Sherry Argov Quotes

A Yea might turn in to a Nae and vice versa if a sufficient quantity of wordage was applied. In other talk you argument out until you get the answer you want.

In argument, truth always prevails finally; in politics, falsehood always.

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

You can persuade a man to believe almost anything provided he is clever enough, but it is much more difficult to persuade someone less clever.

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.

If you can't convince them, confuse them.

If you can't dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with bull.

Eloquence, n. The art of orally persuading fools that white is the color that it appears to be. It includes the gift of making any color appear white.

I think the power of persuasion would be the greatest superpower of all time.

Nothing is so difficult to believe that oratory cannot make it acceptable …

A magic trick of any sort works because you tell yourself a story about what you see. And politicians use this all the time in their own way by throwing a load of statistics at you when things don't quite follow and then saying, 'So therefore blah,' and you believe that 'blah' thing because of the confusion that's come before.

Sophistry, like poison, is at once detected and nauseated, when presented to us in a concentrated form; but a fallacy which, when stated barely in a few sentences, would not deceive a child, may deceive half the world, if diluted in a quarto volume.

Don't try to convert the elderly person; circumvent him.

The intelligent, like the unintelligent, are responsive to propaganda.

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

There should be a name for this, for the process whereby one knows one is being yanked and concedes it has been done successfully - that one is grateful to have been spun. In the theater, it is called the willing suspension of disbelief. That's what allows the play to make an impact on the audience: they have to be able to make believe that what's happening on the stage is really happening. Maybe to a degree it is a requirement for all political participation, all effective political communication, too.

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

I never failed to convince an audience that the best thing they could do was to go away.

Convincing yourself doesn't win an argument.

I did a lot of fast talking as a youth; I was pretty good at it. I was never talked into it - I was always the one doing the talking.

I misdirect the audience, so they have no idea where they are or who they're listening to.

Charm is a way of getting the answer 'Yes' without asking a clear question.

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

Good argument is intended to persuade another.

Rhetoric, which is the use of language to inform or persuade, is very important in shaping public opinion. We are very easily fooled by language and how it is used by others.