Persuasion Quotes

“My idea of good company...is the company of clever, well-informed people, who have a great deal of conversation; that is what I call good company.'
'You are mistaken,' said he gently, 'that is not good company, that is the best.”
― Jane Austen, Persuasion

“I would like to see anyone, prophet, king or God, convince a thousand cats to do the same thing at the same time.”
― Neil Gaiman

“Well, that depends, I suppose. I heard someone once say that men dance the same way they have sex. So, if you want everyone here to think you're the kind of guy who just sits around and—"
He stood up. "Let's dance.”
― Richelle Mead, Succubus Blues

“Don't raise your voice, improve your argument."

[Address at the Nelson Mandela Foundation in Houghton, Johannesburg, South Africa, 23 November 2004]”
― Desmond Tutu

“People almost invariably arrive at their beliefs not on the basis of proof but on the basis of what they find attractive.”
― Blaise Pascal, De l'art de persuader

“You cannot reason people out of a position that they did not reason themselves into.”
― Ben Goldacre, Bad Science

“All stories are made of both truths and lies, [...] What matters is the way that we believe in them.”
― Stephanie Garber, Once Upon a Broken Heart

“Shigure: JUST LISTEN TO ME FOR A SECOND, KYO!

Kyo: SHUT UP! I HATE THIS! DO YOU REALLY GET THAT MUCH ENJOYMENT FROM PLAYING WITH PEOPLES' LIVES?!

Shigure: Well, yes, now that you mention it, I do--BUT THIS IS FOR YOUR OWN GOOD!

Kyo: Man, your persuasion skills SUCK!

Tohru: Um, welcome home. Dinner's-

Kyo: NOT HUNGRY!

Shigure: KYO! DON'T TAKE THIS OUT ON TOHRU! And come back to the entrance hall this instant and take those shoes off!

Yuki: He's right, Shigure. You really do suck at persuasion.”
― Natsuki Takaya, Fruits Basket, Vol. 1

“You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope. Tell me not that I am too late, that such precious feelings are gone for ever. I offer myself to you again with a heart even more your own than when you almost broke it, eight and a half years ago. Dare not say that a man forgets sooner than woman, that his love has an earlier death. I have loved none but you. Unjust I may have been, weak and resentful I have been, but never inconstant.”
― Jane Austen

“People are generally better persuaded by the reasons which they have themselves discovered than by those which have come into the mind of others.”
― Blaise Pascal, Pensées

“Words have power.”
― Mira Grant, Blackout

“The more you try to impress, the more you become depressed, and the more they get tired of your coercion. It doesn't make them love you, instead, they'll see you as a little child, trying to draw a senseless picture on a piece of paper, begging people to look at it and admire it by force. You can persuade someone to look at your face, but you can't persuade them to see the beauty therein.”
― Michael Bassey Johnson

“The problem with breaking up with someone, if you are a little unsure — and so often, people are unsure — is that breaking up involves persuasion. You have to persuade your ex that it is better this way for everyone. And this is difficult if you have not entirely persuaded yourself. It is especially tricky to do this if you are also naked, and making two cups of coffee.”
― Adam Thirlwell, Politics

“Ah, there’s the governess voice. All stern and disapproving. It makes me feel like a naughty schoolboy.”
― Lisa Kleypas, Married by Morning

“One does not love a place the less for having suffered in it, unless it has been all suffering, nothing but suffering. ”
― Jane Austen

“What! Would I be turned back from doing a thing that I had determined to do, and that I knew to be right, by the airs and interference of such a person, or any person I may say? No, I have no idea of being so easily persuaded. When I have made up my mind, I have made it.”
― Jane Austen, Persuasion

“Get what you can with words, because words are free, but the words of an armed man ring that much sweeter.”
― Joe Abercrombie, The Heroes

“She had been in situations like this, where people said, Convince me, and in none of those had they actually wanted to be convinced. She could lay down a perfect argument and they just invented new bullshit on the spot to justify why the answer was still no. When people said, Convince me, she knew it didn’t mean they had an open mind. It meant they had power and wanted to enjoy it a minute.”
― Max Barry, Lexicon

“Woe betide him, and her too, when it comes to things of consequence, when they are placed in circumstances requiring fortitude and strength of mind, if she have not resolution enough to resist idle interference ... It is the worst evil of too yielding and indecisive a character, that no influence over it can be depended on. You are never sure of a good impression being durable; everybody may sway it. Let those who would be happy be firm.”
― Jane Austen, Persuasion

“Captain Harvile: Poor Phoebe, she would not have forgotten him so soon. It was not in her nature.

Anne Elliot: It would not be in the nature of any woman who truly loved.

Captain Harvile: Do you claim that for your sex?

Anne Elliot: We do not forget you as soon as you forget us. We cannot help ourselves. We live at home, quiet, confined, and our feelings prey upon us. You always have business of some sort or other to take you back into the world.

Captain Harvile: I won't allow it to be any more man's nature than women's to be inconstant or to forget those they love or have loved. I believe the reverse. I believe... Let me just observe that all histories are against you, all stories, prose, and verse. I do not think I ever opened a book in my life which did not have something to say on women's fickleness.

Anne Elliot: But they were all written by men. ”
― Jane Austen

“It would be most right, and most wise, and, therefore must involve least suffering.”
― Jane Austen, Persuasion

“To be persuasive we must be believable;
to be believable we must be creditable;
to be credible we must be truthful.”
― Edward R. Murrow

“Wearing a cloak is on Rose's list of the thousand things she hates most. The problem is that each of the thousand problems is ranked number one.
'But Dr. Rannigan says you must and anyway, it hardly weighs a thing, it's so full of holes.' I swung mine round my shoulders. Rose hates any bit of clothing that constricts, but I say Chin up and bear it. Life is just one great constriction.
'Ventilated,' I said, 'that's the word. Our cloaks are terrifically ventilated.”
― Franny Billingsley, Chime

“I wish nature had made such hearts as yours more common.”
― Jane Austen, Persuasion

“Truth persuades by teaching, but does not teach by persuading.”
― Quintus Septimius Tertullianus

“Tell me what to do to change your mind.”
― Lisa Desrochers, Personal Demons

“We have quite the same ideas. No; I think our ideas are quite different. But he has been most pleasant.”
― Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray

“I know a little something about fear, honey. I know what a relief it feels like to give into it at first. It’s not hard to persuade yourself that you’re doing the right thing—that you’re making the smart, safe decision. But fear is insidious. It takes anything you’re willing to give it, the parts of your life you don’t mind cutting out, but when you’re not looking, it takes anything else it damn well pleases, too.”
― Andrea Lochen, Imaginary Things

“You should have distinguished,' replied Anne. 'You should not have suspected me now; the case so different, and my age so different. If I was wrong in yielding to persuasion once, remember that it was to persuasion exerted on the side of safety, not of risk. When I yielded, I thought it was to duty; but no duty could be called in aid here.”
― Jane Austen, Persuasion

“(on the portrayal of women in literature) Men have had every advantage of us in telling their own story. Education has been theirs in so much higher a degree; the pen has been in their hands. I will not allow books to prove anything.”
― Jane Austen, Persuasion