Quotes About Persuasion

Children use all their wiles to get their way with adults. Adults do the same with children.

The right name is an advertisement in itself.

Advertising says to people, 'Here's what we've got. Here's what it will do for you. Here's how to get it.'

I realized afterwards that Mountbatten thought I'd be good for my husband. He was our Cyrano de Bergerac.

I was that kid who made his friends listen to the albums they didn't want to.

When I read 'Absalom, Absalom!,' I remember being really excited about it and telling all my friends they had to read it, especially my writer friends.

I've been a big blagger all my life.

À força de falar, um homem acaba por acreditar no que diz; ao passo que se pode agir contra o próprio pensamento sem viciá-lo e ganhar uma causa má sem sustentar que seja boa, como o faz o advogado ao pleitear.

A quotation in a speech, article, or book is like a rifle in the hands of an infantryman. It speaks with authority.

Die Frauen reden Männern, die sie zu Schafen gemacht haben, immer ein, sie seien Löwen und hätten einen eisernen Charakter.

Remember how Paul and Barnabas urged this upon the Jews of Antioch, 'persuading them to continue in the grace of God' (Acts 13:43; Gal. 5:4; Titus 2:11; 1 Peter 5:12).

Without this, nothing else will profit. Not orthodoxy, or learning, or eloquence, or power of argument, or zeal, or fervor will accomplish anything without this. This is what gives power to our words and persuasiveness to our arguments, making them as either the balm of Gilead to the wounded spirit or sharp arrows of the mighty to the conscience of the stouthearted rebel.

Don't worry about people stealing your ideas. If your ideas are any good, you'll have to ram them down people's throats.

It is important for leaders to know their stories; to get them straight; to communicate them effectively, particularly to those who are in the thrall of rival stories; and, above all, to embody in their lives the stories that they tell.

Stories are the single most powerful weapon in a leader's arsenal

None of these classy locutions mean anything different from the simpler ones they replace. They work ceremonially, not semantically. Writing in a classy way to sound smart means writing to sound like, maybe even be, a certain kind of person. Sociologists, and other scholars, do that because they think (or hope) that being the right kind of person will persuade others to accept what they say as a persuasive social science argument.

The merchant's success depends on his or her ability to tell a story. What people see or hear or smell or do when they enter a space guides their feelings, enticing them to celebrate whatever the seller has to offer.

If those in charge of our society - politicians, corporate executives, and owners of press and television - can dominate our ideas, they will be secure in their power. They will not need soldiers patrolling the streets. We will control ourselves.

Propaganda, to be effective, must be believed. To be believed, it must be credible. To be credible, it must be true.

Propaganda, to be effective, must be believed. To be believed, it must be credible.

One hair of a woman can draw more than a hundred pair of oxen" James Howell

It's inevitable that people who are trying to manipulate, persuade or deceive us in their own interests would try to pretend that they are driven by...the finest expressions of our common humanity - altruism, compassion and kindness. [p63]

It is no less ancient than a pestilent error wherewith many men (but they chiefly who abound in power and riches) persuade themselves, or (as I think more truly) go about to persuade, that right and wrong are distinguished not according to their own nature but by a certain vain opinion and custom of men.

Statistics are just a way for the mathematician to evangelize his faith.