the critic is not to make his hearer believe him, but agree with him

One of my favorite philosophical tenets is that people will agree with you only if they already agree with you. You do not change people's minds.

A bargain is something you don't need at a price you can't resist.

This is more like the scientists I know. Authority outweighs evidence, at least for as long as the authority lives.

entrenched disbelief is oddly immune to evidence.

Sometimes people hold a core belief that is very strong. When they are presented with evidence that works against that belief, the new evidence cannot be accepted. It would create a feeling that is extremely uncomfortable, called cognitive dissonance. And because it is so important to protect the core belief, they will rationalize, ignore and even deny anything that doesn't fit in with the core belief.

In every combat unit and in every village, legions of political commissioners are at work enlightening the people on issues which have become stumbling blocks of incomprehension

Advertising is 85% confusion and 15% commission.

Passion makes one persuasive.

The act of giving a reason is the antithesis of authority. When the voice of authority fails, the voice of reason emerges. Or vice versa.

I reckon failure to be the most universal unhappiness on earth. Almost everybody and everything are failures—failures in their own estimation, even if they are not so in the estimation of others. Those optimists who always think themselves successful are few in number, and they for the most part fail in this at least, namely, that they cannot persuade the rest of the world of their success.

You can't trust reason. We threw it out of the ad profession long ago and have never missed it.

To win over certain people to something, it is only necessary to give it a gloss of love of humanity, nobility, gentleness, self-sacrifice -- and there is nothing you cannot get them to swallow.

Every man has his price." This is not true. But for every man there exists a bait which he cannot resist swallowing. To win over certain people to something, it is only necessary to give it a gloss of love of humanity, nobility, gentleness, self-sacrifice - and there is nothing you cannot get them to swallow. To their souls, these are the icing, the tidbit; other kinds of souls have others.

Power is the most persuasive rhetoric.

A man can only lead when others accept him as their leader, and he has only as much authority as his subjects give to him. All of the brilliant ideas in the world cannot save your kingdom if no one will listen to them.

To believe, it seemed, one had to want to believe.

Philosophy? What good is that?" Isn't it the art of saying nothing with as many words as possible?

If there was one thing Kelsier was good at, it was lying to himself.

What they do not realize—and what you must realize—is that manipulating others is something that all people do. In fact, manipulation is at the core of our social interaction.