William Bernbach Quotes

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

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

At the end of reasons comes persuasion.

He who wants to persuade should put his trust not in the right argument, but in the right word. The power of sound has always been greater than the power of sense.

Good argument is intended to persuade another.

It is true the orator may make a myriad replica of his own passion out of those who listen to him. But that does not prove he is right or they are not fools.

Use your logick, and then your rhetorick. Rhetorick without logick, is like a tree with leaves and blossoms, but no root; yet I confess more are taken with rhetorick than logick, because they are catched with a free expression, when they understand not reason. Logick must be natural, or it is worth nothing at all: Your rhetorick figures may be learned.

There is nothing in the world like persuasive speech to fuddle the mental apparatus.

In oratory the will must predominate.

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.

Nobody has a magic lamp which can tell you in advance whether what you say will be effective in persuading an audience.

I believe we should appeal to people at the higher levels.

Rhetoric is cheap, evidence comes more dearly.

Logic is the technique by which we add conviction to truth.

In argument similes are like songs in love; they describe much, but prove nothing.

Though we cannot out-vote them we will out-argue them.

I could sway people with words—words that welled up within me.

… the thug is aware that loudness convinces 60 persons where reasoning convinces but one..

I consider myself to be quite persuasive when I want.

The legal profession, politics and acting are very closely tied: the whole point is to have an idea and get it across to a listener, whether it is one person or five thousand in a hall.

[M]ere knowledge of the truth will not give you the art of persuasion.

Success is the most convincing talker in the world.

A witty illustration or an apt story will accomplish more than columns of argument.

The Orator persuades and carries all with him, he knows not how; the Rhetorician can prove that he ought to have persuaded and carried all with him.

If the reason I give is a good one, you will act upon it. If it is a bad one I cannot make it better by piling epithet upon epithet. There is no logic in abuse; there is no argument in an epithet.