Persuasion deals in the coin of self-interest.
Richard Neustadt (1919-2003) American political scientist
Presidential Power: The Politics of Leadership, 3.3 (1960)
Quotations about:
convince
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We address ourselves, not to their humanity but to their self-love, and never talk to them of our necessities but of their advantages.
Adam Smith (1723-1790) Scottish economist
The Wealth of Nations, 1.2 (1776)
Nearly always, the best deception trades on the enemy’s own preconceptions. If he already believes what you want him to believe, you have merely to confirm his own ideas rather than to undertake the more difficult task of inserting new ones into his mind.
Ronald Lewin (1914-1984) British military historian, radio producer publishing editor
Ultra Goes to War, ch. 10 (1978)
Everyone is prejudiced in favor his own powers of discernment, and will always find an argument most convincing if it leads to the conclusion he has reached for himself; everyone must then be given something he can grasp and recognize as his own idea.
Pliny the Younger (c. 61-c. 113) Roman politician, writer [Gaius Plinius Caecilius Secundus]
Letters, Book 1, Letter 20 [tr. Radice (1963)]
There is no better way to convince others than first to convince oneself.
Marcus Tullius Cicero (106-43 BC) Roman orator, statesman, philosopher
(Attributed)
(Source)
In Martin Luther, Table Talk (1566) [tr. Smith & Gallinger (1915)].
When a subject is highly controversial — and any question about sex is that — one cannot hope to tell the truth. One can only show how one came to hold whatever opinion one does hold. One can only give one’s audience the chance of drawing their own conclusions as they observe the limitations, the prejudices, the idiosyncrasies of the speaker.
Virginia Woolf (1882-1941) English modernist writer [b. Adeline Virginia Stephen]
A Room of One’s Own, ch. 1 (1929)
I am bound to furnish my antagonists with arguments, but not with comprehension.
Benjamin Disraeli (1804-1881) English politician and author
(Attributed)
An frequently used saying of his. Quoted in Wilfrid Meynell, Benjamin Disraeli: An Unconventional Biography (1903). Also attributed to Samuel Johnson.
Be brief, be pointed, let your matter stand
Lucid in order, solid and at hand;
Spend not your words on trifles but condense;
Strike with the mass of thought, not drops of sense;
Press to close with vigor, once begun,
And leave, (how hard the task!) leave off, when done.Joseph Story (1779-1845) American lawyer, jurist, Supreme Court Justice (1811-1845)
“Advice to a Young Lawyer”, The American Jurist and Law Magazine, Vol. 5 (1831)
