"Persuasiveness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... 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 ...
— Campfire Girls at Twin Lakes - The Quest of a Summer Vacation • Stella M. Francis
... 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 encroachment ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... For two months he appealed to the assembly, and presented the consequences of the new heresy. With his slight figure, his commanding intellectual force, his conservative tendencies, his clearness of statement, his logical exactness and fascinating persuasiveness, he was to churchmen what Alexander Hamilton was to statesmen. He gave a constitution to the Church, and became a theological authority scarcely less than Augustine in the next generation, or Lainez at the Council ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume IV • John Lord
... were received by Miss Kelly, the trained nurse. Bristow wasted no time in what he considered to be the crucial search for more evidence. In speaking to her he exercised all his persuasiveness, all the suggestion of power and authority that he could force into his voice and expression. And yet, he gave her, as he had given Mrs. Allen, the impression that he deferred to her and prized ...
— The Winning Clue • James Hay, Jr.
... HORNE explained with his usual clarity and persuasiveness the new Unemployment Insurance Bill. The debate on it was interrupted to allow the discussion of a motion by Sir J. REMNANT advocating the increase of police pensions to meet the present cost of living. The police are, with good reason, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, March 3rd, 1920 • Various
... whom were even so uncharitable as to insinuate that Sis' Tamar wasn't "half so grieved as she let on." The more serious, however, united in commending her act as "mos' Christian-like an' sisterly conduc'." And when, after the gentle insistence of the long spring rains, added to the persuasiveness of Tamar's mourning, the grave of her solicitude sank to an easy level, bespeaking peace to its occupant, Tamar suddenly burst into full flower of flaming color, and the mourning period became a forgotten episode ...
— Moriah's Mourning and Other Half-Hour Sketches • Ruth McEnery Stuart
... would come again, and tell me what he said?' she murmured, with the eager persuasiveness ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald
... Warde. Then his voice grew hard and sharp. The persuasiveness, the carefully-framed sentences, gave place to his curtest manner. "This matter," said he, "is out of my hands. The Head Master will deal with it. I must ask you for ...
— The Hill - A Romance of Friendship • Horace Annesley Vachell
... 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 he expresses ...
— Speeches on Questions of Public Policy, Volume 1 • John Bright
... These reproduce the evidence for them in some intelligible fashion and the verdict will be innocence or guilt according to the greater intelligence of one or the other of the contending parties. Persuasiveness at its height, Hume tells us, leaves little room for intelligence and consideration. It addresses itself entirely to the imagination and the affections, captures the well-inclined auditors, and dominates their understanding. Fortunately this height is rarely reached. ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden
... astonished. "How foolish! Reason for a moment—any presentation of this matter calls for the highest ability; it involves sifting of evidence; symmetry of arrangement; cohesiveness of method, logic of argument, persuasiveness of advocacy, subtleties of acumen, charms of eloquence—all the elements of the greatest profession ...
— The Angel of Lonesome Hill • Frederick Landis
... 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! ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... office, and reciting or singing his poem—a sacred epic, more thrilling to the ears of India than the wrath of Achilles, or the voyages of Ulysses. We are told that Asvaghosha took a choir of musicians with him, and many were converted to Buddhism through the combined persuasiveness of poetry and preaching. The present life of Buddha, although it labors under the disadvantage of transfusion from Sanscrit into Chinese, and from Chinese into English, is by no means destitute of poetic color and aroma. When, for instance, we read of the grief-stricken ...
— Sacred Books of the East • Various
... 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 cruelly treated and all been calumniated as "fanatics, ...
— William Lloyd Garrison - The Abolitionist • Archibald H. Grimke
... have you decided? Are you to act as father's sons, as 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
... 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.
... poet. It is abrupt, violent, and obscure; and for this reason the austere Stoic makes less impression than his more engaging and easy-going predecessor. Horace knew how to press home his points, even while he played about the hearts of men. Persius has neither the persuasiveness of Horace nor the ...
— Post-Augustan Poetry - From Seneca to Juvenal • H.E. Butler
... condition, the method of sweet persuasion rather than that of the sectarian who has a pet specific. Nevertheless Mr Wells uses his sharpened weapon of satire with considerable effect when he contemplates and displays for us the world as he sees it to-day. I find no hint of sweetness or persuasiveness on that side. ...
— H. G. Wells • J. D. Beresford
... pardon for saying so, but they can see through a merely clever man, like Lord Salisbury. A Liberal would find Sir Stafford Northcote a more formidable antagonist. He might be more eloquent, but eloquence is not everything. A gentle persuasiveness, even with a spice of puzzledom in it, will go further in the end. The Conservative mutineers know not what they are doing when they try to demolish this type of Conservatism. Or perhaps they do ...
— The Contemporary Review, January 1883 - Vol 43, No. 1 • Various
... 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
... 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 ...
— The Age of Pope - (1700-1744) • John Dennis
... had run over the walls of that room which most likely would be mine to slumber in. Behind me, somewhere near the door, Therese, the peasant sister, said in a funnily compassionate tone and in an amazingly landlady-of-a-boarding-house spirit of false persuasiveness: ...
— The Arrow of Gold - a story between two notes • Joseph Conrad
... which my figure wants. He looks at me with the tenderest and gentlest eyes (of a light brown) that I ever saw in the countenance of a man. His smile is rare and sweet; his manner, perfectly quiet and retiring, has yet a latent persuasiveness in it which is (to women) irresistibly winning. He just halts a little in his walk, from the effect of an injury received in past years, when he was a soldier serving in India, and he carries a thick bamboo ...
— The Law and the Lady • Wilkie Collins
... 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 ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... educational ideals of the West. And it is precisely this influence, quietly acquired and 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 ...
— The University of Michigan • Wilfred Shaw
... scenes amid which her youth was spent, and to welcome once more those familiar faces yet left in the old home. While there she was several times drawn to the meeting at Norwich, and even spoke on different occasions with her wonted fire and persuasiveness. It seemed as if her powerful memory was revived, seeing that the stores of Scripture which she had made hers were now drawn upon with singular aptness and felicity. After paying one or two farewell visits to North Repps and Runcton she returned once more to Upton Lane. Once settled there, ...
— Elizabeth Fry • Mrs. E. R. Pitman
... When his case was fairly before them, the speaker dealt with his opponents—some in the press, 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 ...
— Endymion • Benjamin Disraeli
... patiently and his perseverance was eventually rewarded. One by one the chiefs came down from the hills and succumbed to the persuasiveness and personality of this remarkable man who could deal with wild and naked warriors as successfully as he could dictate to a group of hard-headed business men. After two months of negotiating the Matabeles ...
— An African Adventure • Isaac F. Marcosson
... his mind just then that in the years to come more than one man would yield to the sweet persuasiveness of those eyes. ...
— A Little Girl in Old Salem • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... heavy iron bars of the 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 ...
— A Set of Six • Joseph Conrad
... can present an array of material accomplishments over the past fifteen years that lends a false persuasiveness to many of their glittering promises to the ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... occasional glowing of undefined satisfaction in the observance of the universally acknowledged harmony existing between his pretensions, his tastes and habits, and his person. He contrived by I know not what persuasiveness and simplicity of manner and speech to banish from me the idea that he was engaged in playing a high stake; and though I knew it, and he more than once admitted it, there was an ease and mastery about him that afforded me some degree of positive comfort still. ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... credible, and respectable, and dignified: for although these qualities ought to be apparent throughout the whole speech, still they are peculiarly necessary in any narration. But since the belief which is given to a narration is engendered by persuasiveness, we have already, in the treatises which we have written on the general subject of oratory, explained what topics they are which have the greatest power to persuade the hearers. But the peroration has other points to attend to, and especially amplification; the effect of which ought ...
— The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, Volume 4 • Cicero
... the idea that the salvation of the State depended more on restoring on a modified basis the old empire than in beating off the Japanese assault. It was his belief that if some scholar of national repute could be found, who would openly champion these ideas and urge them with such persuasiveness and authority that they became accepted as a Categorical Imperative, the game would be as good as won, the Foreign Powers being too deeply committed abroad to pay much attention to the Far East. The one man who could have produced that result in the way Yuan Shih-kai desired ...
— The Fight For The Republic In China • B.L. Putnam Weale
... said, by his princely godfather. He was about the age which Dmitri would have reached, and, as a Russian servant who had seen the child said, had warts and other marks like those of the true Dmitri. He possessed also a persuasiveness of manner which soon ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 8 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... was yellow in childhood, black in manhood, and snowy white in age. His brow was 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 in war and tournaments, ...
— The History of England - From the Accession of Henry III. to the Death of Edward III. (1216-1377) • T.F. Tout
... 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 ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... been anything but powerful; now he was impotent. He was in a hard, unfamiliar world, in the grip of something which he feared and didn't understand, in the charge of men who were in no way amenable to his persuasiveness. It was like a proud and bullying manager suddenly forced to labour in a squad of navvies, and worse, for there was the gnawing physical fear of what ...
— Mr. Standfast • John Buchan
... 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 tondo in monochrome, painted ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... 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 ...
— Too Old for Dolls - A Novel • Anthony Mario Ludovici
... 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
... realise the under-texture in them of 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 ...
— Miscellaneous Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater
... 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 ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... once stated by himself, was to compel acquiescence in his will by threats of violence, and known readiness to carry his threats into effect. This, he said, would in most cases insure the desired result. He counted on men's reluctance to engage in personal difficulties with him. He believed in the persuasiveness of ruffianism. ...
— Personal Reminiscences of Early Days in California with Other Sketches; To Which Is Added the Story of His Attempted Assassination by a Former Associate on the Supreme Bench of the State • Stephen Field; George C. Gorham
... to come here," he said, smiling with deliberate confidential persuasiveness. She ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... the utter inability to criticize his own work that was so characteristic of Mr. Clemens. But the very gusto of his creative work has been shaping his style during the past two years to a point where he may now fairly claim to have mastered his material, and to have found the most effective human persuasiveness in its presentation. Our grandchildren will read these three stories, and thank God that there was a man named Cobb once born in ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... 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 ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... years), he was about to put himself into the hands of justice, that he might atone in a striking way for the crimes with which he was polluted. This man, endowed as he was with conspicuous abilities, had acquired a mystic eloquence in the cloister. He spoke with so much grace and persuasiveness that I was fascinated no less than the abbe. It was in vain that the latter attempted to combat a resolution which appeared to him insane; John Mauprat showed the most unflinching devotion to his religious ideas. He declared that, ...
— Mauprat • George Sand
... softened her tone to persuasiveness, saying, ''Twas written I should be the head of thy fortune, O Shibli Bagarag! and thou'lt be enviable among men by my aid, so look upon me, and (for I know thee famished) thou shah presently be supplied with viands and bright wines and ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... "there is one grand 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. How is it that we have never hit upon it before? for of all the careers meant by nature for women, ...
— Cornelius O'Dowd Upon Men And Women And Other Things In General - Originally Published In Blackwood's Magazine - 1864 • Charles Lever
... 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 ...
— The Chief Legatee • Anna Katharine Green
... 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. "Suppose you tell me..." ...
— The Secret Adversary • Agatha Christie
... in importance, as yet a third gains the ascendancy—the living conviction, that time is but the portal to eternity; the soul meanwhile tasting "the powers of the world to come;" and knowing the persuasiveness of that strongest call to mutual endearment, "If God so loved us, we ought also ...
— The Growth of Thought - As Affecting the Progress of Society • William Withington
... by the desk, and said eagerly, "Now, Aunty, I am ready," and fell to smiling and bowing with all the persuasiveness and elegance that were ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... then added soberly, yet with a conviction that carried persuasiveness: "Thet's all I've got ter say, an' albeit I'm ther victim right now, God in Heaven knows I pities all of ye from ther bottom of my heart—because I'm confident that amongst ye right now air some siv'ral thet, save fer bein' deluded by traitors ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck
... ever made a false step or uttered a tactless note. His words have always been those of a sane moderation and the influence that he has wielded has been that of truth. Apart from the vigor and calm persuasiveness of his utterances, his winning personality has made a deep impression upon all Americans who have been privileged to come in contact with him. The highest praise that can be accorded to him is that he has been a true representative of his own noble, generous and chivalrous ...
— Fighting France • Stephane Lauzanne
... 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, ...
— Abraham Lincoln: A History V1 • John G. Nicolay and John Hay
... of his reasoning, the depth and grasp of his hold on all the facts, human and divine, material and spiritual, that belonged to the theme he treated, gave him a surpassing power and splendor, and an equal persuasiveness as a preacher. But what is most rare, his sermons, though they gained much by delivery, lose little in reading, for those who never heard them. They are admirably adapted to the pulpit, none more so; but just as wonderfully suited to the library and to solitary perusal. I am not extravagant ...
— Autobiography and Letters of Orville Dewey, D.D. - Edited by his Daughter • Orville Dewey
... 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
... 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 ...
— Under Western Eyes • Joseph Conrad
... 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 when uttered by ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... said, gently. "Stranger things have happened. Perhaps if I could see them, and talk to them—if I could tell them—they might be made to understand. I haven't been a newspaper reporter all these years without acquiring a golden gift of persuasiveness. Perhaps—who knows?—we may meet again in ...
— Dawn O'Hara, The Girl Who Laughed • Edna Ferber
... some black as night, And rare ones white, or with a golden thread Running throughout the web: the farthest hag With glistening scissors cut her sisters' work. To these Hyperion, but they never ceased, Nor raised their eyes, till with soft, moderate tones, But by their powerful persuasiveness Commanding all to listen and obey, He spoke, and all hell heard, and these three looked And waited his request: I come, a god, At pure mortal queen's request, who sues For life renewed unto her dying lord, Admetus; ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. I (of II.), Narrative, Lyric, and Dramatic • Emma Lazarus
... face; add to these a sharp reddish nose, pale lips, a spare, badly grown mustache and beard of a dirty color, and slight baldness. His demeanor was suave and very submissive, his voice had the faltering persuasiveness which a natural and reasonable man dislikes, because it warns him that the speaker is lying in wait to take him by surprise. Barinskoi, beside, never stood upright when he was speaking to any one. He bent his back, his head hung forward, his eyes shifted their glance ...
— The Malady of the Century • Max Nordau
... the diverse races of the Empire. But more important than the Greek mythology was the Greek philosophy, which was indeed in many ways its antidote. If the mythology of Greece appeared to sanction an infinite number of gods and goddesses, her philosophers taught with equal persuasiveness that the divine reality is one, though its forms be many. A remarkable synthesis was thus gradually accomplished, though it will always be a question whether the stronger tendency was to philosophise mythology or ...
— Landmarks in the History of Early Christianity • Kirsopp Lake
... 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 ghosts ...
— Humorous Ghost Stories • Dorothy Scarborough
... and original. He did not hamper his exposition, like Hering, by a subsidiary hypothesis of vibrations which may or may not be true, which burdens the theory without giving it greater carrying power or persuasiveness, which is based on no objective facts, and which, as Semon has practically demonstrated, is needless for the detailed working out of the theory. Butler failed to impress the biologists of his day, even those ...
— Unconscious Memory • Samuel Butler
... he was 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 man is bad, whereas he is in truth a creature endowed with natural ...
— Rousseau - Volumes I. and II. • John Morley
... 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 ...
— The Conquest of Canada (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Warburton
... 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 ...
— East of Paris - Sketches in the Gatinais, Bourbonnais, and Champagne • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... began to elaborate the sustained phrases of "Schubert's Serenade." Theatrical as was the theme, the twilight and the muffled hum of the city, lapsing to quiet after the febrile activities of the day, combined to lend it a dignity, a persuasiveness. The children were still playing along the sidewalks, and their staccato gaiety was part of the quiet note to which all sounds ...
— The Pit • Frank Norris
... eyes close, gently the little body is relaxed. Oh, you who strive to relieve your overwrought nerves 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 ...
— Concerning Cats - My Own and Some Others • Helen M. Winslow
... 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 as the person who stepped ...
— The Magnificent Ambersons • Booth Tarkington
... Virgil, Xenophon, with simple bearing, looking in no way like a 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 ...
— Literary and Philosophical Essays • Various
... 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
... crystallise into clearest knowledge. She was a child still, but she was ready to be a woman. Alston Choate now was gazing at her with his charming smile, and Lydia hardened under it, certain the smile was meant for mere persuasiveness. ...
— The Prisoner • Alice Brown
... Pericles. Then came a far more interesting 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 ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume II • Burton J. Hendrick
... the while Leblanc was going to and fro with glittering glasses and an inexhaustible persuasiveness, urging the manifest reasonableness of his view upon ears that ceased presently to be inattentive. Never at any time did he betray a doubt that all this chaotic conflict would end. No nurse during a nursery uproar was ever so certain of the inevitable ultimate peace. From being treated ...
— The World Set Free • Herbert George Wells
... 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 ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds
... aristocracy. John Robinson, Speaker of the House and Treasurer of the colony, of good repute still in the spring of 1765, was doubtless the head and front of this aristocracy, the inner circle of which would also include Peyton Randolph, then King's Attorney, and Edmund Pendleton, well known for his cool persuasiveness in debate, the learned constitutional lawyer, Richard Bland, the sturdy and honest but ungraceful Robert Carter Nicholas, and George Wythe, noblest Roman of them all, steeped in classical lore, with the thin, sharp face of a ...
— The Eve of the Revolution - A Chronicle of the Breach with England, Volume 11 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Carl Becker
... and astonishing 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 arguments they addressed ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... 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 in ...
— Kate Carnegie and Those Ministers • Ian Maclaren
... would have been no reflection on me 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 ...
— The Idea of a University Defined and Illustrated: In Nine - Discourses Delivered to the Catholics of Dublin • John Henry Newman
... Bordeaux are supposed to have derived not a little of their keen commercial spirit from the English. If this be so, they may take credit for having in some respects surpassed their teachers. By the gift of persuasiveness and the abundance of words, by aplomb, combined with astuteness, they are fitted by nature to be the most successful traffickers on earth. But in return for a little work they expect a great deal of enjoyment, and more ...
— Two Summers in Guyenne • Edward Harrison Barker
... preparation, he came out of the wilderness of Judaea, and in the region about the Jordan with great power and persuasiveness, according to the accounts, he gave utterance to the message: Repent ye, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand. Forsake all earthly things; they will be of avail but a very short time now, turn ye from ...
— The Higher Powers of Mind and Spirit • Ralph Waldo Trine
... to Alice Barton, who was chaperoning Lily. Though she knew nothing of his character she had drawn back instinctively, but her strictness was gradually annealed in his persuasiveness, and when he rose to go out of the room with Lily, she was astonished that she had pleasure ...
— Mike Fletcher - A Novel • George (George Augustus) Moore
... of this idea; from his series of grand and memorable generalisations on the 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 ...
— Bacon - English Men Of Letters, Edited By John Morley • Richard William Church
... the expression '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 ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, October, 1880 • Various
... to take more complete possession of Jimmy's thoughts then, growing louder and more eager, echoing through his mind with the persuasiveness of muted chimes. ...
— The Mississippi Saucer • Frank Belknap Long
... from 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
... 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
... 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, and all who differed from him were disparaged and denounced so contemptuously, ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... drank in the scent of air and flowers with which the rooms were filled; for the first time his fastidious sense was pleasantly conscious of Catherine's grave beauty; and even the mystic ceremonies of family prayer had a certain charm for him, pagan as he was. How much dignity and persuasiveness it has still, he thought to himself, this commonplace country life of ours, ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... which Perrot was the successful herald, was held in the beginning of summer in the year 1671 (the good fishing doubtless assisting the persuasiveness of Perrot's eloquence in procuring the great savage audience). When the fleets of canoes arrived from the west and the south and east, Daumont de St. Lusson and his French companions, sent out the previous autumn from Quebec, having wintered in the Mantoulin Island, were ...
— The French in the Heart of America • John Finley
... 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 with these qualities—that is to say, if ...
— Essays of Schopenhauer • Arthur Schopenhauer
... of, and enthusiasm for, this knack of concentration, Arnold Bennett's little books on mental efficiency have done wonders for the art of auto-comradeship. Their popular persuasiveness has coaxed thousands on thousands of us to go in for a few minutes' worth of mental calisthenics every day. They have actually cajoled us into the painful feat of glancing over a page of a book and then putting it down and trying to ...
— The Joyful Heart • Robert Haven Schauffler
... "Go to the grandams and the children!" she would say, with a shrug of her shoulders, to a priest, whenever one in Algiers or Paris attempted to reclaim her; and a son of the Order of Jesus, famed for persuasiveness and eloquence, had been fairly beaten once when, in the ardor of an African missionary, he had sought to argue with the little Bohemian of the Tricolor, and had had his logic rent in twain, and his rhetoric scattered like dust, ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]
... said the clergyman, in a tone of curt authority very foreign to the mild persuasiveness ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. September, 1863, No. LXXI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... 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 ...
— The Enchanted Canyon • Honore Willsie Morrow
... days Charles 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 ...
— Charles Frohman: Manager and Man • Isaac Frederick Marcosson and Daniel Frohman
... 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 last greeting, the first kiss of love." ...
— Life of Wagner - Biographies of Musicians • Louis Nohl
... "evil." Indeed it is conceivable that a moment might arise in the history of the race 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 ...
— The Complex Vision • John Cowper Powys
... 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, by William ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron
... meaning with perspicuity, be possessed of the eighteen well-known merits.[1688] Ambiguity, ascertainment of the faults and merits of premises and conclusions, weighing the relative strength or weakness of those faults and merits, establishment of the conclusion, and the element of persuasiveness or otherwise that attaches to the conclusion thus arrived at,—these five characteristics appertaining to the sense—constitute the authoritativeness of what is said. Listen now to the characteristics of these requirements beginning with ambiguity, ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... Mapleson 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 ...
— Chapters of Opera • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... for the persuasiveness of an argument I will speak here of three—clearness of statement, appeal to the practical interests of the audience, and direct appeal to ...
— The Making of Arguments • J. H. Gardiner
... 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 ...
— Bones in London • Edgar Wallace
... exclaimed Castleman, seeking his hat. "You may be right or you may be wrong, but for persuasiveness I never saw your like. I declare, Yolanda, you have almost made me feel like ...
— Yolanda: Maid of Burgundy • Charles Major
... 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 last. ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 5 • Various
... 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 oblige ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... 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 and a ...
— A Williams Anthology - A Collection of the Verse and Prose of Williams College, 1798-1910 • Compiled by Edwin Partridge Lehman and Julian Park
... 993; fascination, blandishment, cajolery; seduction, seducement; honeyed words, voice of the tempter, song of the Sirens forbidden fruit, golden apple. persuasibility^, persuasibleness^; attractability^; impressibility, susceptibility; softness; persuasiveness, attractiveness; tantalization^. influence, prompting, dictate, instance; impulse, impulsion; incitement, incitation; press, instigation; provocation &c (excitation of feeling) 824; inspiration; persuasion, suasion; encouragement, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... the nostrum's infallibility for any and all ailments; to persuade into fulsome print solemnly asinine Senators and unwarily flattered Congressmen—that was the touchstone of his living. Some the Demon Rum betrayed into his hands. Others he won by sheer personal persuasiveness, for he was a master of the suave plea. Again, political favors or "inside information" made those his debtors from whom he exacted and extracted the honor of their names for Dr. Surtaine's upholding. Blackmail, even, was hinted at. "What does it matter?" thought the ...
— The Clarion • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... the most glowing language. Letters that must be viewed with a cautious and supicious eye: letters that were evidently intended at the time, by Pickwick, to mislead and delude any third parties into whose hands they might fall." The gravity and persuasiveness of all this is really impayable. "Let me read the first: 'Garraway's, twelve o'clock. Dear Mrs. B., Chops and tomato sauce. Yours, Pickwick.' Gentlemen, what does this mean? Chops and tomato sauce. Yours, Pickwick. Chops! Gracious Heavens!—and tomato sauce! Gentlemen, is the happiness of a ...
— Bardell v. Pickwick • Percy Fitzgerald
... 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
... the end of the eighteenth century these ideas were popular in some literary circles on the continent. See Bertholet, The Transmigration of Souls, pp. 111 ff. Recently Professor McTaggart has argued in favour of the doctrine with great lucidity and persuasiveness. Huxley too did not think it absurd. See his Romanes Lecture, Evolution and Ethics, Collected Essays, vol. IX. p. 61. As Deussen observes, Kant's argument which bases immortality on the realization of the moral law, attainable only by an infinite process of approximation, points ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, Vol I. (of 3) - An Historical Sketch • Charles Eliot
... has no word for home. But the conclusion that the man of Anglo-Saxon birth deduces from this lack in his vocabulary is false: no man cares more for the domicile that shelters him. Hermione made her request with sweet persuasiveness. I saw at once it would have been refused if I had made it, but to her they made excuses. The old horse, they said, was very old, the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XXVI., December, 1880. • Various
... 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 ...
— The Log of a Privateersman • Harry Collingwood
... 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
... to his 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 ...
— The Strong Arm • Robert Barr
... sleep 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 are ever a puzzle to me. At a great price you won your freedom from the Bishop ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine
... disturb a fact that 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 ...
— Lord of the World • Robert Hugh Benson
... those 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 owners and corporations still persisting in having their ...
— Scientific American, Vol.22, No. 1, January 1, 1870 • Various
... convinced me that it was for my own good and the peace of mind of my relatives that I should temporarily surrender my freedom. This I agreed to do. Perhaps the presence of two hundred pounds of brawn and muscle, representing the law, lent persuasiveness to my brother's words. In fact, I did assent the more readily because I admired the thorough, sane, fair, almost artistic manner in which my brother had brought me to bay. I am inclined to believe that, had I suspected that a recommitment ...
— A Mind That Found Itself - An Autobiography • Clifford Whittingham Beers
... 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 you. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, March 31, 1920 • Various
... was!" I persisted, 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 ...
— The Mill Mystery • Anna Katharine Green
... to Evelyn. "His granite mind is set on going camping in June, and I can't get him off it. If you've any little tricks of persuasiveness all your own now's your time to try 'em on him. He'll spoil the ...
— The Second Violin • Grace S. Richmond
... suggested new modes of torture to their tormentors. Being superior to physical suffering, it sometimes chanced that they were superior to any consolation which the missionaries could offer; and the law to do as you would be done by fell with less persuasiveness on the ears of those who, for their part, did not care how they were done by, who loved their enemies after a new fashion, and came very near freely forgiving ...
— Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience • Henry David Thoreau
... I believe, has never been recorded in history than the fate of William Lyon Mackenzie, a man possessing an acuteness of mind, powers of reasoning, and great persuasiveness, with indefatigable research and industry, such as rarely fall ...
— Canada and the Canadians, Vol. 2 • Richard Henry Bonnycastle
... to talk to Laramie come along up to the shack. But send them longhorns over there down to the creek," he added, as an afterthought and in the bluntly candid tone of appeal that distinguished his persuasiveness. ...
— Laramie Holds the Range • Frank H. Spearman
... O'Connell exceeded my 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 of his carriage ...
— Little Memoirs of the Nineteenth Century • George Paston
... military and commercial strategy, building their philosophy of life and their science of administration upon some isolated text, they will overturn the whole structure of civilization by arrogating to themselves the supernatural privileges and persuasiveness of the Voice of God!... The prospects are not inviting.... There are Rasputins in all the chancellories of Europe.... You have them in North and South America,—some educated, others like Marat and Danton, while some are simple Cagliostros ...
— Rescuing the Czar - Two authentic Diaries arranged and translated • James P. Smythe
... deference and persuasiveness, Strawn obeyed the suggestion, to return within five minutes, his grey ...
— Murder at Bridge • Anne Austin
... said Mr. Ayrton. "But what seemed to me most amusing was the persuasiveness of Earlscourt. He has only to speak half a dozen words to Courtland, and off he goes to Norway at a moment's notice with probably the most uncongenial boat's load that Courtland ever sailed with, and he must have done a good deal in that way in New Guinea waters. ...
— Phyllis of Philistia • Frank Frankfort Moore
... 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
... sublime ideas of the Supreme Being, aphorisms, and precepts of the purest morality and benevolence, sanctioned by a life of humility, innocence, and simplicity of manners, neglect of riches, absence of worldly ambition and honors, with an eloquence and persuasiveness which have not been surpassed. These could not be inventions of the grovelling authors who relate them. They are far beyond the powers of their feeble minds. They show that there was a character, the subject of their history, whose splendid conceptions were ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... when he found himself shut in, he begged me with friendly and very gracious words, to open the door for him and permit him to go out; it would prove of great advantage to me. Although I was strictly forbidden to open the chamber, yet the grand appearance and the winning persuasiveness of the king disconcerted me so that I cheerfully let him go. And when he went out he was so friendly and so gracious and yet so meek that he proved indeed that nothing did so grace high ...
— Hidden Symbolism of Alchemy and the Occult Arts • Herbert Silberer
... relent before such persuasiveness. 'She's got a delicious little face,' he admitted, thinking ...
— The Convert • Elizabeth Robins
... 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 ...
— The Ignatian Epistles Entirely Spurious • W. D. (William Dool) Killen
... confessedly divided in their wishes. He was glad of her silence; for, much as he had feared the strength of her feeling, it was impossible for him, shut up in the narrowness that hedges in all merely clever, unimpassioned men, not to over-estimate the persuasiveness of his own arguments. His conduct did not look ugly to himself, and his imagination did not suffice to show him exactly how it would look to Romola. He went on in ...
— Romola • George Eliot
... 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 ...
— Mornings in the College Chapel - Short Addresses to Young Men on Personal Religion • Francis Greenwood Peabody
... shivering 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, ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... known others personally; an Afghan whom I've always thought did us a favor by getting killed by a sniper. He could have caused a great deal of trouble. I'd guess at the Khalifa. Most of the people who have this incredible persuasiveness, however, seem to set up as successful swindlers. What a pity The Leader had no taste for simple crime, and had to go in for crimes of ...
— The Leader • William Fitzgerald Jenkins (AKA Murray Leinster)
... the unconscious tribute to a whole life and character. For to a remarkable clearness and vigour of intellect, he added a fairness of mind, a persuasiveness and courtesy of manner, with an inflexible uprightness of purpose, which won to him friend and stranger alike. I have never known any one who was not bettered by his converse, but I think none outside his own ...
— John Keble's Parishes • Charlotte M Yonge
... verdict of history is Judas Iscariot. Eighteen centuries had agreed to regard him as the meanest of mankind, but in our century he has been transmuted into a kind of hero. The theory is of German origin; but it was presented to the English public by De Quincey, who adorned it with all the persuasiveness ...
— The Trial and Death of Jesus Christ - A Devotional History of our Lord's Passion • James Stalker
... was a tender virtue and mother-like. If upright Rectitude and stern Justice were peculiarly masculine, Mercy had the gentleness and the persuasiveness of a feminine nature. We were warned against indulging in indiscriminate charity, without seasoning it with justice and rectitude. Masamune expressed it well in his oft-quoted aphorism—"Rectitude carried ...
— Bushido, the Soul of Japan • Inazo Nitobe |
