Aristotle Quotes About Persuasion

• Of the modes of persuasion furnished by the spoken word there are three kinds. The first kind depends on the personal character ofthe speaker; the second on putting the audience into a certain frame of mind; the third on the proof, provided by the words of the speech itself.

  Aristotle

  Character, Mind, Three

• Rhetoric may be defined as the faculty of observing in any given case the available means of persuasion.

  Aristotle

  Mean, May, Persuasion

  Aristotle, Aeterna Press (2015). “Rhetoric”, p.25, Aeterna Press

• Character may almost be called the most effective means of persuasion.

  Aristotle

  Philosophical, Character, Mean

  Aristotle, Aeterna Press (2015). “Rhetoric”, p.26, Aeterna Press

• In making a speech one must study three points: first, the means of producing persuasion; second, the language; third the proper arrangement of the various parts of the speech.

  Aristotle

  Mean, Hypnosis, Speech

  Aristotle, Aeterna Press (2015). “Rhetoric”, p.148, Aeterna Press

• For it is not true, as some treatise-mongers lay down in their systems, of the probity of the speaker, that it contributes nothing to persuasion; but moral character nearly, I may say, carries with it the most sovereign efficacy in making credible.

  Aristotle

  Character, May, Sovereign

  Aristotle, Thomas Hobbes (1833). “Aristotle's Treatise on Rhetoric”, p.12

• It is no part of a physician's business to use either persuasion or compulsion upon the patients.

  Aristotle

  Science, Physicians, Use

  Politics VII.ii

• Persuasion is effected through the medium of the hearers, when they shall have been brought to a state of excitement under the influence of speech; for we do not, when influenced by pain or joy, or partiality or dislike, award our decisions in the same way; about which means of persuasion alone, I declare that the system-mongers of the present day busy themselves.

  Aristotle

  Pain, Mean, Awards

  Aristotle (1857). “Treatise on Rhetoric: Literally Translated from the Greek”, p.12

• There are, then, these three means of effecting persuasion. The man who is to be in command of them must, it is clear, be able (1) to reason logically, (2) to understand human character and goodness in their various forms, and (3) to understand the emotions--that is, to name them and describe them, to know their causes and the way in which they are excited.

  Aristotle

  Character, Mean, Men

  Marcus Aurelius, Plato, Aristotle (2012). “The Modern Library Collection of Greek and Roman Philosophy 3-Book Bundle: Meditations; Selected Dialogues of Plato; The Basic Works of Aristotle”, p.3615, Modern Library

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