Persuasion Quotes - Page 9

• 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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• The art of persuasion. The actor persuades himself, first, and through himself, the audience.

  Laurence Olivier

  Art, Actors, Firsts

  Hal Burton, Laurence Olivier (1967). “Great acting: Laurence Olivier, Sybil Thorndike, Ralph Richardson, Peggy Ashcroft, Michael Redgrave, Edith Evans, John Gielgud, Noël Coward”, British Broadcasting Corporation

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• It is really - one of the things in it that I heard yesterday in his testimony that I thought was disturbing was this - what did he call it? - a massive persuasion campaign. That sounded a little bit like Goebbels or Gore-bels.

  Glenn Beck

  Yesterday, Campaigns, Littles

  "Beck likened Gore to Nazi propagandist, let Inhofe distort his climate change testimony". "CNN Headline News" with Glenn Beck, www.mediamatters.org. March 22, 2007.

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• The Spirit never makes men the instruments of converting others until they feel that they cannot do it themselves; that their skill in argument, in persuasion, in management, avails nothing.

  Charles Hodge

  Men, Skills, Spirit

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• By and large, the making of serious, thoughtful and occasionally valuable art has become a lonely persuasion, while the marketing of art has become a boutique operation, manipulated by fashion, self-serving art scholars and the vagaries of the auction block.

  Abe Ajay

  Fashion, Lonely, Art

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• Photography is a powerful medium of persuasion and propaganda. It has that ring of truth when all the time, in artful hands, it can make any statement the manipulator chooses.

  Michael Langford

  Photography, Powerful, Hands

  Michael Langford (2000). “Basic Photography”, p.7, Taylor & Francis

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• Maybe tomorrow when He looks down Every green field and every town All of his children every nation There'll be peace and good, brotherhood... Crystal blue persuasion.

  Tommy James

  Peace, Children, Green Fields

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

  Aristotle

  Mean, May, Given

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

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• The simple, daily influences of prayer, persuasion, and promoting of godly values are the most powerful tools a mother can use to unleash the potential of her children.

  David Jeremiah

  Mother, Prayer, Children

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• Still, I have been no one's enemy but my own. My easy nature, either in drinking or anything else, was always ready to submit to persuasions of profligate companions, who often led me into snares.

  John Clare

  Drinking, Enemy, Easy

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• We knew our Father. There was no need for persuasion. Would not His Fatherliness be longing to give us our hearts' desire (if I may put it so)? How could we press Him as though He were not our own most loving Father?

  Amy Carmichael

  Father, Heart, Giving

  Amy Carmichael (2002). “Gold Cord: The Story of a Fellowship”, CLC Publications

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• Well, when I am fifty-three or so I would like to write a novel as good as Persuasion but with a modern setting, of course. For the next thirty years or so I shall be collecting material for it. If anyone asks me what I work at, I shall say, 'Collecting material'. No one can object to that.

  Stella Gibbons

  Writing, Years, Three

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• An almost hysterical antagonism toward the gold standard is one issue which unites statists of all persuasions. They seem to sense... that gold and economic freedom are inseparable.

  Alan Greenspan

  Freedom, Issues, Gold

  Ayn Rand, Nathaniel Branden, Alan Greenspan, Robert Hessen (1986). “Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal”, p.89, Penguin

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• I want to be honest about the world that we live in, and sometimes my political persuasions come through in my work. Fashion can be really racist, looking at the clothes of other cultures as costumes. . . . That’s mundane and it’s old hat. Let’s break down some barriers.

  Alexander McQueen

  Fashion, Other Cultures, Clothes

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• If the Humanists wish to be champions of reason, they should consider the following: just as they would not admit mystics into their camp, since no rational discussion is possible with men who substitute supernatural revelations for rational evidence-so they cannot admit advocates of force into their camp, because no rational discussion or agreement is possible with men who substitute guns for rational persuasion.

  Ayn Rand

  Gun, Men, Champion

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• Though I knew so far as Anarchism was concerned I was backing a lost cause, it didn't seem to matter as every other cause had won at some time but that of the people themselves. At least it threw so a light on any other political persuasion.

  Albert Meltzer

  Light, People, Political

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• I have learned nothing in twenty years that would suggest that evil people can be rapidly influenced by any means other than raw power. They do not respond, at least in the short run, to either gentle kindness or any form of spiritual persuasion with which I am familiar.

  M. Scott Peck

  Running, Spiritual, Kindness

  M. Scott Peck (1983). “People of the Lie”, p.68, Simon and Schuster

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• The only roads of enquiry there are to think of: one, that it is and that it is not possible for it not to be, this is the path of persuasion (for truth is its companion); the other, that it is not and that it must not be - this I say to you is a path wholly unknowable.

  Parmenides

  Thinking, Enquiry, Path

  Frag. B 2.2-6, quoted by Proclus, "Commentary on the Timaeus I", 345,

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• Madness alone is truly terrifying, inasmuch as you cannot placate it by threats, persuasion, or bribes.

  Joseph Conrad

  Madness, Threat, Bribe

  Joseph Conrad, Bruce Harkness, S. W. Reid (1990). “The Secret Agent: A Simple Tale”, p.31, Cambridge University Press

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• Because, Cat, it’s the feminine persuasion that’s always the deadliest.

  Jeaniene Frost

  Cat, Feminine

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• That which we do not believe, we cannot adequately say; even though we may repeat the words ever so often.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Believe, May, Belief

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1851). “Essays, lectures and orations”, p.73

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• I used all diligence to arrive at London and therefore I now gave my crew a certificate under my hand, of my free and willing return, without persuasion or force by any one or more of them.

  Henry Hudson

  Hands, London, Return

  "Henry Hudson: Dreams and Obsession; [the Tragic Legacy of the New World's Least Understood Explorer]". Book by Corey Sandler, Citadel Press, p. 119, 2008.

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• All men are, at times, influenced by inexplicable sentiments. Ideas haunt them in spite of all their efforts to discard them. Prepossessions are entertained, for which their reason is unable to discover any adequate cause. The strength of a belief, when it is destitute of any rational foundation, seems, of itself, to furnish a new ground for credulity. We first admit a powerful persuasion, and then, from reflecting on the insufficiency of the ground on which it is built, instead of being prompted to dismiss it, we become more forcibly attached to it.

  Charles Brockden Brown

  Powerful, Men, Ideas

  Charles Brockden Brown (1987). “Somnambulism and other stories”, Peter Lang Publishing

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• In war, mere appearances have had all the effect of realities; and that a person, under a firm persuasion that he can command resources, virtually has them; that very prospect inspiring him with hope and boldness in his exertions.

  Livy

  Leadership, Resources, Command

  "The History of Rome".

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