Orators are most vehement when their cause is weak.

If you would convince a man that he does wrong, do right. Men will believe what they see.

Politics and the pulpit are terms that have little agreement.

I told you I’m not going to criticize my successor. I’ll just tell you that there are people at Gitmo that will kill American people at a drop of a hat and I don’t believe that persuasion isn’t going to work. Therapy isn’t going to cause terrorists to change their mind.

Voters quickly forget what a man says.

Several excuses are always less convincing than one.

Reviews condition people. At the end of the day, a lot of human minds are malleable. They can be easily shaped with strong words.

Those who cannot understand how to put their thoughts on ice should not enter into the heat of debate.

There is only one way… to get anybody to do anything. And that is by making the other person want to do it.

Nothing is so unbelievable that oratory cannot make it acceptable.

Not brute force but only persuasion and faith are the kings of this world.

If you do not wish a man to do a thing, you had better get him to talk about it; for the more men talk, the more likely they are to do nothing else.

Politics is a science. You can demonstrate that you are right and that others are wrong.

Errors of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it.

Those convinced against their will are of the same opinion still.

Freedom has cost too much blood and agony to be relinquished at the cheap price of rhetoric.

If you want to influence people, you want them to accept your suggestions, you don’t say, ‚You don’t know how to use the English language,‘ or ‚How could you make that argument?‘ It will be welcomed much more if you have a gentle touch than if you are aggressive.

Some say the world will end in fire, some say in ice.

My mother was Catholic, my father was Protestant. There was always a debate going on at home – I think in those days we called them arguments – about who was right and who was wrong.

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.

People are generally better persuaded by the reasons which they have themselves discovered than by those which have come in to the mind of others.

It may happen sometimes that a long debate becomes the cause of a longer friendship. Commonly, those who dispute with one another at last agree.

I would rather try to persuade a man to go along, because once I have persuaded him, he will stick. If I scare him, he will stay just as long as he is scared, and then he is gone.

In the end, people are persuaded not by what we say, but by what they understand.

Thaw with her gentle persuasion is more powerful than Thor with his hammer. The one melts, the other breaks into pieces.

Rhetoric is a poor substitute for action, and we have trusted only to rhetoric. If we are really to be a great nation, we must not merely talk; we must act big.

Language is a weapon of politicians, but language is a weapon in much of human affairs.

Truthful words are not beautiful; beautiful words are not truthful. Good words are not persuasive; persuasive words are not good.

People are usually more convinced by reasons they discovered themselves than by those found by others.

The best way to sell yourself to others is first to sell the others to yourself.

The great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie, deliberate, contrived and dishonest, but the myth, persistent, persuasive and unrealistic.

If you can’t convince them, confuse them.

Men are convinced of your arguments, your sincerity, and the seriousness of your efforts only by your death.

If the present Congress errs in too much talking, how can it be otherwise in a body to which the people send one hundred and fifty lawyers, whose trade it is to question everything, yield nothing, and talk by the hour?

It is wise to persuade people to do things and make them think it was their own idea.

I am persuaded, you will permit me to observe, that the path of true piety is so plain as to require but little political direction.

No matter how you cut it, this real debate on personal accounts is about the legitimacy of Social Security; it’s not about the solvency of Social Security.

A good leader can engage in a debate frankly and thoroughly, knowing that at the end he and the other side must be closer, and thus emerge stronger. You don’t have that idea when you are arrogant, superficial, and uninformed.

If you don’t like what someone has to say, argue with them.

Resort is had to ridicule only when reason is against us.

People’s minds are changed through observation and not through argument.

If you think you can slander a woman into loving you, or a man into voting for you, try it till you are satisfied.

A moral monopoly is the antithesis of a marketplace of ideas.

Character may almost be called the most effective means of persuasion.

It takes time to persuade men to do even what is for their own good.

I love argument, I love debate. I don’t expect anyone just to sit there and agree with me, that’s not their job.

God gave you a brain. Do the best you can with it. And you don’t have to be Einstein, but Einstein was mentally tough. He believed what he believed. And he worked out things. And he argued with people who disagreed with him. But I’m sure he didn’t call everybody jerks.

I’m pretty calculating. I take stuff that I know appeals to people’s bad sides and match it up with stuff that appeals to their good sides.

You can only have one aim per debate.

What convinces is conviction. Believe in the argument you’re advancing. If you don’t you’re as good as dead. The other person will sense that something isn’t there, and no chain of reasoning, no matter how logical or elegant or brilliant, will win your case for you.

You never need an argument against the use of violence, you need an argument for it.

Arguments are to be avoided: they are always vulgar and often convincing.

Reacting in anger or annoyance will not advance one’s ability to persuade.

Theology is unnecessary.

Is man one of God’s blunders? Or is God one of man’s blunders?

Nothing is more dangerous to one’s own faith than the work of an apologist. No doctrine of that faith seems to me so spectral, so unreal as one that I have just successfully defended in a public debate.

Propaganda is amazing. People can be led to believe anything.

Facts are not liberals‘ strong suit. Rhetoric is.

In oratory the will must predominate.

Fear not those who argue but those who dodge.

One of my favorite philosophical tenets is that people will agree with you only if they already agree with you. You do not change people’s minds.