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.

If a man reaches the heart of his own religion, he has reached the heart of the others, too. There is only one God, and there are many paths to him.

By and large, language is a tool for concealing the truth.

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.

It should be possible to explain the laws of physics to a barmaid.

I think some of my colleagues‘ spicier lines are distracting. They draw attention away from what the justice is trying to say.

What we wish, we readily believe, and what we ourselves think, we imagine others think also.

It’s a mystery. That’s the first thing that interests me about the idea of God. If there is one, it’s mysterious and powerful and awesome to even consider the concept, and you have to take it seriously.

Anger is never without a reason, but seldom with a good one.

To believe in God is impossible not to believe in Him is absurd.

Voters quickly forget what a man says.

I believe life is an intelligent thing: that things aren’t random.

Any God I ever felt in church I brought in with me.

Human language appears to be a unique phenomenon, without significant analogue in the animal world.

I remember the first time I heard a teenager say ‚LOL.‘ Just what? But it means ‚laugh.‘ Why don’t you just laugh? What are you doing?

The kids never listen to you, especially the youngest ones.

Nothing strengthens authority so much as silence.

Men freely believe that which they desire.

God is, even though the whole world deny him. Truth stands, even if there be no public support. It is self-sustained.

Well I have a microphone and you don’t so you will listen to every damn word I have to say!

Conviction is worthless unless it is converted into conduct.

If you have embraced a creed which appears to be free from the ordinary dirtiness of politics – a creed from which you yourself cannot expect to draw any material advantage – surely that proves that you are in the right?

I’m convinced of this: Good done anywhere is good done everywhere. For a change, start by speaking to people rather than walking by them like they’re stones that don’t matter. As long as you’re breathing, it’s never too late to do some good.

In one case out of a hundred a point is excessively discussed because it is obscure; in the ninety-nine remaining it is obscure because it is excessively discussed.

A big ego means that you have some confidence in your abilities, really, and that you’re prepared to take the risk of trying them out.

It’s pretty hard to be efficient without being obnoxious.

These days, children can text on their cell phone all night long, and no one else is seeing that phone. You don’t know who is calling that child.

A man may be a pessimistic determinist before lunch and an optimistic believer in the will’s freedom after it.

I felt like, for so many years – and I still even feel it – as a girl, you can’t really expect to go on stage and dress like a boy and jump around and scream with the audience and mosh and stuff, and every time that happens, I feel really proud.

I don’t mind how much my Ministers talk, so long as they do what I say.

The major advances in speed of communication and ability to interact took place more than a century ago. The shift from sailing ships to telegraph was far more radical than that from telephone to email!

I believe in believing. My coach John Kavanagh is a big atheist, and he is always trying to persuade people to his way of thinking, and I think, ‚What a waste of energy.‘ If people want to believe in this god or that god, that’s fine by me; believe away. But I think we can be our own gods. I believe in myself.

Don’t use words too big for the subject. Don’t say ‚infinitely‘ when you mean ‚very‘; otherwise you’ll have no word left when you want to talk about something really infinite.

One of my direct subordinates, one of my guys that worked for me, he would call me up or pull me aside with some major problem, some issue that was going on. And he’d say, ‚Boss, we’ve got this, and that, and the other thing.‘ And I’d look at him and I’d say, ‚Good.‘

It has always been my private conviction that any man who puts his intelligence up against a fish and loses had it coming.

Persuasion is clearly a sort of demonstration, since we are most fully persuaded when we consider a thing to have been demonstrated.

Atheism is a non-prophet organization.

It is natural for the mind to believe and for the will to love; so that, for want of true objects, they must attach themselves to false.

Nothing is so unbelievable that oratory cannot make it acceptable.

We believe that every single child has boundless promise, no matter who they are, where they come from, or how much money their parents have. We’ve got to remember that. We believe that each of these young people is a vital part of the great American story.

I prefer tongue-tied knowledge to ignorant loquacity.

I never thought I’d land in pictures with a face like mine.

We are long before we are convinced that happiness is never to be found, and each believes it possessed by others, to keep alive the hope of obtaining it for himself.

I want to grow old without facelifts. I want to have the courage to be loyal to the face I have made.

Every man must do two things alone; he must do his own believing and his own dying.

Proselytism is solemn nonsense; it makes no sense. We need to get to know each other, listen to each other and improve our knowledge of the world around us.

I once did a three-hour interview with Radio Oxford only to be told the microphone hadn’t picked me up.

You don’t lead by hitting people over the head – that’s assault, not leadership.

If you want what you’re saying heard, then take your time and say it so that the listener will actually hear it. You might save somebody’s life. Your own, first.

These technologies can make life easier, can let us touch people we might not otherwise. You may have a child with a birth defect and be able to get in touch with other parents and support groups, get medical information, the latest experimental drugs. These things can profoundly influence life. I’m not downplaying that.

If he have faith, the believer cannot be restrained. He betrays himself. He breaks out. He confesses and teaches this gospel to the people at the risk of life itself.

Asking is the beginning of receiving. Make sure you don’t go to the ocean with a teaspoon. At least take a bucket so the kids won’t laugh at you.

Some animals utter a loud cry. Some are silent, and others have a voice, which in some cases may be expressed by a word; in others, it cannot. There are also noisy animals and silent animals, musical and unmusical kinds, but they are mostly noisy about the breeding season.

I don’t like talking to celebrities.

All good leaders are connectors. They relate well and make people feel confident about themselves and their leader.

I’d like to believe that the people that have supported me in my work or identified with me in films, the people that feel they know me, they do and they don’t have misconceptions – they understand. I believe that.

Who you are speaks so loudly I can’t hear what you’re saying.

We have an epidemic of insecure people in our society today.

Where there is shouting, there is no true knowledge.

To those whose God is honor; only disgrace is a sin.

It’s amazing how people will give when you don’t ask. Many of them send money because they believe in the message.