Persuasion Quotes

It’s amazing, the lies you can tell yourself. Even more amazing, the lies you can believe when you’re desperate enough.

~ Cat Clarke

Horace Greeley pursues temperance to extravagance. Lord Acton

~ Harold Holzer

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

~ Harold Holzer

All good writing is persuasive writing; persuading the reader to buy what you're selling, to side with you, to believe the tales you tell.

~ Ramsey Isler

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

~ Harold Holzer

Lewis was studying literary history with the present and future in mind.

~ Philip Zaleski

Lewis at his best is about trying on ways of looking at the world.

~ Alister E. Mcgrath

The key is to put your outrage in a place where you can get it when you need to, but not have it bubble up so much, especially when you're asked to explain new ideas or explain what you observed two people who share none of your experiences.

~ Ron Suskind

It's much easier to be convincing if you care about your topic. Figure out what's important to you about your message and speak from the heart.

~ Nicholas Boothman

You can LOBBY anyone. It is the great equalizer. – Chief of Staff Russell Jackson

~ Madam Secretary

He did what good lawyers always do. He shifted his argument in the direction his audience was already going.

~ Jeffrey Toobin

A dash of humor will only add intense gravity to the proceedings, even as a flash of lightning only makes midnight dreariness all the more impressive.

~ Charles Haddon Spurgeon

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.

~ Robert A. Caro

Johnson had a sense of humor, and he could kid with me,” he would say. “Johnson didn’t enjoy talking with most liberals. He didn’t think they had a sense of humor.

~ Hubert H. Humphrey

Goldwater hardly ever mentioned a statistic. He hardly ever used it EXAMPLE. He presumed you already knew what he meant. Reagan SHOWED you.

~ Rick Perlstein

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

~ H.w. Brands

I discovered that night (in his college's student politics) that an audience has a feel to it, and, in the parlance of the theater, that audience and I were together.

~ Ronald Reagan

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.

~ Elton Trueblood

No conflict no story

~ Antonio Nuñez Lopez

In politics, if you're explaining, you're loosing.

~ Rick Perlstein

It is safe to assume that any individual or group you wish to influence has access to more wisdom than they currently use. It is also safe to assume that they also have considerably more facts than they can process effectively. Giving them even more facts adds to the wrong pile. They don't need more facts. They need help finding their wisdom. Contrary to popular belief, bad decisions are rarely made because people don't have all the facts.

~ Annette Simmons

When the evening was over, Anne could not but be amused at the idea of her coming to Lyme, to preach patience and resignation to a young man whom she had never seen before; nor could she help fearing, on more serious reflection, that, like many other great moralists and preachers, she had been eloquent on a point in which her own conduct would ill bear examination.

~ Jane Austen

Anne did think on the question with perfect decision, and said as much in replay as her own feelings could accomplish, or as his seemed able to bear, for he was too much affected to renew the subject - and when he spoke again, it was something totally different.

~ Jane Austen

When (an advocate) is not thoroughly acquainted with the real strength and weakness of his cause, he knows not where to choose the most impressive argument. When the mark is shrouded in obscurity, the only substitute for accuracy in the aim is in the multitude of the shafts.

~ John Quincy Adams

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

~ Blaise Pascal

Fatigue could be the dealmaker's friend.

~ H.w. Brands

I know a little something about fear, honey. I know what a relief it feels like to give into it at first. It’s not hard to persuade yourself that you’re doing the right thing—that you’re making the smart, safe decision. But fear is insidious. It takes anything you’re willing to give it, the parts of your life you don’t mind cutting out, but when you’re not looking, it takes anything else it damn well pleases, too.

~ Andrea Lochen

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.

~ Jonathan Haidt

I don't need to see the trail to know you're at the end of it. My grandfather's compass may not work, but mine is still true.

~ Diana Peterfreund

Everyone and everything needed to be raised to its highest level – the teacher must become a mage, the husband a knight errant, the labor a hero in a sacred drama – intensified, rarefied, baptized in the turbulent waters of restlessness, curiosity, and ardor.

~ Philip Zaleski

It would behoove you to have your thesis finely tuned and the logical arguments utilized in support of it tightly woven into a credible, and creatively persuasive tapestry.

~ R. Alan Woods

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

~ Andrew Pettegree

Even in a hostile press conference with hostile questions there was drama, and he could benefit from the drama and the hostility. He mastered the greatest art of television, appearing to be spontaneous without in fact being spontaneous.

~ David Halberstam

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.

~ Charles Haddon Spurgeon

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.

~ Todd M. Brenneman

Senators came to realize that he understood not only their bills but the reasons they had introduced them

~ Robert A. Caro

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

~ George F. Will

I would like to see anyone, prophet, king or God, convince a thousand cats to do the same thing at the same time.

~ Neil Gaiman

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.

~ Douglas Arnold Hyde

People almost invariably arrive at their beliefs not on the basis of proof but on the basis of what they find attractive.

~ Blaise Pascal