Daniel H. Pink Quotes

The particular skill that allows you to talk your way out of a murder rap, or convince your professor to move you from the morning to the afternoon section, is what the psychologist Robert Sternberg calls "practical intelligence." To Sternberg, practical intelligence includes things like "knowing what to say to whom, knowing when to say it, and knowing how to say it for for maximum effect.

In oratory the will must predominate.

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.

It would be awesome to be so impressive that we could sway people to our way of thinking just by declaiming our thoughts, but probably most of us lack such gravitas. Luckily, there's something even better: evidence, logic, and argument.

Rhetoric may be defined as the faculty of observing in any given case the available means of persuasion. This is not a function of any other art.

What convinces is conviction. Believe in the argument you're advancing. If you don't you're as good as dead. The other person will sense that something isn't there, and no chain of reasoning, no matter how logical or elegant or brilliant, will win your case for you.

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

Some people feel, you make your case, if they listen to you, fine, if they don't, that's it. That's not what leadership is. Leadership is trying to continue to make a case.

In the end, people are persuaded not by what we say, but by what they understand.

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

Because an appeal makes logical sense is no guarantee that it will work.

You will never convince anyone to do anything unless you believe it should be done.

Americans are big boys. You can talk them into almost anything. Just sit with them for half an hour over a bottle of whiskey and be a nice guy.

Ninety percent of selling is conviction, and 10 per cent is persuasion.

He who wants to persuade should put his trust, not in the right argument, but in the right word.

I spent over 90 percent of my time talking to people who didn’t have to listen to me.

We may convince others by our argument; but we can only persuade them by their own.

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.

The truth isn't the truth until people believe you, and they can't believe you if they don't know what your saying, and they can't know what you've saying if they don't listen to you, and they won't listen to you if you're not interesting, and you won't be interesting until you say things imaginatively, originally, freshly.

What you say in defense of … ideas matters, and what people hear matters even more.

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

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

You can't just give a speech and expect people to fall down and agree with you.

I can't force people to agree with me.

I don't think comedy really does change people's minds; I think you can only get someone who is almost ready to change their mind. You can't change someone from one direction straight into the other, but if you get someone who is considering your view, and you make a good point, there's power in that.