Best 183 quotes in «persuasion quotes» category

In any profession, you will be respected if you are good at your job – not because you are good at talking about your beliefs. It may be quite irrational, but the fact is that, if you are recognized as being outstanding on one thing, you will be listened to on all sorts of subjects in no way related to it... and so, if you are going to be really effective [for your cause] in your place of work, you must set out to be the best man at your job.

In intertwining sentimentality, healing, narcissism, and authority, modern evangelicals give authority to those emotions themselves...The sentimental becomes evidence and authority in a world in which most evangelicals have given up intellectual pursuits and concerns over doctrine. Essentially, sentimentality represents an abandonment of theology and critical introspection in popular evangelicalism. Instead of crafting intellectual responses to the challenges to evangelicalism, popular evangelicals appeal to the power of feeling as an authority to counteract science and criticism of the Bible. They offer their audiences the opportunity to FEEL that evangelicalism is right rather than asking them to accept the veracity of doctrinal positions of evangelicalism.

In Martin Luther's life and behavior is very courteous and friendly, and there is nothing of the stern stoic or grumpy fellow about him. He can adjust to all occasions. In social gathering he is gay, witty, ever full of joy, always has a bright and happy face, no matter how seriously his adversaries threatening him. One can see that God's strength is within him. – Petrus Mosellanus

I once wrote you a letter and you never replied, which makes me wonder if you ever received it. This time it's a more personal delivery - and I need a reply, even if it's not the one I want. I'm listening to you - I can hear every word, however softly you speak - and I'm half-agony, half-hope. You're saying that men are realists - that, when the woman they love is no longer available, they move on. Well, believe me, I tried - and I thought I had. But seeing you again, after so many years, just proved how little I knew... You told me to trust myself. So here I am back in Bath, putting everything on the line for a second chance with you. Is that what you want, too? Whatever your answer, remember this: I may not deserve you - when I think of how I've behaved, I know I've shown little self-control and even less forgiveness - but I've never stopped loving you. You're talking about heartless men... But I have a heart, and it's the same one you almost broke ten years ago, and it belongs to you, and only you, even more than it did then. And yes, I'm a realist: if you no longer love me, I will accept it. But don't say that only a woman can keep on loving someone who's no longer part of her life! Because I will keep on loving you until there are no stars in the sky. Tell me tonight how you feel. If there's any chance of you loving me back, then I'll wait for you as I should have waited before. If not, say the word and I'll leave you in peace. But I'll never forget you, or what we had, or what might have been. Rick

In spite of his Cold War credentials, Kennedy still believed in the power of words.

Modern formulations are necessary even in defense of very ancient truths. Not because of any alleged anachronism in the old ideas – the Beatitudes remain the essential statements of the Western code – but because the idiom of life is always changing

Its all about perception, that is how you look at. Your own thoughts and outlook defines whether it is good or bad. And your definition determines your response.

Its all about perspective, that is how you look at things. Your own thoughts and outlook defines whether an experience, event, situation whatever is good or bad. And your definition determines your response.

I’ve finally given in, my eyes are shut under the blindfold. I can hear and smell, but I cannot see. My hands are clammy I feel cold yet I am warm. It is what I wanted, but I am now unsure, dubious yet at the same time excited and curious. I would like to think I feel a bit like Alice just before she fell down the hole into the rabbit hole. Yet there are no rabbits here… not even those of the rampant persuasion.

Lucy gripped her chilled glass of orange and raspberry juice. When Rebecca talked about Austen, she’d mostly mentioned Mr. Darcy or Mr. Knightley. She hadn’t really thought of the doe-eyed, pale-skinned heroines. On the screen, Anne Elliot walked down a long hallway, glancing just once at covered paintings, her mouth a grim line. Lucy thought Jane Austen would start the story with the romance, or the loss of it, but instead the tale seemed to begin with Anne’s home, and having to make difficult decisions. Maybe this writer from over two hundred years ago knew how everything important met at the intersection of family, home, love, and loss. This was something Lucy understood with every fiber of her being.

It's as if we have returned to the era of Protagoras and the sophists, the era when the art of persuasion --for which slogans, commercials, public propaganda meetings, newspapers, cinema, radio are the modern equivalent-- took the place of thought, determined the fate of cities and accomplished coups

It's intelligence mixed with less than innocence, it's cruelty mixed with a sense of elegance. It's a trap set for seduction to those that are persuaded by speech.

I wish nature had made such hearts as yours more common.

Lyndon Johnson’s sentences were the sentences of a man with a remarkable gift for words, not long words but evocative, of a man with a remarkable gift for images, homey images of a vividness that infused the sentences with drama.

Most people would instantly start feeling ten years older if someone were to convince them that they were actually born a decade before their birthdate.

Part of my wisdom consists of being a whiz at reminding the dumb, why they should be whizzes, and not just live life to whiz by others.

My idea of good company...is the company of clever, well-informed people, who have a great deal of conversation; that is what I call good company.' 'You are mistaken,' said he gently, 'that is not good company, that is the best.

Never act surprised in a courtroom.

Never argue. To win an argument is to lose a sale.

No one can withstand the charm of such a mystery.

People are generally better persuaded by the reasons which they have themselves discovered than by those which have come into the mind of others.

my idea of good company.. is the company of clever, well-informed people. who have a great deal of conversation.

Nonsense does not improve by being bellowed.

(on the portrayal of women in literature) Men have had every advantage of us in telling their own story. Education has been theirs in so much higher a degree; the pen has been in their hands. I will not allow books to prove anything.

Our hatred of government is not caused mainly by government's goals, whatever their wisdom, but by government's techniques." Philip Howard

She loved Anne better than she loved her own abilities.

Perhaps many white North Americans fear an overtly political art because it might persuade us emotionally of what we think we are “rationally” against; it might get us on a level we have lost touch with; undermine the safety we have built for oneselves, remind us of what is better left forgotten.

Politics is the art of persuasion. Good ideas die because due to a lack of charisma or character.

Politics look very simple to the outsider whether he is a businessman or a soldier – it is only when you get into it that all the angles and hard work become apparent. James Forrestal

Rebels aren't persuaded by arguments such as 'People are counting on you,' 'You've already paid for it'...'Things should be done this way,' 'You have an appointment,' 'You said you'd do it'...'It's against the rules,' 'It's a tradition,' 'This is the deadline,' or 'It's rude.' They're much more apt to respond to being told 'This will be fun,' 'This is what *you* want'...Rebels can do anything they *want* to do.

She ventured to hope he did not always read only poetry; and to say, that she thought it was the misfortune of poetry, to be seldom safely enjoyed by those who enjoyed it completely; and that the strong feelings which alone could estimate it truly, were the very feelings which ought to taste it but sparingly.

Perlstein says a movement gives you a chance, "to make anger boiling inside you ennobling, productive, powerful, instead of embittering.

Political parties are not out of touch for not reflecting popular opinion – it’s because they have lost the art of connecting with people in order to change their minds and to win them over to a different perspective. It is the art of political persuasion, not proficiency in tailing public opinion, that needs to be rediscovered.

Rapport is the link between meeting and communicating.

Reagan is described as "delivering Barry Goldwater's doctrine with John F. Kennedy's technique.

Robbed of a rapt audience, advertisers know that influencing how you spend what to do while depends on having some control over how you spend the resources in your head.

Take a step towards actualizing the very thing you are persuaded for and do not allow injustice to silence your voice.

Stephen Douglas's oratory was designed for the galleries, Lincoln's for his peers

The author found participants in a study able to come up with more reasons to support their position but not anymore likely to change their minds based on contradictory evidence. In effect, they enlist their IQ on behalf of their instincts.

Teddy White lamented that TV might spell the death of serious politics: to give a thoughtful response to serious questions, politician needed a good thirty seconds to ponder, but television allowed only five seconds of silence at best. DDB (ad men) found nothing to lament and the fact. They were convinced you could learn everything you needed to KNOW about a product, which in this case happens to be a human being, in half a minute – the speed not of thought but of emotion.

The author says we enlist reasons to convince others to join the direction of our instincts.

The age can be impressed. Anything will be accepted by men if you will but preach it with tremendous enthusiasm, emotion, persuasionnergy and living earnestness.

The Andrians were the first of the islanders to refuse Themistocles' demand for money. He had put it to them that they would be unable to avoid paying, because the Athenians had the support of two powerful deities, one called Persuasion and the other Compulsion. The Andrians had replied that Athens was lucky to have two such useful gods, who were obviously responsible for her wealth and greatness; unfortunately, they themselves, in their small & inadequate land, had two utterly useless deities, who refused to leave the island and insisted on staying; and their names were Poverty and Inability.

Their union, she believed, could not divide her more from other men, than their final separation.

The key for any speaker is to establish his own point of view for the audience, so they can see the game through his eyes.

The key to Lincoln's famous employment of humor is not that he failed to appreciate the tragic aspects of human existence, but rather that he felt these with such keeness that some relief was required.

The person who has been accustomed to subdue men by force will be less inclined to the trouble of convincing or persuading them.

The letter is too belligerent. If I were you, I would state the facts as they were, without the pepper and salt. Abraham Lincoln

The most fundamental thing about a person is desire. It defines them. Tell me what a person wants, truly wants, and I'll tell you who they are, and how to persuade them.

The Ninysh might have resisted a bit harder. I don't mean to imply that they were cowards...," Maurizio said shrugging, clearly implying that the Ninysh were cowards.