Orators are most vehement when their cause is weak.

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.

We must reinforce argument with results.

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

Politics and the pulpit are terms that have little agreement.

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.

Several excuses are always less convincing than one.

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

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.

Voters quickly forget what a man says.

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.

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

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

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

What we all want is public safety. We don’t want rhetoric that’s framed through ideology.

One has to secrete a jelly in which to slip quotations down people’s throats – and one always secretes too much jelly.

There is still much debate about whether torture has been effective in eliciting information – the assumption being, apparently, that if it is effective, then it may be justified.

What can you do against the lunatic who is more intelligent than yourself, who gives your arguments a fair hearing and then simply persists in his lunacy?

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

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.

Why is propaganda so much more successful when it stirs up hatred than when it tries to stir up friendly feeling?

When you have no basis for an argument, abuse the plaintiff.

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

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

Most negotiators are trying to get their way.

Nothing is so unbelievable that oratory cannot make it acceptable.

Charm is a way of getting the answer ‚Yes‘ without asking a clear question.

In making a speech one must study three points: first, the means of producing persuasion; second, the language; third the proper arrangement of the various parts of the speech.

You can only have one aim per debate.

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

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.

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

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.

Rhetoric is the art of ruling the minds of men.

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.

When our governments want to sell us a course of action, they do it by making sure it’s the only thing on the agenda, the only thing everyone’s talking about. And they pre-load the ensuing discussion with highly selected images, devious and prejudicial language, dubious linkages, weak or false ‚intelligence‘ and selected ‚leaks.‘

The most savage controversies are about matters as to which there is no good evidence either way.

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.

Facts are not liberals‘ strong suit. Rhetoric is.

I think if you make a good movie, people walk away arguing.

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

You can fool some of the people all the time, and those are the ones you want to concentrate on.

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.

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.

The duty of rhetoric is to deal with such matters as we deliberate upon without arts or systems to guide us, in the hearing of persons who cannot take in at a glance a complicated argument or follow a long chain of reasoning.

If you can’t answer a man’s arguments, all is not lost; you can still call him vile names.

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

If you can’t convince them, confuse them.

Religion is not going to come up with any new arguments.

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

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.

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.

I took the Canal Zone and let Congress debate; and while the debate goes on, the canal does also.

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

Theology is unnecessary.

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.

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

A man may speak very well in the House of Commons, and fail very completely in the House of Lords. There are two distinct styles requisite: I intend, in the course of my career, if I have time, to give a specimen of both.

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

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