Convincing Quotes - Page 11

• Murder is an inherently evil act, no matter what the circumstances, no matter how convincing the rationalizations.

  Bentley Little

  Evil, Matter, Murder

  Bentley Little (1997). “The Ignored”, Signet

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• A lot of people don’t just go ahead and try things. They’ll have an idea and they’ll say — they’ll convince themselves or other people will convince them that it can’t be done. You know, one or the other. Actually I think that the first is even more dangerous and more serious. It’s convincing yourself that it can’t be done.

  Pierre Omidyar

  Convincing Yourself, Ideas, People

  "The World's Online Marketplace". The Academy of Achievement Interview, www.achievement.org. October 27, 2000.

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• We are faced with the task of convincing a myth infatuated world that love and curiosity are sufficient and you don't have to delude yourself and frighten yourself with Iron Age fairy tales. This is a monumental task. I don't think there is an intellectual struggle more worthy of our efforts.

  Sam Harris

  Struggle, Thinking, Iron

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• Political leaders normally act by making convincing speeches.

  Helmut Schmidt

  Leader, Political, Speech

  WGBH-TV Interview, lsopenvault01.wgbh.org. November 12, 1987.

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• You remind me of the Siberian hunting spider, which adopts a highly convincing limp in three of its eight legs in order to attract its main prey, the so-called Samaritan squirrel, which takes pity on the spider, and then the spider jumps on it and injects the paralyzing venom, while the squirrel remains bafflingly philosophical about the whole thing. Not to be confused with the Ukrainian hunting spider, which actually has got a limp and is, as such, completely harmless, and a little bit bitter about the whole thing.

  Bill Bailey

  Funny, Confused, Philosophical

  "Part Troll". Documentary, Comedy, Music, 2004.

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• I'm always game for everything. What people don't understand is that the networks are who you have to get to take a chance on you. I wanna do it all. The trick is convincing a network to do it with you.

  RuPaul

  Games, People, Chance

  Reddit AMA, www.reddit.com. September 17, 2014.

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• I've studied pathological liars, and anything they say, they believe, and that's one of the reasons they're so convincing, because they have no connection with the truth. It's a dead issue. It's like they're color-blind to the truth. So anything that comes out of their mouths is their reality.

  Jane Velez-Mitchell

  Liars, Believe, Reality

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• It was inevitable: Yankel fell in love with his never-wife. He would wake from sleep to miss the weight that never depressed the bed next to him, remember in earnest the weight of gestures she never made, long for the un-weight of her un-arm slung over his too-real chest, making his widower's rememberences that much more convincing and his pain that much more real.

  Jonathan Safran Foer

  Pain, Real, Sleep

  Jonathan Safran Foer (2013). “Everything Is Illuminated”, p.48, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• Human has always striven to retain the past, to keep it convincing; there's nothing wicked in that. Without it we have no continuity; we have only the moment. And, deprived of the past, the moment - the present - has little meaning, if any.

  Philip K. Dick

  Past, Wicked, Littles

  Philip K. Dick (2011). “Now Wait for Last Year”, p.29, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• I thought physics could be done to the glory of God, till I saw there wasn’t any God at all and that physics was more interesting anyway. The Christian religion is a very powerful and convincing mistake, that’s all.

  Philip Pullman

  Christian, Powerful, Mistake

  Philip Pullman (2007). “The Amber Spyglass”, Knopf Books for Young Readers

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• Rule one of reading other people's stories is that whenever you say 'well that's not convincing' the author tells you that's the bit that wasn't made up. This is because real life is under no obligation to be convincing.

  Neil Gaiman

  Real, Reading, Writing

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• I always find that I have to be emotionally on my character's side for it to be convincing.

  Josh Hartnett

  Character, Sides

  "Josh Hartnett Talks BUNRAKU and Roland Joffe’s SINGULARITY". Interview with Christina Radish, collider.com. August 30, 2011.

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• Conduct is more convincing than language.

  John Woolman

  Language

  John Woolman, John Greenleaf Whittier (1871). “The Journal of John Woolman”, p.101, Boston : J.R. Osgood

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• Who, born for the universe, narrow'd his mind, And to party gave up what was meant for mankind; Though fraught with all learning, yet straining his throat To persuade Tommy Townshend to lend him a vote. Who too deep for his hearers still went on refining, And thought of convincing while they thought of dining: Though equal to all things, for all things unfit; Too nice for a statesman, too proud for a wit.

  Oliver Goldsmith

  Nice, Party, Learning

  'Retaliation' (1774) l. 29 (on Edmund Burke)

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• An Inconvenient Truth is so convincing that it makes opposers of the argument as credible as Holocaust deniers.

  Jon Niccum

  Holocaust, Argument, Truth Is

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• Let us, above all, be clear that, without a convincing program of debt relief to start the new millennium, our objective of halving world poverty by 2015 will be only a pipe dream.

  Kofi Annan

  Dream, Relief, Debt

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• I never saw an instance of one or two disputants convincing the other by argument.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Two, Saws, Argument

  Thomas Jefferson (1977). “The Portable Thomas Jefferson”, p.407, Penguin

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• I do think I have an ability to record sensual and emotional facts and factoids, to construct a convincing surface of what life feels like, both physical life and emotional life.

  Anne Carson

  Emotional, Thinking, Sensual

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• Fiction must convince our bodies for it to have any chance of convincing our minds.

  Bonnie Friedman

  Mind, Fiction, Body

  Bonnie Friedman (1993). “Writing past dark: envy, fear, distraction, and other dilemmas in the writer's life”

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• The thing is, it's very dangerous to have a fixed idea. A person with a fixed idea will always find some way of convincing himself in the end that he is right

  Atle Selberg

  Ideas, Way, Ends

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• Life is always going to be stranger than fiction, because fiction has to be convincing, and life doesn't.

  Neil Gaiman

  Fiction, Life Is, Stranger

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• There are no rules. You can write a story, if you wish, with no conflict, no suspense, no beginning, middle or end. Of course, you have to be regarded as a genius to get away with it, and that's the hardest part - convincing everybody you're a genius.

  Fredric Brown

  Writing, Wish, Suspense

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• I used to dream of true love; now I'm open to false, but convincing.

  Jacob M. Appel

  Dream, Used

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• Obama still has work to do with the vision thing. Convincing voters that he has a credible, practical plan to turn the nation around is a process, not a speech.

  Ron Fournier

  Vision, Speech, Voters

  "Why Obama's Great Speech Fell Flat" by Ron Fournier, www.theatlantic.com. September 6, 2012.

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• Life … is a bit like reading. … If all your responses to a book have already been duplicated and expanded upon by a professional critic, then what point is there to your reading? Only that it’s yours. Similarly, why live your life? Because it’s yours. But what if such an answer becomes less and less convincing?

  Julian Barnes

  Book, Reading, Live Your Life

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