Quotes About Persuasion

For I go around doing nothing but persuading both young and old among you not to care for your [b]body or your wealth in preference to or as strongly as for the best possible state of your soul, as I say to you: Wealth does not bring about excellence, but excellence makes wealth and everything else good for men, both individually and collectively."13

I was attached to this city by the god—though it seems a ridiculous thing to say—as upon a great and noble horse which was somewhat sluggish because of its size and needed to be stirred up by a kind of gadfly. It is to fulfill some such function that I believe the god has placed me in the city. I never cease to rouse each and every one of you, to persuade and reproach you all day long and everywhere I find myself in your company

For I do nothing but go about persuading you all, old and young alike, not to take thought for your persons or your properties, but first and chiefly to care about the greatest improvement of the soul.

it seemed to me that this man seemed to be wise, both to many other human beings and most of all to himself, but that he was not. And then I tried to show him that he supposed he was wise, but was not. So from this I became hateful both to him and to many of those present Plato,Apology

GORGIAS: Yes. SOCRATES: Do you mean that you will teach him to gain the ears of the multitude on any subject, and this not by instruction but by persuasion? GORGIAS: Quite so.

A Piece of writing has to seduce the reader, it has to suspend disbelief and earn the reader's trust

He no longer heard Kellhus speak so much as observed him cut and carve, whittle and hew, as though the man had somehow shattered the glass of language and fashioned knives from the pieces.

Kings never lie. They demand the world be mistaken.

All right, he said. Since you ask so nicely. I wasn't asking. I'm aware of that. The sharp point in my back did make it clear.

Because Oliver wants you, and what Oliver wants, Oliver gets, right? So get your sweet little butt up already." "Hey," Shane said, and stood up. "I'm not telling you again, Jase. Stop." "What, because I said she had a sweet little butt? You don't think she does? Hard to believe, since you spend so much time staring at it.

Although Grandpa never put it in words for me, one thing I learned from him was that being admired gives you more power than being feared.

he is a wizard at persuading police not to arrest him

To Carson, Hayden Eckman said, "The AG called me himself, a few hours ago. He made a persuasive argument.

You and people like you must have developed these places. You must believe you can come and go from them as anonymous as ghosts." He wanted to argue, persuade, litigate, but no jury waited to be convinced, no judge to rule in his favor. There was just Jane, who had no courtroom role. She was only, possibly, his executioner.

A man who believes in nothing may look strong, but he's fragile. He can be made to believe in anything, for the emptiness in him yearns to be filled.

On Evil: There's too much darkness in some people, corruption that could never be cleaned out in five lifetimes of rehabilitation. Evil is real, it walks the earth. Sometimes the devil works by persuasion. Sometimes he just sets loose these sociopaths who don't have a gene for empathy or one for compassion.

All things being equal, people will buy from a friend. All things being not quite so equal, people will still buy from a friend.

Men may be the head of the house, but the women are the neck, and they can turn the head any way they want.

A lie told often enough becomes the truth. —Vladimir Lenin

Pithy sentences are like sharp nails which force truth upon our memory.

These three steps offer a classic presentation of the way people are often led to do wrong: Exaggerate, then denigrate the other side's motive, then promise a reward.

Don't raise your voice- improve your argument.

Win the crowd and you will win your freedom

A party at which the guests are all of the beautiful persuasion tends to be dull indeed, as they have no conversation that does not pertain to themselves. A successful gathering requires a number of the ill-favored but clever. The beautiful are but ornaments—desirable, but dispensable.