Persuasive Quotes - Page 4

• Modern literary theory sees a similarity between walking and writing that I find persuasive: words inscribe a text in the same way that a walk inscribes space. In The practicse of Everyday Life, Michel de Certeau writes, 'The act of walking is a process of appropriation of the topographical system on the part of the pedestrian; it is a special acting-out of the place...and it implies relations among differentiated positions.' I think this is a fancy way of saying that writing is one way of making the world our own, and that walking is another.

  Geoff Nicholson

  Writing, Thinking, Literary Theory

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• The draft is a monstrous violation of individual liberty, and even a good motive cannot make it otherwise. In a free society no one should be compelled to take up arms, or be forced to kill or risk being killed... But who can blame prospective volunteers from doubting that there is a threat from Iraq? The Bush administration has yet to make a persuasive argument to that effect.

  Sheldon Richman

  Iraq, Volunteer, Risk

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• ...and she felt the words come from some iron place within her that hadn't existed an hour ago. She didn't speak loudly, but there was such a change in her voice. Coming from that iron place, it was heavy and true; it wasn't persuasive, or desperate, or antagonistic. It just was.

  Laini Taylor

  Voice, Iron, Speak

  Laini Taylor (2015). “The Complete Daughter of Smoke and Bone Trilogy”, p.520, Hachette UK

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• It is not a persuasive argument that an evil should continue because it has existed in the past.

  William H. Hastie

  Past, Justice, Diversity

  30 Copy quote

• Your assignment,' he bellowed at Kelly, 'was to make a persuasive argument. Demanding to know whether detractors of your position are on crack is not arguing persuasively.

  Meg Cabot

  Cracks, Arguing, Argument

  Meg Cabot (2009). “Mean Spirits”, p.34, Pan Macmillan

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• A genuinely persuasive argument does not merely tell you that you are wrong about everything. It doesn't just beat on you from the outside. It comes inside your belief system, as it were, and affirms something you believe strongly. And then it says - well if you believe this (A) then why in the world can't you see that B is true?

  Timothy Keller

  Believe, Doe, World

  Source: visionroom.com

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• I am not unconscious of the persuasive power exerted by these considerations to drag men along in the current; but I am not at liberty to travel that road.

  Benjamin F. Wade

  Travel, Men, Power

  7 Copy quote

• Asil left Bran alone with his thoughts then, because if he stayed, Bran would argue with him. This way, Bran would have no one to argue with but himself. And Asil had always credited Bran with the ability to be persuasive.

  Patricia Briggs

  Way, Arguing, Ability

  Patricia Briggs (2012). “Fair Game”, p.21, Penguin

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• With all women gentleness is the most persuasive and powerful argument.

  Theophile Gautier

  Powerful, Argument, Gentleness

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• As in political revolutions, so in paradigm choice--there is no standard higher than the assent of the relevant community. To discover how scientific revolutions are effected, we shall therefore have to examine not only the impact of nature and of logic, but also the techniques of persuasive argumentation effective within the quite special groups that constitute the community of scientists.

  Thomas Kuhn

  Science, Impact, Political Revolution

  Thomas S. Kuhn (2012). “The Structure of Scientific Revolutions: 50th Anniversary Edition”, p.94, University of Chicago Press

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• Knowing things halfway is a greater success than knowing things completely: it takes things to be simpler than they really are andso makes its opinions more easily understandable and persuasive.

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Knowledge, Knowing, Opinion

  11 Copy quote

• I should like to meet a philosopher like Nietzsche somewhere in a train or a steamer, and to spend the whole night talking to him. I consider his philosophy won't last long, however. It's more showy than convincing.

  Anton Chekhov

  Wisdom, Philosophy, Night

  "Letters of Anton Chekhov to His Family and Friends: With Biographical Sketch". Book by Anton Chekhov, 1920.

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• Recapitulation provided a convenient focus for the persuasive racism of white scientists; they looked to the activities of their own children for comparison with normal adult behavior in lower races.

  Stephen Jay Gould

  Children, White, Race

  7 Copy quote

• Children learn through gentle direction and persuasive teaching.

  Thomas S. Monson

  Children, Teaching, Gentle

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• He must be able to hear them [the counter arguments] from persons who actually believe them; who defend them in earnest, and do their very utmost for them. He must know them in their most plausible and persuasive form; he must feel the whole force of the difficulty which the true view of the subject has to encounter and dispose of; else he will never really possess himself of the portion of truth which meets and removes that difficulty.

  John Stuart Mill

  Believe, Views, Atheism

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• Everything in life is arbitrary yet must be over-determined in literature. Jean McGarry knows how to tell a persuasive tale illuminating these truths.

  Harold Bloom

  Arbitrary, Literature, Determined

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• I must follow my Lord.  No matter what.  I must renew my allegiance every morning.  It is His voice I must listen to, not the voices of those around me, however strident, however persuasive.  It is His Word that must govern my life, not the words of others.  God Himself has written a Book (think of it!) that must be the authority in my life.

  Stu Weber

  Morning, Book, Thinking

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• Most Americans instinctively recoil from the claim that there is an antireligious bias running through the underlying assumptions with which their society approaches church-state issues. However, there is persuasive evidence that among some influential segments of the population, there is a very real antireligious strain.

  Stephen V Monsma

  Christian, Running, Religious

  Stephen V. Monsma (1995). “Positive Neutrality: Letting Religious Freedom Ring”, Baker Publishing Group

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• Melanie still grieves for Jared," she stated. I felt my head nod without willing the action. "You grieve for him." I closed my eyes. "The dreams continue?" "Every night," I mumbled. "Tell me about then." Her voice was soft, persuasive. "I don't like to talk about them." "I know. Try. It might help." "How? How will it help to tell you that I see his face every time I close my eyes? That I wake up and cry when he's not there? That the memories are so strong I can't separate hers from mine anymore?

  Stephenie Meyer

  Dream, Strong, Memories

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• How have you been? You’re still as beautiful as ever.” “As are you, my dear. I love your shoes.” “Aren’t they delightful? I saw them and just had to have them. Their previous owner wasn’t too keen to let them go, but I can be very persuasive when I want to be.” “Is that her blood on the left one?” “And no amount of scrubbing will get it out, either.

  Derek Landy

  Beautiful, Blood, Shoes

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• I think that, in general, when you want to make a case, It important to be as clear and honest and persuasive as you can be about stating the opposite case, rather than attacking strawmen.

  Joseph Badaracco

  Thinking, Important, Honest

  Source: bobmorris.biz

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• "The Lucky One" is at its heart a romance novel, elevated however by Nicholas Sparks' persuasive storytelling. Readers don't read his books because they're true, but because they ought to be true.

  Roger Ebert

  Book, Heart, Romance

  Roger Ebert's review of "The Lucky One", www.rogerebert.com. April 18, 2012.

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• I always thought Woody Harrelson is quite a persuasive guy. He's the kind of guy who can call you up in the middle of the night and tell you, 'Let's all go get a donut!' And you're thinking, 'It's the middle of the night,' but somehow you still get up and go get a donut.

  Jesse Eisenberg

  Night, Thinking, Guy

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• Projecting a persuasive image of a desirable and practical future is extremely important to high morale, to dynamism, to consensus, and in general to help the wheels of society turn smoothly.

  Herman Kahn

  Important, Wheels, Helping

  Herman Kahn, Paul Dragoș Aligică, Kenneth R. Weinstein (2009). “The Essential Herman Kahn: In Defense of Thinking”, p.260, Lexington Books

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• Another argument, vaguer and even less persuasive, is that gay marriage somehow does harm to heterosexual marriage. I have yet to meet anyone who can explain to me what this means. In what way would allowing same-sex partners to marry diminish the marriages of heterosexual couples?

  Ted Olson

  Marriage, Sex, Couple

  14 Copy quote