A campaign addressed not to men’s minds and to their best instincts, but to their passions, emotions and prejudices, is unworthy at best — now, with the fate of the nation at stake, it is unbearable.
Quotations about:
appeal to emotion
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When the conduct of men is designed to be influenced, persuasion, kind, unassuming persuasion, should ever be adopted. It is an old and a true maxim, that a “drop of honey catches more flies than a gallon of gall.” So with men. If you would win a man to your cause, first convince him that you are his sincere friend. Therein is a drop of honey that catches his heart, which, say what he will, is the great high road to his reason, and which, when once gained, you will find but little trouble in convincing his judgment of the justice of your cause, if indeed that cause really be a just one.
Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) American lawyer, politician, US President (1861–65)
Speech (1843-02-22), Temperance Address, Washington Temperance Society, Second Presbyterian Church, Springfield, Illinois
(Source)
Reported in the Sangamo Journal (1843-03-25).
Policies are judged by their consequences but crusades are judged by how good they make the crusaders feel.
Thomas Sowell (b. 1930) American economist, economic historian, social theorist, political commentator
Compassion vs. Guilt, and Other Essays (1987)
(Source)
Prejudices are what fools use for reason.
Voltaire (1694–1778) French writer [pseud. of Francois-Marie Arouet]
(Attributed)
Reasoning will never make a Man correct an ill Opinion, which by Reasoning he never acquired.
Jonathan Swift (1667–1745) English writer and churchman
Essay (1720-01-09), “Letter to a Young Clergyman”
(Source)
Earliest version of this general sentiment, which has been attributed to (or at times borrowed by) figures such as Mark Twain, Sydney Smith, Fisher Ames, and Lyman Beecher.
Variants:For more information about this quotation: You Cannot Reason People Out of Something They Were Not Reasoned Into – Quote Investigator.
- Reasoning will never make a man correct an opinion that they have not reasoned themselves into.
- Men are not to be reasoned out of an opinion that they have not reasoned themselves into.
- Reasoning will never make a man correct an opinion, which by reasoning he never acquired.
- It is useless to attempt to reason a man out of a thing he never was reasoned into.
- We may never reason a man out of an opinion which he was never reasoned into.
- You cannot reason a man out of what he never reasoned himself into.
- You can’t reason someone out of something they weren’t reasoned into.
- He cannot be reasoned out of error, if he was not at first reasoned into it.
- What has not been reasoned in, cannot be reasoned out.
- Never try to reason the prejudice out of a man. It was never reasoned into him and it never can be reasoned out of him.
- It is useless to attempt to reason a man out of anything he was never reasoned into.
I must say I’m not very fond of oratory that’s so full of energy it hasn’t any room for facts.
