Quotes About Persuasion

Today it is not the classroom nor the classics which are the repositories of models of eloquence, but the ad agencies.

Was every good change made in the world the result of successful bullying? I wondered.

Gradually I came to realize that people will more readily swallow lies than truth, as if the taste of lies was homey, appetizing: a habit.

You can fool too many of the people too much of the time." —JAMES THURBER

I suggested Target Four from the Lalow, who had all the characteristics of a human who could be talked into doing anything.

Style is not neutral; it gives moral directions.

Man acts as though he were the shaper and master of language, while in fact language remains the master of man.

As James U. McNeal, a professor of marketing at Texas A&M University, puts it, "75 percent of spontaneous food purchases can be traced to a nagging child. And one out of two mothers will buy a food simply because her child requests it. To trigger desire in a child is to trigger desire in the whole family.

In a surprising 2008 study, researchers at the University of Bath, UK, found that the fear of failure drives consumers far more than the promise of success; the latter oddly tends to paralyze us, while the former spurs us on (and pries open our wallets). In fact, as the study found, the most powerful persuader of all was giving consumers a glimpse of some future "feared self."24

Seduction, marginalization, diversion, and attack all serve a function.

Why do you rant and brag with such a spate of words, as if you wanted to overwhelm me with a sort of tempest and deluge of oratory-which nevertheless falls with the greater force on your own head, while my ark rides aloft in safety?

And this our God, so Scripture says, rejoices over us when we are persuaded that He is not incensed at us but is our kind and lovable Friend.

His soft voice was his trademark and he had a saying: You can do more with a soft voice than a big stick.

You can do more with a soft voice than a big stick?

Cicero's eloquence, even if only half understood, still informs the language of modern politics.

I can't fall in love with anyone, I make men believe what they want to believe.

If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; but if you really make them think, they'll hate you.

Self-love is often rather arrogant than blind; it does not hide our faults from ourselves, but persuades us that they escape the notice of others.

''A drop of honey catches more flies than a gallon of gal.'' So with men. If you would win a man to your cause, first convince him that you are his sincere friend. Therein is a drop of honey which catches his heart, which, say what he will, is the highroad to his reason.

"Will you walk into my parlor?" said the Spider to the Fly;" 'Tis the prettiest little parlor that ever you did spy."

Will you walk into my parlour?" said the Spider to the Fly

Carrot and stick," she said, nodding. "Wave it under his nose and start walking. Works every time with old men, mules, and dogs.

It was his nature to believe anything, before he would believe he could be wrong.

When I left, Lydia was prattling about new clothes for her wedding and expressing her own satisfaction that she, the youngest of the Bennet sisters, would be the first of them to be married. Wickham smiled indulgently and said pretty things to her. I, disgusted with them both, was persuaded they deserved each other.