Upton Sinclair - William Shakespeare - Star Trek: The Next Generation TV - Edward Gibbon - Noam Chomsky - Romans 14:5 - Aristotle - Aesop - Thomas Babington Macaulay - William Blake - Jane Austen - Eric Hoffer - John Locke -
It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it. Upton Sinclair, ‘I, Candidate for Governor’
That I am ready to distrust mine eyes
And wrangle with my reason that persuades me. William Shakespeare, Twelfth Night IV iii 13-14, Sebastian
Q: What must I do to convince you people?
Worf: Die. Star Trek s3e13: The Next Generation: Deja Q
Persuasion is the resource of the feeble; and the feeble can seldom persuade. Edward Gibbon, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire ch68
I’m really not interested in persuading people. What I like to do is help people persuade themselves. Professor Noam Chomsky
Let every man be persuaded of his own mind. Romans 14:5
Persuasion is achieved by the speaker’s personal character when the speech is so spoken as to make us think him credible. We believe good men more fully and more readily than others: this is true generally whatever the question is, and absolutely true where exact certainty is impossible and opinions are divided. Aristotle
Persuasion is clearly a sort of demonstration, since we are most fully persuaded when we consider a thing to have been demonstrated. Aristotle
Rhetoric may be defined as the faculty of observing in any given case the available means of persuasion. This is not a function of any other art. Aristotle
Persuasion is often more effectual than force. Aesop
The object of oratory alone is not truth but persuasion. Thomas Babington Macaulay
Then I asked: ‘Does a firm persuasion that a thing is so, make it so?’ He replied: ‘All Poets believe that it does, and in ages of imagination this firm persuasion removed mountains; but many are not capable of a firm persuasion of anything.’ William Blake
If I was wrong in yielding to persuasion once, remember that it was to persuasion exerted on the side of safety, not of risk. When I yielded, I thought it was to duty; but no duty could be called in aid here. In marrying a man indifferent to me, all risk would have been incurred, and all duty violated. Jane Austen, Persuasion, Anne, 1818
There is hardly an example of a mass movement achieving vast proportions and a durable organization solely by persuasion. Eric Hoffer, The True Believer, 1951
It is therefore worthwhile, to search out the bounds between opinion and knowledge; and examine by what measures, in things, whereof we have no certain knowledge, we ought to regulate our assent, and moderate our persuasions. John Locke