Quotes About Persuasion

If you do not wish a man to do a thing, you had better get him to talk about it; for the more men talk, the more likely they are to do nothing else.

We are not won by arguments that we can analyse but by tone and temper, by the manner which is the man himself.

Men will believe anything at all provided they are under no obligation to believe it.

I can frighten or buy ninety-nine out of every one hundred men.

...counselling man to treat her as a slave while persuading her that she is a queen.

If one man tells you to murder, you get a jail cell - if another man tells you to murder, you get medals and a pension.

Give a man enough rope and he'll wrap himself around your little finger.

Man will believe anything, as long as it's not in the bible.

I've always loved movies about con men. I think con men are as American as apple pie.

There are only two means by which men can deal with one another: guns or logic. Force or persuasion. Those who know that they cannot win by means of logic, have always resorted to guns.

The very man who has argued you down, will sometimes be found, years later, to have been influenced by what you said

Words must surely be counted among the most powerful drugs man ever invented.

The arousing of prejudice, pity, anger, and similar emotions has nothing to do with the essential facts, but is merely a personal appeal to the man who is judging the case.

Man's greatest drive is not love or hate but to change another person's writing.

Well, I am not fully convinced that I really need this," Randy says. "We all need to decide that question for ourselves," says Avi.

Trying to, you know, persuade others to join our side. Trying to make the other side look bad. Just like the Internet always was.

Bulshytt: Speech (typically but not necessarily commercial or political) that employs euphemism, convenient vagueness, numbing repetition, and other such rhetorical subterfuges to create the impression that something has been said.

Now we're back in a situation where the people who have the power and the money can get what they want by dictating what the mass of people ought to believe.

One sort of glib explanation I heard once was that Rhetors could change the past, and were glad to do it, but Incanters could change the future—and were reluctant.

Whether or not this was a valid theory, the fact was that Aïda swallowed it hook, line, and sinker and used it to inform her genetic strategy in the Great Game.

Basically, anyone who reads the National Enquirer or watches pro wrestling on TV is easy to convert.

I thought you were interesting. Why did you do what it said?" "I…" I can't think up a fake answer quickly enough. "I'm a straight guy, you know. So if a girl talks to me or whatever, I'll do exactly what she says." Wait, now: make it a compliment. "Especially if it's a pretty girl." I smile.

It's the art of letting people deceive themselves without actually telling them lies.

If you need to invoke your academic pedigree or job title for people to believe what you say, then you need a better argument.