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.
Dwight D. Eisenhower

If I can get you to laugh with me, you like me better, which makes you more open to my ideas. And if I can persuade you to laugh at the particular point I make, by laughing at it you acknowledge its truth.
John Cleese

If you think aficionados of a living Constitution want to bring you flexibility, think again. You think the death penalty is a good idea? Persuade your fellow citizens to adopt it. You want a right to abortion? Persuade your fellow citizens and enact it. That's flexibility.
Antonin Scalia

In our system leadership is by consent, not command. To lead a President must persuade. Personal contacts and experiences help shape his thinking. They can be critical to his persuasiveness and thus to his leadership.
Donald Rumsfeld

It is clear that he does not pray, who, far from uplifting himself to God, requires that God shall lower Himself to him, and who resorts to prayer not to stir the man in us to will what God wills, but only to persuade God to will what the man in us wills.
Saint Thomas Aquinas

It is impossible to persuade a man who does not disagree, but smiles.
Muriel Spark

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

It was said that Mr. Gladstone could persuade most people of most things, and himself of anything.
Dean Inge

It's better to get smart than to get mad. I try not to get so insulted that I will not take advantage of an opportunity to persuade people to change their minds.
John H. Johnson

John Foster Dulles had called on me in his capacity as Secretary of State, and he had exhausted every argument to persuade me to place Cambodia under the protection of the South East Asia Treaty Organization.
Norodom Sihanouk

Just once I would like to persuade the audience not to wear any article of blue denim. If only they could see themselves in a pair of brown corduroys like mine instead of this awful, boring blue denim.
Ian Anderson

Let one persuade many, and he becomes confirmed and convinced, and cares for no better evidence.
Chauncey Wright

Modern art is what happens when painters stop looking at girls and persuade themselves that they have a better idea.
John Ciardi

My most brilliant achievement was my ability to be able to persuade my wife to marry me.
Winston Churchill

No one can persuade another to change. Each of us guards a gate of change that can only be opened from the inside. We cannot open the gate of another, either by argument or emotional appeal.
Marilyn Ferguson

No, I'm not rich. I had a tax problem in this country, curiously enough, and my accountant said the British government was patently wrong in taxing me, and they were, but we couldn't persuade them and it cost me everything I had.
Donald Sutherland

Once I could persuade these guys that all I wanted to hear from them was what they did - Tell me what you do - once you can persuade someone that this is all you're after, you can't shut them up because we're all fascinated by what we do.
Roger Angell

One of the best ways to persuade others is with your ears by listening to them.
Dean Rusk

Persuade thyself that imperfection and inconvenience are the natural lot of mortals, and there will be no room for discontent, neither for despair.
Ieyasu Tokugawa

The best way to persuade people is with your ears - by listening to them.
Dean Rusk