Best Persuading Quotes & Sayings

SELLING HAS BEEN DEFINED AS: THE ACT OF PERSUADING OR CONVINCING SOMEONE TO BUY YOUR PRODUCT, SERVICE, OR IDEA. — Mike Kaplan

After seeing it work for so long, I began to perceive Charlie's charm as a method of robbing houses by persuading the owners to invite you in and take their possessions. I was in no doubt: it was robbery; there were objects of yours he wanted. And he took them. It was false and manipulative and I admired it tremendously. — Hanif Kureishi

For though there was no chance of persuading a pension fund manager looking to make a longer-term loan to buy a Freddie Mac bond that could evaporate tomorrow, one could easily sell him the third tranche of a CMO. — Michael Lewis

Self persuasion was a concept much loved by evolutionary psychologists. I had written a piece about it for an Australian magazine. It was pure armchair science, and it went like this: if you lived in a group, like humans have always done, persuading others of your own needs and interests would be fundamental to your well-being. Sometimes you had to use cunning. Clearly you would be at your most convincing if you persuaded yourself first and did not even have to pretend to believe what you were saying. The kind of self-deluding individuals who tended to do this flourished, as did their genes. So it was we squabbled and scrapped, for our unique intelligence was always at the service of our special pleading and selective blindness to the weakness of our case. — Ian McEwan

Most people are convinced that as long as they are not overtly forced to do something by an outside power, their decisions are theirs, and that if they want something, it is they who want it. But this is one of the great illusions we have about ourselves. A great number of our decisions are not really our own but are suggested to us from the outside; we have succeeded in persuading ourselves that it is we who have made the decision, whereas we have actually conformed with expectations of others, driven by the fear of isolation and by more direct threats to our life, freedom, and comfort. — Erich Fromm

I was little impressed with this rough and ready way of persuading people to renew their contracts and decided that I was now quite free of any obligations. — Pietro Mascagni

I pay tribute to John Major's achievement in persuading the other 11 Community heads of government that they could move ahead to the social chapter but not within the Treaty and without Britain's participation. It sets a vital precedent, for an enlarged Community can only function if we build in flexibility of that kind. John Major deserves high praise for ensuring at Maastricht that we would not have either a single currency or the absurd provisions of the social chapter forced upon us: our industry, workforce and national prosperity will benefit as a result. — Margaret Thatcher

It is arguable that the success of business propaganda in persuading us, for so long, that we are free from propaganda is one of the most significant propaganda achievements of the twentieth century. — Alex Carey

Persuading people through technology is the next social revolution. Facebook demonstrates just how powerful it will be. — B. J. Fogg

After a conversation with someone that went on all night, but I didn't take much persuading, and the next day I was a vegetarian. It came down to one question, can you be healthy without killing animals? If the answer is 'yes' then the only reason you're killing is because you like the taste. But you can't take a life just because you like its taste. — Martin Shaw

Evangelism is not a making of proselytes; it is not persuading people to make a decision; it is not proving that God exists, or making a good case for the truth of Christianity; it is not inviting someone to a meeting; it is not exposing the contemporary dilemma, or arousing interest in Christianity; it is not wearing a badge saying "Jesus Saves"! Some of these things are right and good in their place, but none of them should be confused with evangelism. To evangelize is to declare on the authority of God what he has done to save sinners, to warn men of their lost condition, to direct them to repent, and to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. — Mark Dever

Charles Baudelaire would have the curious believe that the finest trick the Devil ever performed was in persuading the world that he did not exist. Baudelaire was mistaken. There was no persuasion. — John Zande

The idea that each of us can be directly spiritual is radical. Most religions are based not on teaching adherents to be directly spiritual, but in persuading them to trust in the intercession of ministers or priests. The problem with this approach is that we cannot gain access to spirituality except through the medium of a fallible human being. If we want to see Tao, we need only open our eyes and trust what we see. — Ming-Dao Deng

Advocacy means persuading people who matter to care about your issue. It is about getting listened to, being at the table when decisions are made, being heard by people who make decisions. It is about facing and overcoming resistance. It is about speaking and writing in compelling ways that make decision makers want to adopt your ideas. — John Daly

I had in mind a message, although I hope it doesn't intrude too badly, persuading Americans, and especially Southerners, of the critical importance of land and our vanishing natural environment and wildlife. — E. O. Wilson

Persuading the people to vote against their own best interests has been the awesome genius of the
American political elite from the beginning. — Gore Vidal

I do not think it is wise to force them to study one thing or another, although persuading them to do so would not be harmful; and when there is no need to study pane lucrando,1 if the student is so fortunate that heaven has endowed him with parents who can spare him that, it would be my opinion that they should allow him to pursue the area of knowledge to which they can see he is inclined; although poetry is less useful than pleasurable, it is not one of those that dishonors the one who knows it. — Miguel De Cervantes Saavedra

babies are God's way of persuading parents to have teenagers. — Peter F. Hamilton

I believe that if you have faith in your own abilities then in the end others will have faith in them too, even if they need a little persuading. — Chuck Grassley

People rich enough to redecorate every 10 months are certainly careless with antique furniture. I found four 1760 French side chairs, tapestry seats intact. Claiming them proved easier than persuading any cabdriver to transport the things. — Allan Gurganus

The Savior is working mightily among men, every day He is invisibly persuading numbers of people all over the world, both within and beyond the Greek-speaking world, to accept His faith and be obedient to His teaching. Can anyone, in face of this, still doubt that He has risen and lives, or rather that He is Himself the Life? Does a dead man prick the consciences of men, so that they throw all the traditions of their fathers to the winds and bow down before the teaching of Christ? — Athanasius Of Alexandria

As Sondheim said, Nice is different than good. Do you need to do whatever you're told to be a nice person? Maybe. Do you need to do whatever you're told to be a good person? Of course not! Man, woman, personal, professional - some people have a skill for persuading you the best thing you can be is obedient. A — Anna Kendrick

Try persuading the world not to cut its throat for half a decade or more ... and it'll begin to dawn on you that even your behavior's part of its plan. — Malcolm Lowry

It's just that you are practiced at persuading, and sometimes it's quite difficult, sir to distinguish being persuaded by you from being knocked down in street and stamped on.
Pg.406 — Hilary Mantel

[Louis] Brandeis is writing directly to us. His clear voice comes through a century and he's speaking to us and he's galvanizing us and he's persuading us. And that's why I love to read the prose. — Jeffrey Rosen

Counselling man to treat her as a slave while persuading her that she is a queen. — Simone De Beauvoir

King John won't need any persuading that the French have a hand in this. From what I've heard, if a bean gives him a bellyache he swears it was a French one. — Karen Maitland

The three main elements of public relations are practically as old as society: informing people, persuading people, or integrating people with people. Of course, the means and methods of accomplishing these ends have changed as society has changed. — Edward Bernays

There is a holy, mistaken zeal in politics, as well as in religion. By persuading others, we convince ourselves. — Junius

You'd have a better chance persuading someone to change their sexual orientation than reaching people who have rendered themselves so deaf and blind. — Epictetus

Science shows that passion is contagious, literally. You cannot inspire others unless you are inspired yourself. You stand a much greater chance of persuading and inspiring your listeners if you express an enthusiastic, passionate, and meaningful connection to your topic. — Carmine Gallo

The rhetorician need not know the truth about things; he has only to discover some way of persuading the ignorant that he has more knowledge than those who know. — Plato

The ground on which you once stood is cut away. You have become a citizen of No Man's Land. I send you my greetings.
the closing lines of Smiley's letter to Karla persuading him to defect. — John Le Carre

The best way to rise in society is to use all possible means of persuading people that one has already risen in society. — Francois De La Rochefoucauld

Or why it is acceptable to train fast runners and high jumpers but not to breed them. I can think of some answers, and they are good ones, which would probably end up persuading me. But hasn't the time come when we should stop being frightened even to put the question? — Richard Dawkins

We welcome into our homes the machines that vacuum the thoughts out of our heads and pump in someone else's. John Berger in Ways of Seeing said that television advertisers succeeded by persuading viewers to envy themselves as they would be if they bought the product. These programmes do something similar, by persuading the viewer to envy himself as he would be if his life were that little bit more exciting and melodramatic than it actually is. They can make things seem normal that are not. — Peter Hitchens