John Dryden Quotes

Men are rather reasoning than reasonable animals for the most part governed by the impulse of passion. This is a truth well understood by our adversaries who have practised upon it with no small benefit to their cause. For at the very moment they are eulogizing the reason of men & professing to appeal only to that faculty, they are courting the strongest & most active passion of the human heart - VANITY!

There is a mighty big difference between good sound reasons and reasons that sound good.

Hitler understood the demagogues' essential principle to teach or persuade is far more difficult than to stir emotion.

Power is not sufficient evidence of truth.

The design of Rhetoric is to remove those Prejudices that lie in the way of Truth, to Reduce the Passions to the Government of Reasons; to place our Subject in a Right Light, and excite our Hearers to a due consideration of it.

A half truth, like half a brick, is always more forcible as an argument than a whole one. It carries better.

The object of oratory alone is not truth, but persuasion.

In my opinion, it helps enormously to know why something is true, rather than being told it is true, for why should you believe me? Never believe anything on the authority of a single person but seek confirmation — and reason is the best confirmation

Would you persuade, speak of interest, not of reason.

When you're good at controlling your own emotions, you can disguise your true feelings. When you know what others are feeling, you can tug at their heartstrings and motivate them to act against their own best interests.

I'm not trying to twist people's heads around. I'm not trying to say, "Believe in me."

It is the human wish to be told lies that keep us as primitive morally and socially as we are. I am persuaded that a lie grounded in human desire is too powerful for mere reason to kill.

As we all know, the most effective lies are the ones sprinkled with the most actual truths.

Reason is always a kind of brute force; those who appeal to the head rather than the heart, however pallid and polite, are necessarily men of violence. We speak of 'touching' a man's heart, but we can do nothing to his head but hit it.

A man who is furnished with arguments from the mint will convince his antagonist much sooner than one who draws them from reason and philosophy.

But facts always convince, and another man's opinion rarely convinces.

So often the truth is told with hate, and lies are told with love.

Each day my reason tells me so; But reason doesn't rule in love, you know.

You don't need the right facts if you have the right inflection.

People are persuaded by reason, but moved by emotion; [the leader] must both persuade them and move them.

All talk of winning the people by appealing to their intelligence, of conquering them by impeccable syllogism, is so much moonshine.

There's that horrible-beautiful moment, that bitter-sweet impasse where you know that somebody is bullshitting you but they're doing it with such panache and conviction...no, it's because they say exactly what you want to hear, at that point in time.

Take a good look around and you'll find people trying to mess with your mind.

A liar is a man who does now know how to deceive, a flatterer one who only deceives fools: he who knows how to make skilful use of the truth, and understands its eloquence, can alone pride himself in cleverness.

The Mask "Put off that mask of burning gold With emerald eyes." "O no, my dear, you make so bold To find if hearts be wild and wise, And yet not cold." "I would but find what's there to find, Love or deceit." "It was the mask engaged your mind, And after set your heart to beat, Not what's behind." "But lest you are my enemy, I must enquire." "O no, my dear, let all that be, What matter, so there is but fire In you, in me?"