History is the fiction we invent to persuade ourselves that events are knowable and that life has order and direction. That's why events are always reinterpreted when values change. We need new versions of history to allow for our current prejudices.
The rifle itself has no moral stature, since it has no will of its own. Naturally, it may be used by evil men for evil purposes, but there are more good men than evil, and while the latter cannot be persuaded to the path of righteousness by propagand...
I think my reputation will look after itself," Holmes said. "If they hang me, Watson, I shall leave it to you to persuade your readers that the whole thing was a misunderstanding.
If a transaction in progress appeared threatened with failure, if a shipment of goods seemed to have gone astray, or if a debtor appeared unable to repay his debt, Kamaswami was never able to persuade Siddhartha that it was useful to speak words of w...
But although the cliche says that power always corrupts, what is seldom said ... is that power always reveals. When a man is climbing, trying to persuade others to give him power, concealment is necessary. ... But as a man obtains more power, camoufl...
Francis Crozier believes in nothing. . It has no plan, no point, no hidden mysteries that make up for the oh-so-obvious miseries and banalities. Nothing he has learned in the past six months has persuaded him otherwise. Has it?
...the more a human creature has tasted of bitter things the more it hungers after the sweet things of life. And we, wrapped round in rags of our virtues, and regarding others through the mist of our self-sufficiency, and persuaded of our universal i...
I take a real interest in the possibilities of teaching - including the practice of bringing creative writing, and serious reading, into the classroom. I am persuaded that since language is alive, much of the challenge has already been met by the poe...
Indeed, compulsive and rigid moralism arises in given persons precisely as the result of a lack of sense of being. Rigid moralism is a compensatory mechanism by which the individual persuades himself to take over the external sanctions because he has...
Any objective look at what science has to say about climate change ought to be sufficient to persuade reasonable people that the climate is changing and that humans are responsible for a substantial part of that - and that these changes are doing har...
We're not going to persuade people in the developing world to go without, but neither can we afford a planet on which everyone lives like an American. Billions more people living in suburbs and driving SUVs to shopping malls is a recipe for planetary...
A lot of people persuade others to do negative things, but wouldn't listen to anyone who dares them to do positive things. Apparently, this is why you should never listen to anyone who pushes you to do negative things, because it shows they don't hav...
Negative thoughts have the tendency to persuade one to doubt one's true destiny in life. This is why you should always stay on guard against negativity, and never allow self-defeating words to convince you to settle for anything less than your positi...
Don't allow anyone or anything to persuade you into turning your back on your true potential. You are capable of striving and thriving just like everyone else. Success and happiness are all written in the book of your destiny. So by all means, keep y...
Contrary to what many people believe, the welfare state was originally a 'rightwing' invention. It was the arch-conservative Otton von Bismarck who first introduced it. Bismarck hated socialism, but he wasn't an ideologue. He basically figured out th...
[Persuading the mayor to let them stop a supernatural upheaval] Dr. Peter Venkman: If I'm wrong, nothing happens! We go to jail - peacefully, quietly. We'll enjoy it! But if I'm *right*, and we *can* stop this thing... Lenny, you will have saved the ...
[Harry persuades Slughorn to hand over his true memory] Horace Slughorn: Please don't think badly of me when you see it. You have no idea what he was like... even back then.
In most sports, your brain and your body will cooperate... But in rock climbing, it is the other way around. Your brain doesn't see the point in climbing upwards. Your brain will tell you to keep as low as possible, to cling to the wall and not get a...
The men and women of England who abolished slavery, created the educational system, or gave women the vote were not acting on the hypotheses of what the voters wanted. They were afire with faith in what people ought to want and in the end they persua...
Advertising design, in persuading people to buy things they don`t need, with money they don`t have, in order to impress others who don`t care, is probably the phoniest field in existence today.
On the contrary, Christian Hedonists are persuaded with Edwards that the only affections that magnify God's value are those that come from true apprehensions of His glory. If the feast of worship is rare in the land, it is because there is a famine o...
