Persuades Quotes & Sayings

What is it about this book - essentially a military history of the first month of the First World War - which gives it its stamp and has created its enormous reputation? Four qualities stand out: a wealth of vivid detail which keeps the reader immersed in events, almost as an eyewitness; a prose style which is transparently clear, intelligent, controlled and witty; a cool detachment of moral judgment - Mrs. Tuchman is never preachy or reproachful; she draws on skepticism, not cynicism, leaving the reader not so much outraged by human villainy as amused and saddened by human folly. These first three qualities are present in all of Barbara Tuchman's work, but in The Guns of August there is a fourth which makes the book, once taken up, almost impossible to set aside. Remarkably, she persuades the reader to suspend any foreknowledge of what is about to happen. — Barbara W. Tuchman

The Orator persuades and carries all with him, he knows not how; the Rhetorician can prove that he ought to have persuaded and carried all with him. — Thomas Carlyle

My Calvinism persuades me that we are open to God, in the sense that we are not delimited, not organisms with fixed attributes in the manner of the other creatures, but are instead participants in a reality that utterly exceeds our powers of description. — Marilynne Robinson

The truth of these days is not that which really is, but what every man persuades another man to believe. — Michel De Montaigne

The silence often of pure innocence persuades when speaking fails. — William Shakespeare

Depression is seductive: it offends and teases, frightens you and draws you in, tempting you with its promise of sweet oblivion, then overwhelming you with a nearly sexual power, squirming past your defenses, dissolving your will, invading the tired spirit so utterly that it becomes difficult to recall that you ever lived without it ... or to imagine that you might live that way again. With all the guile of Satan himself, depression persuades you that its invasion was all your own idea, that you wanted it all along. It fogs the part of the brain that reasons, that knows right from wrong. It captures you with its warm, guilty, hateful pleasures, and, worst of all, it becomes familiar. All at once, you find yourself in thrall to the very thing that most terrifies you. Your work slides, your friendships slide, your marriage slides, but you scarcely notice: to be depressed is to be half in love with disaster. — Stephen L. Carter

Before the sin, Satan assures us that it is of no consequence; after the sin, he persuades us that it is unforgivable. — Fulton J. Sheen

With one of the most bewitching sounds in the world, its purr, the cat persuades us that it thinks we are wonderful. — Akif Pirincci

Dill said striking a match under a turtle was hateful.
"Ain't hateful, just persuades him- 's not like you'd chunk him in the fire," Jem growled.
"How do you know a match don't hurt him?"
"Turtles can't feel , stupid," said Jem.
"Were you ever a turtle, huh? — Harper Lee

I shall imagine life is not worth dying,if (and when)roses complain their beauties are in vain but though mankind persuades itself that every weed's a rose,roses(you feel certain)will only smile — E. E. Cummings

About some books we feel that our reluctance to return to them is the true measure of our admiration. It is hard to suppose that many people go back, from a spontaneous desire, to reread 1984: there is neither reason nor need to, no one forgets it. The usual distinctions between forgotten details and a vivid general impression mean nothing here, for the book is written out of one passionate breath, each word is bent to a severe discipline of meaning, everything is stripped to the bareness of terror.
Kafka's The Trial is also a book of terror, but it is a paradigm and to some extent a puzzle, so that one may lose oneself in the rhythm of the paradigm and play with the parts of the puzzle. Kafka's novel persuades us that life is inescapably hazardous and problematic, but the very 'universality' of this idea helps soften its impact: to apprehend the terrible on the plane of metaphysics is to lend it an almost soothing aura. — Irving Howe

Truth persuades by teaching, but does not teach by persuading. — Tertullian

A person's life persuades better than his word. — Aristotle.

Truth is now simply a matter of etiquette: it has no authority, no sense of rightness, because it is no longer anchored in anything absolute. If it persuades, it does so only because our experience has given it its persuasive power, but tomorrow our experience might be different. — David F. Wells

If our subject persuades himself to believe contrary to the evidence in order to evade, somehow, the unpleasant truth to which he has already seen that the evidence points, then and only then is he clearly a self-deceiver. — Herbert Fingarette

Indeed, compulsive and rigid moralism arises in given persons precisely as the result of a lack of sense of being. Rigid moralism is a compensatory mechanism by which the individual persuades himself to take over the external sanctions because he has no fundamental assurance that his own choices have any sanction of their own — Rollo May

Credibility sets the stage. Logic leads to conclusion. Emotion leads to action. Strategically balancing all three persuades conversion. — Alex Harris

Moreover the present abundance3 of private cars is nothing other than the result of the non-stop propaganda through which capitalist production persuades the mob
and in this case is one of its most confounding successes
that the possession of a car is specifically one of the privileges our society reserves for its privileged members. — Tom McDonough

Let us keep our shame and be made clean! Shame is not defilement, though a mean pride persuades men so. On the contrary, the man who is honestly ashamed has begun to be clean. — George MacDonald

Self-love is often rather arrogant than blind; it does not hide our faults from ourselves, but persuades us that they escape the notice of others. — Samuel Johnson

Every man naturally persuades himself that he can keep his resolutions, nor is he convinced of his imbecility but by length of time and frequency of experiment. — Samuel Johnson

Madness will push you anywhere it wants. It never tells you where you're going, or why. It tells you it doesn't matter. It persuades you. It dangles something sparkly before you, shimmering like that water patch on the road up ahead. You will drive until you find it, the treasure, the thing you most desire.
You will never find it. Madness may mock you so long you will die of the search. Or it will tire of you, turn its back, oblivious as you go flying. The car is beside you, smoking, belly-up, still spinning its wheels. — Marya Hornbacher

We are not cowed into timidity by death and life. Were we forced to rely on our own shabby resources we would be pitiful people in deed. But the awareness of Christ's present risenness persuades us that we are buoyed up and carried on by a life greater than our own. — Brennan Manning

THE foolish man thinks that little faults, little indulgences, little sins, are of no consequence; he persuades himself that so long as he does not commit flagrant immoralities he is virtuous, and even holy; but he is thereby deprived of virtue and holiness, and the world knows him accordingly; it does not reverence, adore, and love him; it passes him by; he is reckoned of no account; his influence is destroyed. The efforts of such a man to make the world virtuous, his exhortations to his fellow men to abandon great vices, are empty of substance and barren of fruitage. The insignificance which he attaches to his small vices permeates his whole character, and is the measure of his manhood. He who regards his smallest delinquencies as of the gravest nature becomes a saint. — James Allen

[T]he individual in whom the will for the light is strong and clear finds his heart inextricably bound up with the struggle of the forces of light in his native place and time. Much as he may long for the opportunity of fuller self- expression in a happier world, he knows that for him self-expression is impossible save in the world in which his mind is rooted. The individual in whom the will for the light is weak soon persuades himself that his opportunity lies elsewhere. — Olaf Stapledon

Religion is a powerful weapon that can be used because it persuades people to do things. And thus it can be used for good or ill. But it should not be a powerful weapon at all. — Richard Dawkins

The Holy Spirit never uses guilt or shame to persuade us to give. For that matter, he never persuades us to give in the first place. That's called manipulation, a device employed by a different spirit. — Ron Brackin

No human power can force the intrenchments of the human mind: compulsion never persuades; it only makes hypocrites. — Francois Fenelon

Passion persuades me one way, reason another. I see the better and approve it, but I follow the worse. — Ovid

God does something to us as well as for us through the cross. He persuades us that He loves us. - Sinclair Ferguson — Randy Alcorn

A man
poet, prophet, or whatever be may be
readily persuades himself of his right to all the worship that is voluntarily tendered. — Nathaniel Hawthorne

Where mathematics and spirit join, where proof of the existence of mystery-salvific mystery-shimmers just below the surfaces of human perception, experience and the linguistic veil itself, Killarney Clary's new book-her best to date-dwells, plumbs, persuades and thrills. — Jorie Graham

J.S. Bach almost persuades me to be a Christian. — Roger Fry

The orator persuades by moral character when his speech is delivered in such a manner as to render him worthy of confidence; for we feel confidence in a greater degree and more readily in persons of worth in regard to everything in general, but where there is no certainty and there is room for doubt, our confidence is absolute. — Aristotle.

Once your faith persuades you to believe what your intelligence declares absurd, beware, lest you likewise sacrifice your reason in the conduct of your life. — Voltaire

What persuades men and women to mistake each other from time to time for gods and vermin is ideology. — Terry Eagleton

The mischief of flattery is, not that it persuades any man that he is what he is not, but that it suppresses the influence of honest ambition, by raising an opinion that honour may be gained without the toil of merit. — Samuel Johnson

The state dictates and coerces; religion teaches and persuades. The state enacts laws; religion gives commandments. The state is armed with physical force and makes use of it if need be; the force of religion is love and benevolence. — Moses Mendelssohn

A novel which persuades us of its truth is true however full of lies it may be — Mario Vargas-Llosa

It proposes to each of us that we transform ourselves, or our lives, by buying something more.
This more, it proposes,will make us in some way richer - even though we will be poorer by having spent our money.
Publicity persuades us of such a transformation by showing us people who have apparently been transformed and are, as a result, enviable. The state of being envied is what constitutes glamour. And publicity is the process of manufacturing glamour. (P. 125) — John Berger

When one with honeyed words but evil mind
Persuades the mob, great woes befall the state. — Euripides

Sometimes you meet your partner too soon, but love persuades you to leap, trusting that he'll catch you. Life is real and it's right now. Life is fireflies in your palm, gleaming gold, and then setting them free. In the best moments, life is fireworks. Sometimes life is having the rug pulled out from under you and the one you love helping you up. But most of all, life is what happens when you open the door and let beauty in, even if it doesn't fit according to your plans. — Ann Aguirre

Technology creates the context for persuasion, but content persuades. Technology helps get content to the right people at the right time. The content still has to influence. Delivering the wrong content at the right time is as bad as delivering the right content at the wrong time. — Colleen Jones

If it is the devil that tempts the young to enjoy themselves, is it not the same personage that persuades the old to condemn their enjoyment? And is not condemnation perhaps merely a form of excitement appropriate to old age? — Bertrand Russell

The art of utterance persuades initially by its music and its rhythm, before semiotic or personal characteristics come into play. — Helen Vendler

The devil is so subtle that he dominates man and persuades him at the same time that he is not being dominated. — David Lloyd-Jones

A pastor must be like a matchmaker who persuades a girl to marry someone else. He must be very careful the girl does not fall in love with him, the matchmaker. Likewise, the pastor must be a guide, enabling the believer to reach the Bridegroom. He must ignite a love for the Bridegroom in the hearts of the believers, so that after hearing one of his sermons, the congregation should not say, "How beautifully he has preached," but "How wonderful Jesus is!" Remaining attached to the pastor and not passing through him to the Savior, about whom he preaches, can be a deadly danger for the believer. — Richard Wurmbrand

Women are culturally conditioned to care for others, but not ourselves. We believe that having needs, feelings, ambitions, or thoughts of our own is not good. In this self-abnegation, we enact a culturally prescribed role that perpetuates sexist social structures. The needs and thoughts of men matter, but not ours. Christian theology presents Jesus as the model of self-sacrificing love and persuades us to believe that sexism is divinely sanctioned. We are tied to the virtue of self-sacrifice, often by hidden social threats of punishment. We keep silent about rape, we deny when we are being abused, and we allow our lives to be consumed by the trivial and by our preoccupation with others. We never claim our lives as our own. We live as though we were not present in our bodies. — Rebecca Ann Parker

No one likes to think of himself as a coward. People prefer to think they end up yielding to what the terrorists demand, not because it's safer or more convenient, but because it's the right thing..Successful terrorism persuades the terrorized that if they do terror's bidding, it's not because they're terrified but because they're socially concerned.' [George Jonas]
This is true. Resisting terror is exhausting. It's easier to appease it, but, for the sake of your self-esteem, you have to tell yourself you're appeasing is in the cause of some or other variant of 'social justice'. — Mark Steyn

Satan cannot create anything new, cannot create anything at all. He must steal what God has created. Thus he twists love and God's wonderful gift of sex into lust and sadism and myriad perversions. He disfigures the heart's deep desire to worship God and persuades us to bow before lesser gods of lust or money or power. — Catherine Marshall

Thus play I in one person many people,
And none contented: sometimes am I king;
Then treasons make me wish myself a beggar,
And so I am: then crushing penury
Persuades me I was better when a king;
Then am I king'd again: and by and by
Think that I am unking'd by Bolingbroke,
And straight am nothing: but whate'er I be,
Nor I nor any man that but man is
With nothing shall be pleased, till he be eased
With being nothing. — William Shakespeare

What is there," Owain wondered aloud, to the sky above him and the soil below, "persuades this man still that my words do not mean what they seem to mean in sane men's ears? — Edith Pargeter

In the movies first impressions are everything. Or, to put it less drastically, in the movies there are no later impressions without a first impression, because you will have stopped watching. Sometimes a critic persuades you to give an unpromising-looking movie a chance, but the movie had better convey the impression pretty quickly that the critic might be right. — Clive James

It's not the lies he tells, it's the seductive way in which he persuades you they are not true. — Virginia Alison

Human beings love, despite their compulsions to limit it and exploit it chaotically. Their love persuades them to make vows, build houses and turn their passion ultimately to duty. — Germaine Greer

I shall leave the world, I feel, with more satisfaction for having come to know you. Knowing you persuades me more than the Bible of our immortality — Herman Melville

There is a theory, that I rather subscribe to. The frame story implies that if he doesn't change, she will kill him. It's all very complex and subtle. The story is about a woman who persuades a man in power to a different temper and attitude, and so it is about women's wiles, what women will get up to. She has a plan, she has a scheme. — Marina Warner

If freedom's best friends cannot unify around a realistic, actionable program of fundamental change, one that attracts and persuades a broad majority of our fellow citizens, big change will not come. — Mitch Daniels

At a moment when distortions of Islam are what feed most Americans, Ibrahim Abdul-Matin has done something both practical and inspiring. He persuades us that the imperiled environment is both common struggle and common ground for people who share, it turns out, more than simply God. — John Hockenberry

Force persuades a person to speak, but it cannot guarantee his honesty. Quite the reverse: it will extract confessions from innocents and lies from simple sinners ... — Meredith Duran

The fool tells me his reason; the wise man persuades me with my own. — Aristotle.

I think of the old slavery, and of the way The Economy has now improved upon it. The new slavery has improved upon the old by giving the new slaves the illusion that they are free. The Economy does not take people's freedom by force, which would be against its principles, for it is very humane. It buys their freedom, pays for it, and then persuades its money back again with shoddy goods and the promise of freedom. "Buy a car," it says, "and be free. Buy a boat and be free." Is this not the raw material of bad dreams? Or is it maybe the very nightmare itself? — Wendell Berry

We communicate with passion and passion persuades. — Anita Roddick

When somebody persuades me I am wrong, I change my mind. — John Maynard Keynes

In the West the whole Western tradition of religion and psychology propounds, preaches, persuades people to have strong egos - because unless you have a strong ego, how can you survive? Life is a struggle; if you are egoless you will be destroyed. Then who will resist? Who will fight? Who will compete? And life is a continuous competition. Western psychology says: Attain to the ego, be strong in it. — Rajneesh

When I go to a show, all I really want is to hear a performance that sounds legitimate, and not just going through the motions. I'm not sure any amount of jumping up and down really persuades me in either direction. — Dan Bejar

The love of God invades me, the peace of God pervades me, the will of God persuades me, and I am wholly His. — E. Stanley Jones

Reading ...
inspires,
enlightens,
nurtures,
refines,
educates,
informs,
transforms,
persuades,
challenges,
engages,
entertains,
mesmerizes,
captivates,
gratifies,
rewards,
quiets,
and calms.
Granted, it won't get the dishes done,
but sacrifices must be made. — Richelle E. Goodrich

At each stage of development the child needs different resources from the family. During the first year, a variety of experience and the availability of the parents for attachment are primary. During the second and third years, stimulation of language development is critical. During the years prior to school entrance, information that persuades children they are loved becomes critical, and during the school years it is important for children to believe that they can succeed at the tasks they want to master. — Jerome Kagan

The art of persuasion. The actor persuades himself, first, and through himself, the audience. — Laurence Olivier

The sentiments and opinions these authors express are frequently not acceptable to present-day readers, who have to be often saying to themselves: "This is not true, or not correct, or not in accordance with our beliefs." It is, however, precisely this encounter with the mental states of other generations which enlarges the outlook and sympathies of the cultivated man, and persuades him of the upward tendency of the human race. — Various

The novel should tell the truth, as I see the truth, or as the novelist persuades me to see it. And one more demand: I expect the novelist to aspire to improve the world ... As a novelist, I want to be more than one more dog barking at the other dogs barking at me. Not out of any foolish hope that one novelist, or all virtuous novelists in chorus, can make much of a difference for good, except in the long run, but out of the need to prevent the human world from relaxing into something worse. To maintain the tension between truth and falsity, beauty and ugliness, good and evil ... I believe the highest duty of the serious novelist is, whatever the means or technique, to be a critic of his society, to hold society to its own ideals, or if these ideals are unworthy, to suggest better ideals. — Edward Abbey

The enemy of creativity ... is fear. We're all born creative, it takes a little while to become afraid. A surprising insight: an enemy of fear is creativity. Acting in a creative way generates action, and action persuades the fear to lighten up. — Seth Godin

Satan is inconsistent. He persuades a man not to go to a synagogue on a cold morning; yet when the man does go, he follows him into it. — John Henry Newman

Changes in the structure of society are not brought about solely by massive engines of doctrine. The first flash of insight which persuades human beings to change their basic assumptions is usually contained in a few phrases. — Kenneth Clark

Zen is not a philosophy, it is poetry. It does not propose, it simply persuades. It does not argue, it simply sings its own song. — Rajneesh

Within every one of us there lives both a Don Quixote and a
Sancho Panza to whom we hearken by turns; and though Sancho
most persuades us, it is Don Quixote that we find ourselves obliged
to admire ... — Anatole France

The supreme trick of mass insanity is that it persuades you that the only abnormal person is the one who refuses to join in the madness of others, the one who tries vainly to resist. We will never understand totalitarianism if we do not understand that people rarely have the strength to be uncommon. — Eugene Ionesco

Sir, what can be said of these things? Is it the arm of the flesh that hath done these things? Is it the wisdom and counsel, or strength of man? It is the Lord only. God will curse that man and his house that dares to think otherwise. Sir, you see the work is done by a Divine leading. God gets into the hearts of men, and persuades them to come under you. — Oliver Cromwell

Do your homework and know your facts, but remember it's passion that persuades. — H. Jackson Brown Jr.

Poverty persuades a man to do and suffer everything that he may escape from it. — Lucian

Hope is a demon. It convinces you to believe in something better, persuades you the outcome will be favorable, and whispers eagerly in your ear that the miracle you so desperately need will happen. Then it crushes you. Hope only leaves you fallen and bleeding in its aftermath, nothing more than a pile of misery and desolation. — Laura Kreitzer