What convinces is conviction. You simply have to believe in the argument you are advancing; if you don’t, you’re as good as dead. The other person will sense that something isn’t there.

We may convince others by our arguements, but we can only persuade them by their own

Convincing someone to change their mind is really the process of convincing someone to change their tribe. If they abandon their beliefs, they run the risk of losing social ties. You can't expect someone to change their mind if you take away their community too. You have to give them somewhere to go.

Nobody wants their worldview torn apart if loneliness is the outcome.

Our first task therefore must be to persuade people.

To convince someone of the truth, it is not enough to state it, but rather one must find the path from error to truth.

We don’t have to be convincing—not in the sense of getting converts. Real converts might prove to be a nuisance. We just have to be convincing enough to look like a legitimate religion to our overlords. And that doesn’t have to be very convincing. All religions look equally silly from the outside.

The only person who can truly persuade you is yourself. You must turn the issues over in your mind at leisure, consider the many arguments, let them simmer, and after a long time turn your preferences into convictions.

Try to persuade a person by appealing to their consciousness, by saying outright what you want, by showing all your cards, and what hope do you have? You are just one more irritation to be tuned out.

Convincing other people to think again isn’t just about making a good argument — it’s about establishing that we have the right motives in doing so. When we concede that someone else has made a good point, we signal that we’re not preachers, prosecutors, or politicians trying to advance an agenda. We’re scientists trying to get to the truth. “Arguments are often far more combative and adversarial than they need to be,” Harish told me. “You should be willing to listen to what someone else is saying and give them a lot of credit for it. It makes you sound like a reasonable person who is taking everything into account.

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

You can’t convince people to adopt your beliefs (we’ll get to that later). Just listen to them. But always do your own thing.

The goal is understanding. To persuade someone, to motivate someone, to sell someone, you really need to understand that person.

A man must be himself convinced if he is to convince others. The prophet must be his own disciple, or he will make none. Enthusiasm is contagious: belief creates belief.

It is not enough to prove something, one has also to seduce or elevate people to it. That is why the man of knowledge should learn how to speak his wisdom: and often in such a way that it sounds like folly!