Persuasion Quotes - Page 10

• The new, old, and constantly changing language of politics is a lexicon of conflict and drama?ridicule and reproach?pleading and persuasion.

  William Safire

  Drama, Lexicon, Language

  1968 Safire's Political Dictionary, introduction.

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• The role played by education in all political utopias from ancient times onward shows how natural it seems to start a new world with those who are by birth and nature new. So far as politics is concerned, this involves of course a serious misconception: instead of joining with one's equals in assuming the effort of persuasion and running the risk of failure, there is dictatorial intervention, based upon the absolute superiority of the adult, and the attempt to produce the new as a fait accompli, that is, as though the new already existed.

  Hannah Arendt

  Running, Political, Effort

  Hannah Arendt (1968). “Between past and future: eight exercises in political thought”, Viking Adult

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• Persuasion, indeed, is a kind of force. It consists in showing a person the consequences of his actions. It is, in a word, force applied through the mind.

  James Fitzjames Stephen

  Mind, Action, Kind

  Sir James Fitzjames Stephen (1874). “Liberty, Equality, Fraternity”, p.125

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• Agnosticism is a perfectly respectable and tenable philosophical position; it is not dogmatic and makes no pronouncements about the ultimate truths of the universe. It remains open to evidence and persuasion; lacking faith, it nevertheless does not deride faith. Atheism, on the other hand, is as unyielding and dogmatic about religious belief as true believers are about heathens. It tries to use reason to demolish a structure that is not built upon reason.

  Sydney J. Harris

  Religious, Philosophical, Hands

  Sydney J. Harris (1985). “Pieces of Eight Pa”, Mariner Books

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• If there is any thing disagreeable going on, men are always sure to get out of it.

  Jane Austen

  Men, Ifs, Disagreeable

  Jane Austen (2016). “Persuasion”, p.47, Xist Publishing

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• You can't fool all of the people all of the time. But it isn't necessary.

  Will Rogers

  Atheist, Lying, People

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• Vanity was the beginning and the end of Sir Walter Elliot's character; vanity of person and of situation.

  Jane Austen

  Character, Vanity, Ends

  1818 Persuasion, ch.1.

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• 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

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• Will a day come when the race will detect the funniness of these juvenilities and laugh at them—and by laughing at them destroy them? For your race, in its poverty, has unquestionably one really effective weapon—laughter. Power, Money, Persuasion, Supplication, Persecution--these can lift at a colossal humbug,—push it a little— crowd 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. - "The Chronicle of Young Satan," Mysterious Stranger Manuscripts

  Mark Twain

  Laughter, Blow, Race

  The Mysterious Stranger ch. 10 (1916)

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• The point of a library's existence is not persuasion or evangelism, but knowledge. It is irrelevant to the good library whether, as an institution, it shares or promotes your core values or mine, or the Attorney General's or Saddam Hussein's. The library is always an instrument of choice, and the choice is always yours, not your elected or designated leaders.

  Robert Hughes

  Choices, Leader, Library

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• My powers of persuasion are only as strong as the bullshit I have to back it up. - Charley Davidson

  Darynda Jones

  Strong, Bullshit, Charley Davidson

  Darynda Jones (2015). “The Charley Davidson Series”, p.262, St. Martin's Press

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• Thought as such… is an act of negation, of resistance to that which is forced upon it; this is what thought has inherited from its archetype, the relation between labor and material. Today, when ideologues tend more than ever to encourage thought to be positive, they cleverly note that positivity runs precisely counter to thought, and that it takes friendly persuasion by social authority to accustom thought to positivity.

  Theodor Adorno

  Running, Positivity, Being Positive

  Theodor Adorno (2003). “Negative Dialectics”, p.19, Routledge

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• The mind is no match with the heart in persuasion; constitutionality is no match with compassion.

  Everett Dirksen

  Heart, Compassion, Mind

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• Every time a message seems to grab us, and we think, 'I just might try it,' we are at the nexus of choice and persuasion that is advertising.

  Andrew Hacker

  Wise, Witty, Thinking

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• Roughly speaking, any man with energy and enthusiasm ought to be able to bring at least a dozen others round to his opinion in the course of a year no matter how absurd that opinion might be. We see every day in politics, in business, in social life, large masses of people brought to embrace the most revolutionary ideas, sometimes within a few days. It is all a question of getting hold of them in the right way and working on their weak points.

  Aleister Crowley

  Men, Years, Ideas

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• The real persuaders are our appetites, our fears and above all our vanity. The skillful propagandist stirs and coaches these internal persuaders.

  Eric Hoffer

  Fear, Real, Vanity

  Eric Hoffer (1955). “The passionate state of mind, and other aphorisms”

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• As there is no worse lie than a truth misunderstood by those who hear it, so reasonable arguments, challenges to magnanimity, and appeals to sympathy or justice, are folly when we are dealing with human crocodiles and boa-constrictors.

  William James

  Sympathy, Lying, Justice

  William James (1985). “The Varieties of Religious Experience”, p.284, Harvard University Press

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• We must each find our separate meaning in the persuasion of our days until we meet in the meaning of the world.

  Christopher Fry

  World

  Christopher Fry (2007). “Fry: Plays Three”, p.91, Oberon Books

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• The truth isn't the truth until people believe you, and they can't believe you if they don't know what you're saying, and they can't know what you're saying if they don't listen to you, and they won't listen to you if you're not interesting, and you won't be interesting unless you say things imaginatively, originally, freshly.

  William Bernbach

  Believe, People, Interesting

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• God's chief way of acting is by persuasion and patience and long-suffering, not by coercion and stark confrontation. He acts by gentle solicitation and by sweet enticement. He always acts with unfailing respect for the freedom and independence that we possess.

  Howard W. Hunter

  Sweet, Long, Independence

  Howard W. Hunter (1994). “That We Might Have Joy”, Shadow Mountain

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• The attitude of Communists towards any person who has made mistakes in his work should be one of persuasion in order to help him change and start afresh and not one of exclusion, unless he is incorrigible.

  Mao Zedong

  Attitude, Mistake, Order

  Mao Zedong (2017). “Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-tung (The Little Red Book) & Other Works”, p.140, Lulu.com

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• [A] sick mind cannot be cured by the sheer force of persuasion.

  Vincent de Paul

  Wisdom, Sick, Mind

  Saint Vincent de Paul, Pierre Coste (1985). “Correspondence, Conferences, Documents: Apr. 1650-July 1653”

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• In the world there is, parallel to the force of death and constraint, an enormous force of persuasion that is called culture.

  Albert Camus

  Culture, World, Force

  Albert Camus (2008). “Notebooks, 1951-1959”, Ivan R Dee

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• Every man has his price. This is not true. But for every man there exists a bait which he cannot resist swallowing. To win over certain people to something, it is only necessary to give it a gloss of love of humanity, nobility, gentleness, self-sacrifice - and there is nothing you cannot get them to swallow. To their souls, these are the icing, the tidbit; other kinds of souls have others.

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Sacrifice, Men, Winning

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• Meet them halfway with love, peace, and persuasion, and expect them to rise for the occasion.

  Van Morrison

  Politics, Halfway, Occasions

  Song: Glad Tidings, Album: Moondance

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