Quotes About Persuasion

Everything in daily life is hurried and improvised, and you need to offer something different. By taking your time and respecting the seductive process you will not only break down your victim's resistance, you will make them fall in love.

What I want you to do for me is this: I want to understand certain things and tell them to others. To do it, I have to get them right, so they are hard to resist. Stay with me until I can do this. Afterwards, you can go where you want.

Brother, Cap said, he's a Pig-nut! Pig-nut? I asked. Pig-nut, Cap repeated. You can tell a man with brains he's wrong and he'll try to fix things up: but you take and tell a pig-nut he's wrong, and he'll spend the rest of his life trying to have something heavy fall on you when you ain't looking. - From Kennebunk born Pulitzer Prize winner Kenneth Roberts' 1933 novel Rabble in Arms.

I'll never use force to try to make my enemies think the way I think, George - partly because I don't believe in it, and partly because it's useless. You can't destroy ideas by force, and you can't hide 'em by silence.

Methods include cutting others off, overstating your facts, speaking in absolutes, changing subjects, or using directive questions to control the conversation.

Every time you try to convince others through verbal persuasion, you suffer from your inability to select and share language in a way that reproduces in the mind of the listener exactly the same thoughts you are having. You say your words, but others hear their words, which in turn stimulate their images, their past histories, and their overall meaning—all of which may be very different from what you intended.

He that complies against his will is of his own opinion still.

One of the ironies of dialogue is that, when talking with those holding opposing opinions, the more convinced and forceful you act, the more resistant others become.

social engineering"—the casual or calculated manipulation of people to influence them to do things they would not ordinarily do. And convincing them without raising the least hint of suspicion.

She's got a way of making a man feel guilty for certain things he'd never feel bad about on his own, like watching someone shoot himself in the face.

Come work for me, and I'll tell you." My eyes went to his. "You are a thief, a cheat, a murderer, and a not-nice man," I said calmly. "I don't like you." He shrugged, the motion making him look utterly harmless. "I'm not a thief," he said. "And I don't mind manipulating you into working for me when I need it." He smiled, showing me perfect teeth. "I enjoy it, actually.

Come here," she prompted. "You want to do this, yes?" Not really. (Newt and Rachel)

You just don't have faith! Frank repeated. Well I hope I never get it! It's like being hit by a hammer in the head!

The one who tells the stories rules the world.

Winning all those banquet debates had apparently caused Galileo to think that argument was how things were settled in the world. Unfortunately this is never how it happens.

Exergasia' means 'use of different phrases to express the same idea,' 'synathroesmus' means 'accumulation by enumeration,' and 'incrementum' means 'piling up points to make an argument.' So listing them does all three, yes?

A man's sexual aim, he had often said to himself, is to convert a creature who is cool, dry, calm, articulate, independent, purposeful into a creature that is the opposite of these; to demonstrate to an animal which is pretending not to be an animal that it is an animal.

I have no respect to merchants and preachers; as far as I'm concerned, their only talent is coming up with the right word at the right time. What is a professional preacher, really? He is a kind of middleman who for the wrong reasons tries to make people buy his goods. The more he sells, the more his stock rises. The louder he hawks his wares, the larger his business grows.

With a sigh, she asked, "Why do you care if I believe you or not?" "Because if you think I got a leg over with that slag, then the chance of anything sexual with you will be drastically reduced." Without looking up, she said, "Cadeon, a chance can't be reduced from zero." "Gods, I love it when you talk mathy to me.

If you want to communicate an idea to a man's brain, talk to him through his pecker. It's like an ear horn, y'all.

You know, do nice shite for her. Buy her things. Really think about what she likes and what makes her happy and make it happen. She'll come around. And if she doesn't, you can cut off your horns for her. Chicks dig that. (Cadeon)

If you want to communicate an idea to a man's brain, you must talk to him through his pecker. It's like an ear horn, y'all.

Tell me, Lothaire, I want to know. Convince me why I should love you." "Because any other female would!

It's not if you castrate an entire Roman legion, it's if they believe you did. Perception is everything.