"Persuasiveness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... left. Truth to tell, her heart was in her mouth. She had been playing with edge-tools; but just then she smelt a whiff of smoke from Long Snapps's pipe, and the resolve of last night came back; her face relented, and George, seeing it, used his utmost persuasiveness; so the result was, that Sally washed her hands at the well, and away they went, in the most serene silence, over fences, grass-lots, and ditches, through bits of woodland, and fields of winter-green, till they reached the edge ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... the exception of Allison, were chuckling at this glib persuasiveness. Westby stood there, in a calmly respectful, even deferential attitude, as if animated only by a desire to ...
— The Jester of St. Timothy's • Arthur Stanwood Pier
... which make for the persuasiveness of an argument I will speak here of three—clearness of statement, appeal to the practical interests of the audience, and ...
— The Making of Arguments • J. H. Gardiner
... college, and the embarrassments of all kinds which surrounded its instructors, and appealing to the manliness and affection and good principles of the students to help 'by whatsoever things were honest, lovely, or of good report,' occurs to recollection as of extraordinary persuasiveness ...
— The History of Dartmouth College • Baxter Perry Smith
... so heedless, so witless, and unwary, to mind God's holy things in such a time and day. (Matt. 4:16, 17; Luke 8:13) Then they bethink with themselves, how to make an honourable retreat, which they suppose they usually do, by finding fault, first with their own unadvisedness, and of the over-persuasiveness of others; they also now begin to say farewell conscience, yea, God and heaven and all, and join in confederacy with the world again. Thus are they in fear, where no fear is; and the sound of a shaken leaf doth chase them. And there are four things ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... Carnarvon Boroughs, guerilla tactics in the House, suspension, recognition, pacifism, office, original budgeting, Limehousing (very reticently indicated), social reform. Then War and the supreme opportunity for the energy, persuasiveness, adroitness and determination which must extort even from opponents the tribute of admiration. Not a dull page; occasionally an obscure one. None of your cold and calculated criticism for Mr. SPENDER. Have idols clay feet? Well, not this one, thank ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, March 31, 1920 • Various
... sings, and his singing is the right outpouring of a poet's soul; each octave resumes the theme of the last stanza with a swell of utterance, a crescendo of intonation that recalls the passionate and unpremeditated descant of a bird upon the boughs alone. To this true quality of music is added the persuasiveness of pleading. That the violin melody of his incomparable song is lost, must be reckoned a great misfortune. We have good reason to believe that the part of Orpheus was taken by Messer Baccio Ugolini, singing to the viol. Here too it may be mentioned that a ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... uttered a series of broken sentences. Instead of finishing them he glanced down his beard. It was a deliberate curtailment which somehow made the phrases more impressive. But he could talk fluently enough, as became apparent when changing his tone to persuasiveness he went on: "By listening to you as I did, I think I have proved that I do not regard our intercourse as strictly official. In fact, I don't want it to have that character at all.... Oh yes! I admit that the request for your presence here had an official form. But I put it to you whether ...
— Under Western Eyes • Joseph Conrad
... pointed out, did not invent this theory of Shakespeare's psychology but he elaborated it with a skill and persuasiveness which ...
— An Essay Toward a History of Shakespeare in Norway • Martin Brown Ruud
... composition, as in other things, there are different orders of excellence. The kind, although perfect, may be a low kind, and Swift's style wants the 'sweetness and light,' to quote a phrase of his own, which distinguish our greatest prose writers. It lacks also the elevation which inspires, and the persuasiveness that convinces while it charms. With infinitely more vigour than Addison, Swift, apart from his Letters, has none of Addison's attractiveness. No style, perhaps, is better fitted to exhibit scorn and contempt; but its author cannot express, because ...
— The Age of Pope - (1700-1744) • John Dennis
... autumn of 1793 Jefferson insisted upon resigning as Secretary of State. Washington used all his persuasiveness to dissuade him, but in vain. Jefferson saw the matter in its true light, and insisted. Perhaps it at last occurred to him, as it must occur to every dispassionate critic, that he could not go on forever acting ...
— George Washington • William Roscoe Thayer
... Suave implies agreeable persuasiveness or smooth urbanity. Bland suggests a soothing or coaxing kindness of manner, one that is sometimes lacking in sincerity. Unctuous implies excessive smoothness, as though one's manner were oiled. The word carries a decided suggestion of hypocrisy. Fulsome ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... the highest practical importance, it seems to me that no time ought to be lost in encouraging and directing a habit of compiling personal and family histories. If the necessary materials be brought into existence, it will require no more than zeal and persuasiveness on the part of the future investigator to collect as large a store of ...
— Inquiries into Human Faculty and Its Development • Francis Galton
... prison, was led out with others to summary execution. "Every bullet has its billet," runs the proverb. All the merit of proverbs consists in the concise and picturesque expression. In the surprise of our minds is found their persuasiveness. In other words, we are struck and convinced by ...
— A Set of Six • Joseph Conrad
... FRIEND: ... I was glad to see the well-merited tributes paid by yourself and others to the memory of Mrs. Josephine S. Griffing. She was, for a considerable period, actively engaged in the anti-slavery struggle in Ohio, where by her rare executive ability and persuasiveness as a public lecturer, she aided greatly in keeping the abolition flag flying, enlightening and changing public sentiment, and hastening the year of jubilee. With what unremitting zeal and energy ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... experimenter, and all who took delight in mental effort were more deeply interested in their studies, in their research, in their philosophies, and in their religions than they were in money, food, clothing, and shelter. So he set about it, with his jovial personality, his persuasiveness, and keen sense of values, to organize the thinkers and philosophers under his direction, so that he could take and use for himself the product of their mental labors. He was perfectly willing to agree to feed and take care of them, ...
— Analyzing Character • Katherine M. H. Blackford and Arthur Newcomb
... at ease; we wish to have every thing our own way; we wish to enjoy both this world and the next; we wish to be happy all at once. If the Gospel promises this, we accept it; but if not, it is but a bondage, it has no persuasiveness, it will receive no acceptance from us." Such is the language of men's hearts, though their tongues do not utter it; language most unthankful, most ...
— Parochial and Plain Sermons, Vol. VII (of 8) • John Henry Newman
... characteristically wielded, that represents what is perhaps his greatest claim upon the consideration of the future. No one who had the privilege of hearing him speak failed to respond to the quiet persuasiveness of his presence and the charm of his personality. There are some persons in whom is inherent a certain magnetic mastery over numbers. He had this to an extraordinary degree. Merely by rising he could bring absolute stillness upon a cheering throng of students or alumni, and with ...
— The University of Michigan • Wilfred Shaw
... whatever is curious and subtle doth attract and allure mankind, as antecedently to all instruction agreeable and proper to it. And therefore, because he that is really affected with grief or anger presents us with nothing but the common bare passion, but in the imitation some dexterity and persuasiveness appears, we are naturally inclined to be disturbed at the former, whilst the latter delights us. It is unpleasant to see a sick man, or one at his last gasp; yet with content we can look upon the picture of Philoctetes, ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch
... so rapidly with his good fortune, or abided with him so firmly in his reverses. The cause of their hatred to the father was his insatiable avarice: the causes of their affection to the son were many; his temperate life, his practice in arms, the persuasiveness of his speech, the integrity of his character, and his affability to every man who came in his way, so that there was no man from whom another could ask a favour with so little pain, and no man whose ...
— Plutarch's Lives Volume III. • Plutarch
... out a good deal while they are hunting cooks. And they pay us back royally as soon as the household staff is fully recruited once more. We eat strange but delicious dishes made by a reluctant and mystified girl, plus Mrs. Singer's persuasiveness and will power; and said girl, still reluctant, and scared into the bargain, serves the dinner with a lace-edged apron and a napkin on her hair, Mrs. Singer egging her in loud whispers like the prompter in grand opera. Steering a ...
— Homeburg Memories • George Helgesen Fitch
... strange how the displeasure provoked by these shortcomings in his attire gradually vanished beneath the steady persuasiveness of the wearer's fascinating personality; and very soon not only had Sir Joseph ceased from feeling their aggressiveness, but had actually begun to associate them inseparably with the strange charm of the creature ...
— Too Old for Dolls - A Novel • Anthony Mario Ludovici
... little error!" she said rapidly and with soft persuasiveness. "It is la mode. Miladi has perhaps lived in a country where the fashions are different. But if she will ask the most amiable Sieur Bruce-Errington, she will find that her dress is quite in keeping with ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... am afraid I led her a terrible life; for I was, almost from my birth, a big, strong, high-spirited boy, impatient of control, and resolute to have my own way. But Dora—ah! Dora, with her sweet, docile disposition, made ample amends for all my shortcomings, and in the end, by her gentle persuasiveness, did much to subdue my rebellious spirit and render me amenable to ...
— The Log of a Privateersman • Harry Collingwood
... Ahab, now; and thus chase away, for that one interval, the clouds that layer upon layer were piled upon his brow, as ever all clouds choose the loftiest peaks to pile themselves upon. Nevertheless, ere long, the warm, warbling persuasiveness of the pleasant, holiday weather we came to, seemed gradually to charm him from his mood. For, as when the red-cheeked, dancing girls, April and May, trip home to the wintry, misanthropic woods; even the barest, ruggedest, most thunder-cloven old oak will at least send ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... by that winning if not winsome old trait, persistence. The sparkling gentleman "led germans" with her, and sent sonnets to her with his bouquets—sonnets lacking neither music nor wit. He was generous, poor, well-dressed, and his amazing persuasiveness was one reason why he was always in debt. No one doubted that he would be able to persuade Isabel, but he unfortunately joined too merry a party one night, and, during a moonlight serenade upon the lawn before the Amberson Mansion, was easily identified from the windows ...
— The Magnificent Ambersons • Booth Tarkington
... here," he said, smiling with deliberate confidential persuasiveness. She nodded, ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... in hand, and was equally capable of giving it words at a moment's notice, or of working it out thoroughly and at leisure, and that either by himself or, what is as important, through others. He would have made no enemies, and multitudes of friends; and his quiet tact and flexible persuasiveness, grafted on a clear grasp of leading principles, would have made ...
— Memoirs of James Robert Hope-Scott, Volume 2 • Robert Ornsby
... examples of the art of public speaking, which no person will be likely to underrate. Those who may differ from Mr. Bright's theory of the public good will have no difficulty in acknowledging the clearness of his diction, the skill with which he arranges his arguments, the vigour of his style, the persuasiveness of his reasoning, and above all, the perfect candour and sincerity with which ...
— Speeches on Questions of Public Policy, Volume 1 • John Bright
... and cultivate power through repose, watch the exquisite languor of a drowsy cat, and despair of imitating such perfect and restful grace. There is a gradual yielding of every muscle to the soft persuasiveness of slumber: the flexible frame is curved into tender lines, the head nestles lower, the paws are tucked out of sight: no convulsive throb or start betrays a rebellious alertness: only a faint quiver of unconscious satisfaction, a faint heaving of the tawny sides, a faint gleam of the half-shut ...
— Concerning Cats - My Own and Some Others • Helen M. Winslow
... the fascinating persuasiveness of her manner, I now consented so readily, that Mr. Lang, laughing, asked, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 97, November, 1865 • Various
... especially awkward for either Elizabeth or himself to put these suspicions into words. But to put them upon paper with all the cumulative evidence needed to carry conviction,—if conviction could indeed be conveyed without the reiteration of words and the persuasiveness of the voice,—to do this and send the paper adrift, to fall into Archdale's hands or not as the fortunes of war should determine, perhaps to fall into other hands,—it was impossible, for Elizabeth's sake it was impossible. "I don't see how we can reach him," he said at ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 5 • Various
... the Commendatore's, melted in a smile;—a smile seemingly all innocence, persuasiveness, tender appeal for approbation, but (I 'm afraid) with an undergleam that was like ...
— The Lady Paramount • Henry Harland
... before him in a state of excitement and enthusiasm hardly to be exaggerated. Never before and never since have I witnessed such an effect as this produced by an orator, and though he lacked the stately and sonorous delivery of John Bright, and had no pretension to the intellectual persuasiveness of Mr. Gladstone, I have always felt, since hearing that speech, that Gambetta was the greatest orator to whom ...
— Memoirs of Sir Wemyss Reid 1842-1885 • Stuart J. Reid, ed.
... on his way East, the steamboat on which he was traveling stopped at Lexington, Missouri. An unauthorized mob induced the Governor, with that persuasiveness in which the Border Ruffians had become adepts, to leave the boat, detaining him at Lexington on the accusation that he was fleeing from an indictment. In a few days an officer came with a requisition from Governor Shannon, and took the prisoner by land to Westport, and afterwards from there to ...
— Abraham Lincoln: A History V1 • John G. Nicolay and John Hay
... found so, then can I also be called one, and be faithful then, when I shall no longer appear to the world. Nothing visible is good: for our God, Jesus Christ, now that He is with the Father, is all the more revealed. The work is not of persuasiveness, but of greatness, whensoever it is hated ...
— The Ignatian Epistles Entirely Spurious • W. D. (William Dool) Killen
... wish was to be confronted with its difficulties and its absurdities, to overcome this initial opposition only with a struggle, and to enlist his antagonist as a fellow-warrior; he had especial belief in the persuasiveness of converts. Unluckily, however, as a rule only the first part of the programme passed into fact; he got the absurdities and difficulties pointed out freely enough, the conversions hung fire. Dick Benyon was almost the sole ...
— Quisante • Anthony Hope
... miserable man trying to screw his face into persuasiveness, "you cannot let the Princess ...
— The Princess Priscilla's Fortnight • Elizabeth von Arnim
... Montaigne's very phrases, the fascination the "Essays" had for Pascal in his capacity of one of the children of light, as giving a veritable compte rendu of the Satanic course of this world since the Fall, set forth with all the persuasiveness, the power and charm, all the gifts of Satan, the veritable light on things he has at ...
— Miscellaneous Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater
... in their beds," no doubt she was called unwomanly. To me, "unlock the doors" sounds better than any words of circumlocution, however sweet and persuasive, and I consider that she took the most womanly way of accomplishing her object. Patience and persuasiveness are beautiful virtues in dealing with children and feeble-minded adults, but those who have the gift of reason and understand the principles of justice, it is our duty to compel to act up to the highest light that is in them, and as ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... fine urbanity was reflected in the harmony and delicacy of Racine, as well as in the critical decorum of Boileau. The artistic sentiment rules in letters, as in social life. It was not only the thought that counted, but the setting of the thought. The majestic periods of Bossuet, the tender persuasiveness of Fenelon, gave even truth a double force. The moment came when this critical refinement, this devotion to form, passed its limits, and the inevitable reaction followed. The great literary wave of the seventeenth century reached its ...
— The Women of the French Salons • Amelia Gere Mason
... those eccentric, half-savage beings could be entrusted with valuable property, and the negotiation of business involving most intricate handling. Sometimes in the settlement of knotty questions they used their own peculiar persuasiveness, and if that was not convincing, they indicated the possibility of physical force—which was usually effectual, especially with Levantines. Here is an instance: one of the latter plethoric gentlemen, with an air of aggrieved virtue, accused a captain of unreasonableness in asking him to pay up ...
— Windjammers and Sea Tramps • Walter Runciman
... the teachings of the Bible, forewarns you that you are about to succumb to resisted temptations through the seductive persuasiveness ...
— 10,000 Dreams Interpreted • Gustavus Hindman Miller
... fine form and excellent voice. Honoured occasion by donning one of his biggest collars and a new necktie. Curious proof of his persuasiveness how he gradually talked his necktie round till knot rested under left ear. BALFOUR squealed forth his disapprobation for upwards of an hour. Rather a pitiful spectacle, the more so ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 93, September 3, 1887 • Various
... specimen of preaching I ever heard was by the Rev. Edward N. Kirk before my congregation during a revival; it produced a tremendous effect." Those of us that knew Kirk knew that he was not a man of genius or profound scholarship; but he was a true orator with a superb voice and a sweet persuasiveness, and his whole soul was on fire with the love of Jesus and ...
— Recollections of a Long Life - An Autobiography • Theodore Ledyard Cuyler
... had a highly trained mind, and a very firm grasp of the mere technique of finance. Therefore Sir Paul could explain himself succinctly and precisely in technical terms, and he did so—with much skill and a sort of unconsidered persuasiveness, realising in his rough commonsense that there was no need to drive ideas into Mr. Prohack's head with a steam-hammer, or to intoxicate him with a ...
— Mr. Prohack • E. Arnold Bennett
... knowledge. Follen is chaste, profound, and elaborately polished. Goodell is perceptive, analytical, expert, and solid. Child (David L.) is generously indignant, courageous, and demonstrative; his lady combines strength with beauty, argumentation with persuasiveness, greatness with humility. Birney is collected, courteous, dispassionate—his fearlessness excites admiration, his conscientiousness commands respect." Of these writers, which is acceptable to slaveholders or their apologists? Some have been ...
— William Lloyd Garrison - The Abolitionist • Archibald H. Grimke
... the willing slave of his Pollys, that his whole training as uncle had tended to cultivate in him the grace of obedience. "As the twig is bent the tree inclines," and he had been the merest twig of an uncle, if not in years, at least in experience, when he had yielded to the sunny persuasiveness of that first faint glimmering of a smile in the baby face of the original Polly. His subjugation, moreover, having hitherto proved beneficial in its results, he was the more excusable, to-day, for letting ...
— A Venetian June • Anna Fuller
... could only give a small part of his time to these concerts. Notwithstanding his persuasiveness, there remained on his hands some intractable pupils who would not hear of viol or harpsichord, who insisted upon being taught to play modern masses on the organ, and these he could not afford to refuse. For of late years his wife's ...
— Evelyn Innes • George Moore
... expectations. His exterior is attractive, and the expression of intelligent good-humour, united with determination and prudence, which marks his countenance, is extremely winning. He has perhaps more of persuasiveness than of large and lofty eloquence; and one frequently perceives too much design and manner in his words. Nevertheless, it is impossible not to follow his powerful arguments with interest, to view the martial dignity ...
— Little Memoirs of the Nineteenth Century • George Paston
... Miss Ladd urged as she laid her hands on his shoulders and attempted to draw him away. A few gentle words and an exhibition of a kind persuasiveness of manner brought success. She drew the lad back some distance and tried to reason with him, whereupon he burst into ...
— Campfire Girls at Twin Lakes - The Quest of a Summer Vacation • Stella M. Francis
... of longing and unrest, of effeminate suggestions of luxurious ease, and perhaps we might say of modern poetry,—at any rate, modern poetry needs a change of air. I am not sure but the south is the most powerful of the winds, because of its sweet persuasiveness. Nothing so stirs the blood in spring, when it comes up out of the tropical latitude; it makes men "longen to gon ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... begins to fret and fume. In the second subject he seems to protest the truthfulness and devotion of his heart, and concludes with a passage half upbraiding, half beseeching, which is quite captivating, nay more, even bewitching in its eloquent persuasiveness. Thus far, from the entrance of the pianoforte, all was irreproachable. How charming if Chopin had allowed himself to drift on the current of his fancy, and had left rules, classifications, &c., to others! But no, he had resolved to write a concerto, and must now put his ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... of humor or sarcasm, or an outburst of eloquent indignation came from her with great power. She had what the Friends call unction; that made the most radical utterances from her lips acceptable. In her conversation she was original and brilliant, earnest and playful. Such was her persuasiveness of voice and manner that opinions received with hisses from another speaker, were applauded ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... debate: "If you could spend a second lifetime when and where would you choose to spend it?" On this Page had not a moment's hesitation: "In the future and in the U.S.A.!" and he upheld his point with such persuasiveness that he carried the whole gathering with him. His love of anything suggesting America came out on all occasions. One of his English hostesses once captivated him by serving corn bread at a luncheon. "The American Ambassador and corn bread!" he exclaimed with all the delight of a schoolboy. Again ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume II • Burton J. Hendrick
... persuasiveness, the heart-moving sincerity which breathed through that simple phrase! From lips so untutored, it seemed marvelous. Ransom was not insensible to its power, for he quivered under her hand and his eyes took on a look of wonder. But he made no attempt to answer, even by a ...
— The Chief Legatee • Anna Katharine Green
... him:—he should lose his Nisida irrevocably! But his next impulse was to wrestle with this feeling—to combat this weakness. How could he have hoped ever to rejoin her without rendering himself again liable to the witchery of her siren tongue—the eloquence of her silver-toned voice—the persuasiveness of her graceful manners? No; it were better that she should depart; it were preferable that he should lose her and preserve his immortal soul. Thus reasoned he;—and that reasoning was effectual. He waited only long enough to assure himself that the fleet was positively approaching the ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds
... habits and faults of the human mind—on the difficult and yet so obvious and so natural precautions necessary to guide it in the true and hopeful track. It came from the attractiveness, the enthusiasm, and the persuasiveness of the pleading; from the clear and forcible statements, the sustained eloquence, the generous hopes, the deep and earnest purpose of the Advancement and the De Augmentis; from the nobleness, the originality, the picturesqueness, the impressive and irresistible truth of the great aphorisms ...
— Bacon - English Men Of Letters, Edited By John Morley • Richard William Church
... to obtain the favour of the Queen and a foremost position at court, hence the readiness with which he fell into the trap. For "the Valois orphan," now Comtesse de la Motte, not only possessed great personal attractions, but an extraordinary gift of persuasiveness. Without much apparent trouble she made the Cardinal believe that she was in the Queen's favour, and indeed in her confidence. Having got so far the rest ...
— East of Paris - Sketches in the Gatinais, Bourbonnais, and Champagne • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... lingered in his speech, along with the slurred r's and the soft drawl of his southern tongue, while his spontaneous rebellion under restraint and his brilliant disregard of the consequences of his behavior were as truly Celtic as was the honey-sweet persuasiveness with which he could convince his friends that whatever he had done had been exactly right and the only thing possible. He was all Irish that wasn't Texan, and all Texan that wasn't Irish, and everybody ...
— With Hoops of Steel • Florence Finch Kelly
... delivered. Their tension and straining after effect is palpable. They are a cry of pain on the part of one who sees that assailed which is sacred to him, of triumph as he feels himself able to repel the assault, of brooding persuasiveness lest any should fail to be won for his truth. He concedes everything. It is part of his art to go further than his detractors. He is so well versed in his subject that he can do that with consummate mastery, where they are clumsy or dilettante. ...
— Edward Caldwell Moore - Outline of the History of Christian Thought Since Kant • Edward Moore
... that local diseases were frequently the results of disordered states of the digestive organs, and were to be treated by purging and attention to diet. As a lecturer he was exceedingly attractive, and his success in teaching was largely attributable to the persuasiveness with which he enunciated his views. It has been said, however, that the influence he exerted on those who attended his lectures was not beneficial in this respect, that his opinions were delivered so dogmatically, ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... and fro in the air, keeping it absolutely level. Gaspare continued to explain with gathering excitement and persuasiveness, talking to his master as much by gesture as by the words that Maurice could only ...
— The Call of the Blood • Robert Smythe Hichens
... in life, suddenly overwhelms him as well as the thought that despair at his loss has even killed his mother. He sinks deeply wounded at the feet of the seductive woman; it is the first soul-despair in his life. She, however, with diabolic persuasiveness, avails herself of this to overcome his manly heart by her only way, the painful, longing sensation for his mother, and offers him the consolation which love gives, "as a blessing, the mother's ...
— Life of Wagner - Biographies of Musicians • Louis Nohl
... such persuasiveness. 'She's got a delicious little face,' he admitted, thinking to say ...
— The Convert • Elizabeth Robins
... influence few of us can boast of possessing, but this unconscious influence not one of us can escape. And indeed, that is the profounder leadership even of the greatest souls. One of the most extraordinary traits in the ministry of Jesus Christ is his undesigned persuasiveness. He does not seem to expect {24} a generally accepted influence. He recognizes that there are whole groups of souls whom he cannot reach. Only they who have ears to hear, he says, can hear him. He just goes his own great way, misinterpreted, persecuted; ...
— Mornings in the College Chapel - Short Addresses to Young Men on Personal Religion • Francis Greenwood Peabody
... gave frequent evidence of his tact and persuasiveness. Often when matters of policy had to be fixed and discussed, the managers of out-of-town theaters would be called to New York. It was Charles's business to take them in hand and straighten out their troubles. They would leave, feeling that they had got the best "time" for their theaters ...
— Charles Frohman: Manager and Man • Isaac Frederick Marcosson and Daniel Frohman
... brother judges, and then with less deference to the prisoner. He spoke in a voice lacking any trace of loudness, but distinctly heard in every corner of the room because of the intense stillness. There was a sweet persuasiveness in the accents he used, and his sentences resembled those of a lady anxious not to give offence to ...
— The Strong Arm • Robert Barr
... some in parliament—with much power of sarcasm, but this power was evidently rather repressed than allowed to run riot. What impressed Endymion as the chief quality of this remarkable speaker was his persuasiveness, and he had the air of being too prudent to offend even an opponent unnecessarily. His language, though natural and easy, was choice and refined. He was evidently a man who had read, and not a little; and there was no taint of vulgarity, scarcely a provincialism, ...
— Endymion • Benjamin Disraeli
... general, but rather resembling a priest of the Muses, would be seen gathering round him the Attics of every tongue and of every nation, the Addisons, Pellissons, Vauvenargues—all who feel the value of an easy persuasiveness, an exquisite simplicity, and a gentle negligence mingled with ornament. In the centre of the place, in the portico of the principal temple (for there would be several in the enclosure), three great men would like to meet ...
— Literary and Philosophical Essays • Various
... service to the common need. He seemed to Abbott and to the newspaper men who for six weeks were so intimately associated with him to draw inspiration and information from the free air. And there was to all of his speeches an almost wistful persuasiveness, as if, Abbott said, he picked one listener in each audience, each night, and sought anew to make him feel the insidious peril to the nation's soul that lay in personal complacency and indifference to ...
— The Enchanted Canyon • Honore Willsie Morrow
... genius in history than that recorded in the scene when Winston burst into the Council Chamber and bucked up the Burgomeisters to hold on a little bit longer. Any comfort our people may enjoy from being out of cannon shot of the Germans—they owe it to the imagination, bluff and persuasiveness of Winston and to this gallant Naval Division now destined to be ...
— Gallipoli Diary, Volume I • Ian Hamilton
... Amberly, Lydia Becker, and Mrs. Fawcett too much for them in debate; they had probably winced under the satire of Frances Power Cobbe, and trembled before the annually swelling lists of suffrage petitions. Single-handed they saw they were helpless against this incoming tide of feminine persuasiveness, and so it seems they called a meeting of faint-hearted men, and bound themselves together by a constitution and by-laws to protect the franchise from the ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... subject against the wily Arabs, that salt water diplomat told him significantly that the Arabs were better subjects than Hollanders who dealt illegally in gunpowder with the Malays. The innocent Almayer recognised there at once the oily tongue of Abdulla and the solemn persuasiveness of Lakamba, but ere he had time to frame an indignant protest the steam launch and the string of boats moved rapidly down the river leaving him on the jetty, standing open-mouthed in his surprise and anger. There are thirty ...
— Almayer's Folly - A Story of an Eastern River • Joseph Conrad
... out there she saw the visible God. The parson prayed for "this sick soul, our brother," over and over, in many phrases, and with true and passionate desire. And when the prayer was done, he put his hand on the young man's shoulder, and said, with a yearning persuasiveness,— ...
— Meadow Grass - Tales of New England Life • Alice Brown
... steer clear of rows, and I don't want to see any woman get mud thrown on her because of you. For a man of course, unfortunately, consequences never amount to much. It's for the woman that I should plead if I had any eloquence or persuasiveness. I'd say to you, don't run away for your own sake, that's not worth while; but run away for hers. Now you will forgive me, my dear fellow, won't you, for butting in like ...
— We Three • Gouverneur Morris
... restated his purpose and his motives. John pleaded, implored, appealed (so the watcher read his gesture) to earth, to heaven. Winthorpe took his arm, and calmly, smilingly, tried to soothe, tried to convince him. John drew his arm free, and, employing it to add force and persuasiveness to his speech, renewed his arguments, pointed out how unnecessary, inhuman, impossible the whole thing was. "It's monstrous. It's against all nature. There's no reason in it. What does it rhyme with? It's wilfully going out of your ...
— My Friend Prospero • Henry Harland
... go on that account," said Deronda, buttering his bread attentively. He had an objection to this transparent kind of persuasiveness, which all intelligent animals are seen to treat with indifference. If he went to Diplow he should be doing something disagreeable to ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... pack-saddles, and getting almost ready to start, we were, through Walker's kindness and persuasiveness, overcome, and consented to go with him, feeling confident that we would not starve to death while with him. We did not now have Manley with his long experience, and his old rusty, but always trusty, rifle as a sure defence against possible hunger ...
— Death Valley in '49 • William Lewis Manly
... above stated afford more decisive information regarding the nature of heat than columns of theory or speculation. Yet it is rather strange that when so many learned and reliable men have, experimented so much and commented with such persuasiveness upon the subtile agency of heat and the vast amount of waste that must accrue by injudicious management, comparatively few have availed themselves of the united labors of these indefatigable pyrologists; manufacturing ...
— Scientific American, Vol.22, No. 1, January 1, 1870 • Various
... formed Cyrus the Great into an ideal king and soldier. The Cyropaedeia is said to have been intended as a counterblast to Plato's Republic, and it may have provoked Plato's casual remark in the Laws that 'Cyrus never so much as touched education'. No doubt the book suffered in persuasiveness from being so obviously fictitious.[85:1] For example, the Cyrus of Xenophon dies peacefully in his bed after much affectionate and edifying advice to his family, whereas all Athens knew from Herodotus how the real Cyrus had been killed in a war against the Massagetae, and ...
— Five Stages of Greek Religion • Gilbert Murray
... dress as I would have leaned out to speak to the driver. Her manner had suddenly changed, and she was all softness and sweetness, and persuasiveness. ...
— The Powers and Maxine • Charles Norris Williamson
... career for women—a career which shall engage not alone all the higher and more delicate traits of their organisation, which will call forth their marvellous clear-sightedness and quick perception, their tact, their persuasiveness, and their ingenuity, but will actually employ the less commendable features of female nature, and find work for their powers of concealment, their craft in deception, and their passion for intrigue. ...
— Cornelius O'Dowd Upon Men And Women And Other Things In General - Originally Published In Blackwood's Magazine - 1864 • Charles Lever
... demanded of me. I used the latter, however, as a hook, luring my students by the bait of learning to the study of the true philosophy, even as the Ecclesiastical History tells of Origen, the greatest of all Christian philosophers. Since apparently the Lord had gifted me with no less persuasiveness in expounding the Scriptures than in lecturing on secular subjects, the number of my students in these two courses began to increase greatly, and the attendance at all the other schools was correspondingly diminished. Thus I aroused the envy and hatred of the other teachers. ...
— Historia Calamitatum • Peter Abelard
... A Diplomatic Manager His Persuasiveness How He Borrowed Money from an Irate Creditor Maurice Strakosch Musical Managers Pollini Sofia Scalchi and Annie Louise Cary Again Campanini and His Beautiful Attack Brignoli His Appetite ...
— Chapters of Opera • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... contempt, reproach, and persecution which the profession of it involved. It smiled upon her; it made promises to her; it opened eternal views to her; and it grew upon her convictions in clearness of perception, in congruity, and in persuasiveness. ...
— Callista • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... others followed my example, I cannot tell; for almost immediately I felt a subtle fire course through my veins, followed by a delicious languor that crept inwards to my heart, and seemed to arrest its pulsation by an irresistible persuasiveness to repose. Probably I swooned, for I lost all consciousness, and all recollection of time or ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 2 • Various
... question: 'What forbids a man, who has the truth to tell, from putting it as persuasively as possible? Were not the truths of the Gospel conveyed in parables? And is their truth diminished because these parables are exquisite in form and in language? Will you only commend persuasiveness in a sophist who engages to make the worst argument appear the better, and condemn it in a teacher who employs it to enforce truth?' The question, surely, is answered as soon as ...
— From a Cornish Window - A New Edition • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... stimulated into a reaction, and in 1754 he propounded his whole theory, in a piece which in closeness, consistency, and thoroughness is admirably different from Rousseau's rhetoric.[177] It lacked the sovereign quality of persuasiveness, and so fell on deaf ears. Morelly accepts the doctrine that men are formed by the laws, but insists that moralists and statesmen have always led us wrong by legislating and prescribing conduct on the false theory that ...
— Rousseau - Volumes I. and II. • John Morley
... Carnegys of the old stock, or, to put it in another way, as Christians who have given offence, and know that there is but one way of making up for it? Will you apologise?' Theo spoke with urgent persuasiveness. ...
— The Captain's Bunk - A Story for Boys • M. B. Manwell
... personally, supposing I were persuaded of their truth, when at length addressing myself to the inquiry; but it would have destroyed, of course, the force of my testimony, and deprived such arguments, as I might adduce, of that moral persuasiveness which attends on tried and sustained conviction. It would have made me seem the advocate, rather than the cordial and deliberate maintainer and witness, of the doctrines which I was to support; and, though it might be said to evidence the faith I reposed in the practical judgment of the ...
— The Idea of a University Defined and Illustrated: In Nine - Discourses Delivered to the Catholics of Dublin • John Henry Newman
... broad, and his features regular, save that his left eyelid drooped somewhat, like that of his father, and hid part of the pupil. He spoke with a stammer, which did not, however, detract from the persuasiveness of his eloquence. His sinewy, muscular arms were those of the consummate swordsman, and his long legs gave him a firm hold in the saddle when riding the most spirited of steeds. His chief delight was ...
— The History of England - From the Accession of Henry III. to the Death of Edward III. (1216-1377) • T.F. Tout
... ten words from Washington to Baltimore in two minutes. Good heavens! Twenty minutes is quick enough, but two minutes is nonsense. The Professor is too radical and visionary, and I doubt if the committee recommend the sum to be risked in such a manner." Mr. Sibley's sound arguments and persuasiveness prevailed, though he took care not to say what he believed, that the Professor was right as to the two minutes. Their joint efforts ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 530, February 27, 1886 • Various
... out in eloquent words, repeatedly and sternly silencing the Vekeel when he sought to argue in favor of the sentence of death; and the humane persuasiveness of the lenient judge won the hearts of most of ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... cover the subjects, as I have suggested. Arthur B. Davies is a lyric poet with a decidedly Celtic tendency. It is the smile of a radiant twilight in his brain. It is a country of green moon whispers and of shadowed movement. Imagination illuminating the moment of fancy with rhythmic persuasiveness. It is the Pandaean mystery unfolded with symphonic accompaniment. You have in these pictures the romances of the human mind made irresistible with melodic certainty. They are chansons sans paroles, sung to the ...
— Adventures in the Arts - Informal Chapters on Painters, Vaudeville, and Poets • Marsden Hartley
... sin," she used to insist, "tae see the bonnie suit gien the Doctor by the Countess o' Kilspindie, wi' dear knows hoo much o' her ain auld lace on 't, lyin' useless, wi' naebody tae get a sicht o't on his back. Dinna ye think, man"—this with much persuasiveness—"that ye cud get the Doctor tae pit on his velvets on an occasion, maybe a Saicrament? The pairish wud be lifted; an' ye wud look weel walkin' afore him ...
— Kate Carnegie and Those Ministers • Ian Maclaren
... separable from great general scope of thought, and which one is tempted to call a faculty for government. But he must have been influential; for, besides being the most eloquent man in the Senate, his speeches would have been distinguished for amplitude and judgment in design, and for tact and persuasiveness in enforcement. They might not have had immediate and commanding effect, but they would have had permanent value. His speech upon the Ashburton Treaty indicates the powers he would have shown, with a longer training in ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 6, No. 33, July, 1860 • Various
... be attained by reading writers who possess it: be it, for example, persuasiveness, imagination, the gift of drawing comparisons, boldness or bitterness, brevity or grace, facility of expression or wit, unexpected contrasts, a laconic manner, naivete, and the like. But if we are already gifted ...
— Essays of Schopenhauer • Arthur Schopenhauer
... was as the sun in heaven. Moreover, the very desperateness of the cause was their inspiration. There was no temptation to lean upon the arm of flesh, for there was none that fought for them but God. Their nakedness was their armour, their slow tongues their persuasiveness, their weakness demanded God's strength, and found it. Yet there was this difference, and it was a significant one. For Peter the spiritual world had an interpretation and a guarantee in the outward events he had witnessed. He had handled the Risen Christ, the external corroborated ...
— Lord of the World • Robert Hugh Benson
... array of material accomplishments over the past fifteen years that lends a false persuasiveness to many of their glittering ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... never know of it until it's too late for them to do anything—if they ever know," came the easterner's words, in smooth persuasiveness. ...
— In the Shadow of the Hills • George C. Shedd
... struck the chords. His gentleness had, however, a firmness, a deep persuasiveness, which drew every face like a call. A few chords waving, as it were, over the piano, and then ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... other Southern States including the new "independent republics," and a united remonstrance to the North, of which the rejection would justify Secession,—this policy was embodied in a resolution presented by Herschel V. Johnson and supported by all the eloquence and persuasiveness of Stephens. Against him was the strong personal influence of Howell Cobb, and the argument—which Stephens says was decisive,—"we can make better terms out of the Union than in it." The test vote was 164 to ...
— The Negro and the Nation - A History of American Slavery and Enfranchisement • George S. Merriam
... manner had further obtained for him the friendship of many of them. At the meetings of quarter-sessions his plans had often to encounter considerable opposition, and, when called upon to defend them, he did so with such firmness, persuasiveness, and good temper, that he usually carried his point. "Some of the magistrates are ignorant," he wrote in 1789, "and some are obstinate: though I must say that on the whole there is a very respectable ...
— The Life of Thomas Telford by Smiles • Samuel Smiles
... he was "the greatest orator that ever lived." He seems to have exercised a kind of magical influence over his hearers, which they could not explain, which charmed and overwhelmed them, and "has left behind a tradition of bewitching persuasiveness and almost prophetic sublimity."—See Life of Patrick Henry, ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron
... beaming with delight; he sang stretching out his neck as though he wanted to soar upwards. He sang tenor and chanted the "Praises" too in a tenor voice with honied sweetness and persuasiveness. When he sang "Archangel Voices" he waved his arms like a conductor, and trying to second the sacristan's hollow bass with his tenor, achieved something extremely complex, and from his face it could be seen that he was ...
— The Bishop and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... Whitland most resolutely refused to play the part of the bad girl, even though Bones promised to change the title to "The Good Girl," even though he wheedled his best, even though he struck attitudes indicative of despair and utter ruin, even though the gentle persuasiveness of Mr. Lew Becksteine was added to his entreaties. And Hamilton as resolutely declined to have anything to do with the bad man. Mr. Becksteine solved the difficulty by undertaking to produce the necessary actors and actresses at the minimum ...
— Bones in London • Edgar Wallace
... steadily keener, other promoters followed their lead, and it became necessary to introduce new and original methods of gathering an audience. Mere vocal persuasiveness did not serve to arrest the flow of pedestrians, and so McWade's ingenuity was taxed. But he was equal to the task; seldom did he fail of ideas, and, once he had the attention of a ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach
... Convention Parliament, proffered the crown to William of Orange; he rose through successive titles to be a marquis in 1682; his writings, chief of which is "Character of a Trimmer" (practically a defence of his own life), are marked by a pungent wit and graceful persuasiveness ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... them all to seek Jesus in the house of Simon the Pharisee. The architecture in this drawing was almost childish; the wall of Simon's house is not three inches thick, and there is not room for a grown-up person on the stairs that lead to it; but the tender imagination of the whole, the sweet persuasiveness of Christ, who looks out of a window, the passion of the awakened sinner, who tears the roses out of her hair, the curious novelty of treatment in the heads and draperies, all these combine to make it one of those works, the moral force and directness of which appeal to the ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 8 (of 8) • Various
... continued, as Tuppence remained silent. "You must know SOMETHING to have advertised as you did?" He leaned forward a little, his weary voice held a hint of persuasiveness. ...
— The Secret Adversary • Agatha Christie
... vehement expression. His fighting qualities were in their own way as formidable as Mr. Bright's..... Still it was not passion to which we must look for the secret of his oratorical success. In one word, it was persuasiveness. Cobden made his way to men's hearts by the union which they saw in him of simplicity, earnestness, and conviction, with a singular facility of exposition. This facility consisted in a remarkable power ...
— Ten Englishmen of the Nineteenth Century • James Richard Joy
... softening influence of true Christianity was but little felt. The stern denunciations and terrible punishments of the Old Testament were more suited to the iron temper of the age than the gentle dispensations of the New—the fiery zeal of Joshua than the loving persuasiveness of St. John. ...
— The Conquest of Canada (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Warburton
... a persuasiveness into the last words that revealed Achille to me as an honest merchant confronted with the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156., March 5, 1919 • Various
... a fair living, but business became very dull. People learned to fight shy of his tips. The persuasiveness was gone from his inside news and from his confidential advice from Sharpe and from his beholding with his own eyes the signing of epoch-making documents. Had he been able to make his customers alternate their winnings and losses he might have kept his trade. But, for ...
— The Tipster - 1901, From "Wall Street Stories" • Edwin Lefevre
... he retorted, with his quiet, hoarse persuasiveness, "at a price. I've got the price, no matter ...
— From a Bench in Our Square • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... friend. You have called at her room for her, Hesketh has reported. You would not be suspected, being her friend," he added with sly persuasiveness. ...
— The Golden Face - A Great 'Crook' Romance • William Le Queux
... the lost art of loafing. No! Nothing so direct as preaching. She merely loafs,—consistently, restfully, delightfully, but with an almost fatal hypnotic persuasiveness. She is a sort of stationary Pied Piper, luring the unwary reader to her sun-flecked porch, to watch with her the queer procession of created things go by,—from lovers and ...
— Humorous Ghost Stories • Dorothy Scarborough
... in their coffins. My good sir, if you will not trust your English doctrine to its own truth, you might at least rely on the persuasiveness of its comforts. Nay, pardon me, my friend," he went on, as the Vicar's either cheekbone showed a red flush, "I did not mean to speak offensively; but, Englishman though I am, in matters of religion my countrymen ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine
... weight and effectiveness. Mr. Mabie is serving the state, the church, human society, in all the wide range of its interests, with singular efficiency and is quietly achieving many very useful things; and withal it is done with methods that are constructive and with the gentle arts of a gracious persuasiveness ...
— A Williams Anthology - A Collection of the Verse and Prose of Williams College, 1798-1910 • Compiled by Edwin Partridge Lehman and Julian Park
... considered (p. 297) too vital to the nation's defense to risk grounding on the shoals of racial controversy. For the time being at least, integration of the armed forces would have to be played down, and any civil rights progress in the Department of Defense would have to depend on the persuasiveness of James Forrestal. ...
— Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940-1965 • Morris J. MacGregor Jr.
... 'Bible-men,' I remember, struck me at the time, but Hamilton made some explanatory reply, for the quiet force of the soft voice had a certain persuasiveness about it without the aid of his gesture, although the smoke was so thick that we could not see whether he carried the instruments of his ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, October, 1880 • Various
... when one single solitary individual called that thing "good" or that thing "evil" which all the rest of the world regarded in the opposite sense. Not only so; but it might even happen that the genius and persuasiveness of such a person might change into its direct opposite the moral valuation of the whole of humanity. In many quite ordinary cases there may arise a clash between the conventional morality of the community and the verdict of an individual conscience. In such cases it would be ...
— The Complex Vision • John Cowper Powys
... you my personal and positive assurance—and access to my papers within an hour—during which time you will not be bound." The reply was prompt; the voice hypnotic in its persuasiveness. ...
— Destiny • Charles Neville Buck
... physical energy, he was just the man to please at once the educated mariners, and the rough, bold, hardy tars. The gentlemanly bearing of Mr. Mather was also calculated to impress his opponents favourably, and a graceful persuasiveness of mien and language, aided in qualifying him for that object. Mr. Mather grappled with the arguments of Cobden, Bright, and the other leaders of the cotton districts, whose influence at that time, fresh from their victory over the corn interest, made it important to confute ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... determined not to yield an iota of my convictions to the persuasiveness of this man. "The woman who knew him best declared it to be so as she was dying; and I am forced to trust in her judgment, whatever the opinion of ...
— The Mill Mystery • Anna Katharine Green
... together with the calm, half-ironical persuasiveness of his manner, sent a sudden hush down the table. Every one turned eagerly toward him,—some amused, some wondering, some admiring, while Villiers felt his heart beating with uncomfortable quickness,—he ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli |
