Art of Persuasion Quotes

One must ease the public into it - that's an art in itself.

All fiction for me is a kind of magic and trickery, a confidence trick, trying to make people believe something is true that isn't.

Eloquence wins its great and enduring fame quite as much from the benches of our opponents as from those of our friends.

There is no talent so pernicious as eloquence to those who have it under command.

There is no power like oratory. Caesar controlled men by exciting their fears, Cicero by . . . swaying their passions. The influence of the one perished; that of the other continues to this day.

Poesy and oratory omit things not essential, and insert little beautiful digressions, in order to place everything in the most effective light.

He who does not know how to encircle a girl so that she loses sight of everything he does not want her to see, he who does not know how to poetize himself into a girl so that it is from her that everything proceeds as he wants it-he is and remains a bungler

It is observed in the course of worldly things, that men's fortunes are oftener made by their tongues than by their virtues; and more men's fortunes overthrown thereby than by vices.

The arts of speech are rhetoric and poetry. Rhetoric is the art of transacting a serious business of the understanding as if it were a free play of the imagination; poetry that of conducting a free play of the imagination as if it were a serious business of the understanding.

To make advice agreeable, try paradox or rhyme.

The vulgar look upon a man, who is reckoned a fine speaker, as a phenomenon, a supernatural being, and endowed with some peculiargift of Heaven; they stare at him, if he walks in the park, and cry, that is he. You will, I am sure, view him in a juster light, and nulla formidine. You will consider him only as a man of good sense, who adorns common thoughts with the graces of elocution, and the elegancy of style. The miracle will then cease.

[M]ere knowledge of the truth will not give you the art of persuasion.

Nothing is so difficult to believe that oratory cannot make it acceptable, nothing so rough and uncultured as not to gain brilliance and refinement from eloquence.

who can Perswade more Powerfully than Poets?

What is acting but lying and what is good lying but convincing lying?

There is nothing like oratory, it is a skill that can turn a commoner into a king.

There is a truth and beauty in rhetoric; but it oftener serves ill turns than good ones.

And they'll vote for me because I'm the best liar, because I do it honestly, with a certain finesse. They know that lies and truth are very close, and that something beautiful rests between.

Once upon a time I was such a good liar; I could talk the fish right into my mouths.

In oratory the greatest art is to hide art.

True eloquence scorns eloquence.

Americans were convinced in their own minds that they were very miserable, and those who think so are so. There is nothing so easy as to persuade people that they are badly governed. Take happy and comfortable people and talk to them with the art of the evil one, and they can soon be made discontented with their government, their rulers, with everything around them, and even with themselves.

Pitching was about fooling people, manipulating them, making them believe in something that ultimately wasn't there. Great pitching was great lying.

ORATORY, n. A conspiracy between speech and action to cheat the understanding. A tyranny tempered by stenography.

You can dramatize your ideas in business or in any other aspect of your life. It’s easy