Quotes About Persuasion

Do you really think you are going to change anyone's mind?

If one side says, "We can only go as low as $36,000 on this car," you can say, "I can't go higher than $30,000. How am I supposed to come up with the $36,000?" And just see what they say. Ask "open-ended questions" starting with "how" or "what." Ask a lot of them. Be prepared in advance with your "how" questions.

For instance, you can say, "I know you might not trust me. I know you have had bad dealings in the past. I know you've had a hard childhood and this is the only way to make money." They will say, "That's right." And once you have empathy with them, you can be a little more insistent on what it is you want.

Nobody wants to feel powerless. If the negotiation is not going your way you can say to them, 'Sounds like there's nothing you can do.' "This will make them feel powerless. They will say 'no' to that and now they will try to do something for you to prove they are not powerless.

People never want to be told anything they do not believe already.

Edward Tufte shows in his book Visual Explanations

Gods are like people. They believe anything if you tell them right way.

It is simple to catch a man, all you need to know is the right bait.

They were heedless of the fact that they'd gain more converts if they just stopped talking.

There's a trick to lying. Hold to the same line, regardless of who you're with.

When men speak, they should say that which does not go in at one side of the head and out at the other. Their words shouldn't be feathers, so light that a wind which does not ruffle the water can blow them away.

You can tell yourself anything you want, but until you believe what you're telling yourself, you're wasting words.

My character in 'Shame' is an outrageous person. Loud and uncompromising and I begged Steve McQueen to give me the job.

To get me in to the Army underage, my mother signed me in saying that my birth certificate was lost in a fire in Nashville, so I got in underage. I was 16. She did because I begged her to do it.

I think that celebrities should never underestimate their power. I mean just to draw attention, because then people get involved on a personal level.

I'm one of those people you can tell 'no' a million different ways, and I'll spend the rest of my life trying to figure out some way to get you to say 'yes.' People have always underestimated me. I have great stamina, great tenacity.

In the end, people are persuaded not by what we say, but by what they understand.

You must make the product interesting, not just make the ad different. And that's what too many of the copywriters in the U.S. today don't yet understand.

I have found you an argument; I am not obliged to find you an understanding.

If you make yourself understood, you're always speaking well.

The reporting of news has to be understood as propaganda for commodities, and events by images.

One phrase I would dearly like to consign to the can is 'Out of the Box.' The thinking that told us we should invade Iraq and that house prices never decline may have been out of the box, but it put us into the ditch. We have been badly misled by people who persuaded us that they understood things we didn't.

For conservatives, the issue is that for generations now, they have failed to make the case for their values. They haven't even conveyed conservative values to many of their children. And when they have, the university has often succeeded in undoing them.

It's not merely that conservatives are better at selling their product, or that they happen to have an easier-and undoubtedly simpler-ideological product to sell. It's that they know what they are selling. Liberals in general and Obama in particular cannot say the same.