Quotes About Persuasion

Men are so simple, and yield so much to necessity, that he who will deceive may always find him that will lend himself to be deceived.

he who seeks to deceive will always find someone who will allow himself to be deceived.

True leadership requires the capacity to shape public opinion, not merely reflect it.

If diplomacy is the art of persuading others to act as we would wish, effective foreign policy requires that we comprehend why others act as they do

I TELL MY STUDENTS THAT THE FUNDAMENTAL PURPOSE OF FOREIGN policy is elementary: to convince other countries to do what we would like them to do.

Speaking in town squares, beer halls, and circus tents, Hitler employed over and over again the same action verbs—smash, destroy, annihilate, kill. In a typical address, he would shout himself into a lather of arm-flailing, screaming fury at the nation's enemies, only to grow abruptly calm as he painted a word picture of what a new era of German ascendance might look like.

A speechmaker's gravest sin is to leave the listener indifferent. I was determined not to be dull.

whether a democratic citizenry can be talked into betraying its own values.

If spoken sincerely enough, and he now spoke most sincerely, lies became truths to the people hungry to hear them.

Later Achilles would play the lyre, as Chiron and I listened. My mother's lyre. He had brought it with him. 'I wish I had known,' I said, the first day when he showed it to me. 'I almost did not come, because I did not want to believe it.' He smiled. 'Now I know how to make you follow me everywhere.

In our stories these divinities had to work by wheedling and flattery, by favors won from stronger gods. They could not do much themselves. Except live, forever.

When he talked, he was lawyer and bard and crossroads charlatan at once, arguing his case, entertaining, pulling back the veil to show you the secrets of the world. It was not just his words, though they were clever enough. It was everything together: his face, his gestures, the sliding tones of his voice. I would say it was like a spell he cast, but there was no spell I knew that could equal it. The gift was his alone.

What is distinctive and engaging about Jesus is not the novel things he says but the way he says things. He is creative not so much because he says things that are completely new but because he speaks with such authority.

Sono gli stessi gradini dai quali Jane Austen fa cadere Louisa Musgrove in Persuasione . Come è romantico. Gli uomini erano romantici... allora.

Great trial lawyers aren't born; they're made. The great ones simply tell the jury a story...

It has taken me years to convince her that there are thousands of innocent people locked away.

you start repeating what's already been said, as lawyers have a natural inclination to

They were lawyers, trained to argue five sides of every issue.

he first had to persuade Elizabeth and many of his own colleagues that an armed intervention

If women are Republicans, they've been brainwashed—the men have brainwashed them," Nana said.

If women are Republicans, they've been brainwashed—the men have brainwashed them," Nana said. The nurses at River Bend reported that my grandmother was always saying this. There were residents at River Bend who refused to sit with Nana in the dining hall; probably they were Republicans.

I thought that fanatics would always have an audience; all one might hope to influence was the size of the audience.

Most of the students there, he said, don't know what they think. You tell 'em, they'll think it. I plan to tell 'em.

You didn't shame anybody into anything." "Oh yes I did. I'm good for you that way. You have a tendency to back away from things otherwise.