Quotes About Persuasion

That's because even if what we want is best for all concerned, other people don't want it shoved down their throats. They want to align with us, work with us, and be valued by us. They don't want to be run over by us. If we trample them to get our way, we may get them to do what we want right now, but they'll be angry about it later . . . and they'll let other people know.

All persuasion moves through the steps of this cycle. To take people from the beginning to the end of the Persuasion Cycle, you need to speak with them in a manner that moves them: From resisting to listening From listening to considering From considering to willing to do From willing to do to doing From doing to glad they did and continuing to do

a sinner is pleading to Saint Peter at the Pearly Gates: "Wait, those weren't lies," the sinner says. "That was spin!

When we fail to answer someone's questions and objections, we become just one more excuse for them to disbelieve.

Ambiguity is more convincing than certainty.

Each of you possesses the most powerful, dangerous and subversive trait that natural selection has ever devised. It's a piece of neural audio technology for rewiring other people's minds. I'm talking about your language.

the constant repetition of falsehood is more convincing than the demonstration of truth.

I don't like being talked into things by ungraceful people.

Gandhi's most decisive influence on his opponents was more indirect than direct.

The triumph of persuasion over force is the sign of a civilized society.

Power, money, persuasion, supplication, persecution—these can lift at a colossal humbug—push it a little—weaken it a little, century by century, but only laughter can blow it to rags and atoms at a blast. Against the assault of laughter nothing can stand.

There's no such thing as 'hard sell' and 'soft sell.' There's only 'smart sell' and 'stupid sell.'

I've never laughed a woman into bed, but I've laughed one out of bed many times.

Get all the fools on your side and you can be elected to anything.

My kids are funny. They won't eat the heels on a loaf of bread. So I patiently explained to them that they eat rolls, and rolls are all crust, just like heels...and now they won't eat rolls!

To open the majority of peoples' minds to something new is difficult. I always think that, as long as it's funny underneath, then you can argue that a teaspoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down.

Funny how someone telling you not to do something can talk you into it.

She has to agree to have me. It could take some time, but I'm confident I can trick her into it.

Remember that in giving any reason at all for refusing, you lay some foundation for a future request.

We should respect each other as rational beings by trying to achieve our goals through reason and persuasion rather than threats and coercion.

My goal was just to tell the unlikely story in a way that would feel as convincing as possible.

Advertising is 85% confusion and 15% commission

The primacy of the word, basis of the human psyche, that has in our age been used for mind-bending persuasion and brain-washing pulp, disgraced by Gobbles and debased by advertising copy, remains a force for freedom that flies out between all bars.

The hardest people to convince they are at retirement age are children at bedtime.