Quotes About Persuasion

How could an argument soothe or settle a controversy when every word is a nest for a bird of doubt? (meaning of words as inferences)

Suckers try to win arguments, nonsuckers try to win.

Don't raise your voice, improve your argument." [Address at the Nelson Mandela Foundation in Houghton, Johannesburg, South Africa, 23 November 2004]

The dominance of conclusions over arguments is most pronounced where emotions are involved.

The best argument is that which seems merely an explanation.

I was born to argue... I don't know why. I mean, from arguing with my teachers and, on occasions, my parents. I think I've mastered the art of argument at a fairly young age.

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

There is nothing like instances to grow hair on a bald-headed argument.

Neither irony nor sarcasm is argument.

The weight of an argument may often be multiplied by making it specific

Rhetoric is nothing but reason well dressed and argument put in order.

By the very act of arguing, you awake the patient's reason; and once it is awake, who can foresee the result?

Neither irony or sarcasm is argument.

What I like about music is its ability to be convincing, to carry an argument through successfully to the finish, though the terms of the argument remain unknown quantities.

No argument can persuade me to like oysters if I do not like them. In other words, the disturbing thing about matters of taste is that they are not communicable.

You never need an argument against the use of violence, you need an argument for it.

Affect not little shifts and subterfuges to avoid the force of an argument.

There are all kinds of stupid people that annoy me but what annoys me most is a lazy argument.

Of all eloquence a nickname is the most concise; of all arguments the most unanswerable.

Words are weapons, and it is dangerous . . . to borrow them from the arsenal of the enemy.

One could drive a prairie schooner through any part of his argument and never scrape against a fact.

The sounder your argument, the more satisfaction you get out of it.

Rational argument can be defeated by refusing to argue rationally.

If you feel yourself to be above the mass, speak so as to raise the mass to the height of your argument.