Quotes About Persuasion

You have to make people feel things. I think that's what commercials are, from a commercial for a car, a phone or anything that might be, they want to do it. The first iPhone was sold by how exciting it was to hold pictures of your family, not how great a phone it was.

America is really happy to be sold something.

You cannot expect soldiers to change people's minds. That has to be done in other ways.

If they are really persuaded that the army is annually established by me, that I have the sole disposal of posts and honours, that I employ this power in the destruction of liberty and the diminution of commerce, let me awaken them from their delusion.

There is no absurdity so palpable but that it may be firmly planted in the human head if you only begin to inculcate it before the age of five, by constantly repeating it with an air of great solemnity.

Bridge the gap with closed minds though careful dissection of ideas and solid presentation of fact.

In short, I'm not sure that the abortion problem can be solved by legislation. I think it can only be solved through moral persuasion.

We are all advertising, all of the time. If you want to sell your car, what do you do? You clean and polish it and make it the best you can. Some people bake bread when they are trying to sell their house because the smell adds a friendly feeling. Even the priest, with all his or her fervour, is advertising God. Everybody is selling.

That's precisely what we do as actors: try to convince the audience we are somebody else. And if you can do that, you are really doing something.

There's only a certain amount of times you can tell somebody what they should or shouldn't be doing. If they don't want to take it on board there's little you can do.

There are people out there who will not read books, but somehow they'll read my books.

...you knew I was confused, tormented, but you enticed me - led me on...

I don't know why but they you said it I started believing it.

Seduction begins with insinuation, what may happen, not what is, what you may become to the person, not today what you are.

The weight of your words is more important than the volume of your voice!

He's sort of a Svengali... It means someone who's manipulative. More than that: somebody who makes you think that you need him in order to accomplish anything.

They have typically been supported by a few wealthy individuals who have become persuaded—by a Frederick Vanderbilt Field, or an Anita McCormick Blaine, or a Corliss Lamont, to mention a few names recently prominent, or by a Friedrich Engels, to go farther back.

The only person who can truly persuade you is yourself. You must turn the issues over in your mind at leisure, consider the many arguments, let them simmer, and after a long time turn your preferences into convictions.

the power of language

Only hidden and undetected oratory is really insidious. What reaches the heart without going through the mind is likely to bounce back and put the mind out of business.

If an author does not give reasons for his propositions, they can only be treated as expressions of personal opinion on his part.

One of the most familiar tricks of the orator or propagandist is to leave certain things unsaid, things that are highly relevant to the argument, but that might be challenged if they were made explicit. While

The human mind is as naturally sensitive to arguments as the eye is to colors. (There may be some people who are argument-blind!) But the eye will not see if it is not kept open, and the mind will not follow an argument if it is not awake.

1. What does the author want to prove? 2. Whom does he want to convince? 3. What special knowledge does he assume? 4. What special language does he use? 5. Does he really know what he is talking about?