Laurence Olivier Quotes

If you're going to be on the slogan side of an issue, you're going to win. If you're going to be on the details side of an issue, you're going to lose.

Few orators have known how to achieve such admirable results by dint of repetition. Besides, Lenin always felt his audience. He never rose too high above its level, nor did he ever omit to descend to it at just the necessary moment, in order not to break the continuity of the hypnosis which dominated the will of his flock; and more than any one he realized that a mob is like a horse that wants to be firmly bestrode and spurred, that wants to feel the hand of a master.

The art of any propagandist and agitator consists in his ability to find the best means of influencing any given audience, by presenting a definite truth, in such a way as to make it most convincing, most easy to digest, most graphic, and most strongly impressive.

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

In oratory the will must predominate.

I'm manipulating the audience. I'm making sure people sympathize.

If I have to, I'll go and direct theater and talk till the cows come home.

Questions are often more effective than statements in moving others. Or to put it more appropriately, since the research shows that when the facts are on your side, questions are more persuasive than statements, don't you think you should be pitching more with questions?

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

I have always been aware that you have to get people listening before you can change their minds. Any artist's big fear is being ignored, so if you get debate, that's great.

I think if you're good and you can persuade people you're going to be able to do that role and ultimately the audience buys it, then it doesn't matter whether you were really a chimpanzee in disguise! You've done it.

There is a difference between giving directions and giving direction.

A story never looks as good as when the other fellow buys it.

There've been periods where I had to convince the audience or win them over.

Learn the art of the pitch and of messaging.

One must steer, not talk.

More than any audience in the world, Americans will cross their arms, stare at you and say, 'OK, whaddya got?' - no matter how many times you've proven it to them.

The open letter has always been an interesting rhetorical strategy - a way of delivering a pointed message to a specific individual or group while also reaching a wide audience.

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

I have a definite talent for convincing people to try something new. I am a good salesman. When I'm on form, I can sell anything.

Part of my job is to make sense of all that I hear, and to retell it in a forceful way so that the decision-makers at Treasury can hear it. At least that's how I see it.

I found that if I got up on the stage to entertain the troops I could make them shut up and look.

The bully pulpit is not an open microphone. You have to target it very carefully.

To be successful you have to convince the public.

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