TODAY IN SCIENCE HISTORY ®  •  TODAYINSCI ®
Celebrating 24 Years on the Web
Find science on or your birthday

Today in Science History - Quickie Quiz
Who said: “The Columbia is lost; there are no survivors.”
more quiz questions >>
Home > Category Index for Science Quotations > Category Index P > Category: Persuade

Persuade Quotes (11 quotes)

[Alchemists] finde out men so covetous of so much happiness, whom they easily perswade that they shall finde greater Riches in Hydargyrie [mercury], than Nature affords in Gold. Such, whom although they have twice or thrice already been deluded, yet they have still a new Device wherewith to deceive um again; there being no greater Madness…. So that the smells of Coles, Sulphur, Dung, Poyson, and Piss, are to them a greater pleasure than the taste of Honey; till their Farms, Goods, and Patrimonies being wasted, and converted into Ashes and Smoak, when they expect the rewards of their Labours, births of Gold, Youth, and Immortality, after all their Time and Expences; at length, old, ragged, famisht, with the continual use of Quicksilver [mercury] paralytick, onely rich in misery, … a laughing-stock to the people: … compell’d to live in the lowest degree of poverty, and … at length compell’d thereto by Penury, they fall to Ill Courses, as Counterfeiting of Money.
In The Vanity of the Arts and Sciences (1530), translation (1676), 313.
Science quotes on:  |  Alchemist (23)  |  Already (226)  |  Being (1276)  |  Birth (154)  |  Coal (64)  |  Continual (44)  |  Counterfeit (2)  |  Course (413)  |  Covetous (2)  |  Deceive (26)  |  Degree (277)  |  Delude (3)  |  Deluded (7)  |  Device (71)  |  Dung (10)  |  Expect (203)  |  Fall (243)  |  Farm (28)  |  Gold (101)  |  Good (906)  |  Greater (288)  |  Happiness (126)  |  Honey (15)  |  Labor (200)  |  Live (650)  |  Madness (33)  |  Mercury (54)  |  Misery (31)  |  Money (178)  |  Nature (2017)  |  New (1273)  |  Old (499)  |  Penury (3)  |  People (1031)  |  Piss (3)  |  Pleasure (191)  |  Poison (46)  |  Poverty (40)  |  Quicksilver (8)  |  Reward (72)  |  Smell (29)  |  Smoke (32)  |  Still (614)  |  Sulphur (19)  |  Taste (93)  |  Time (1911)  |  Use (771)  |  Youth (109)

Among those whom I could never pursuade to rank themselves with idlers, and who speak with indignation of my morning sleeps and nocturnal rambles, one passes the day in catching spiders, that he may count their eyes with a microscope; another exhibits the dust of a marigold separated from the flower with a dexterity worthy of Leuwenhoweck himself. Some turn the wheel of electricity; some suspend rings to a lodestone, and find that what they did yesterday, they can do again to-day.—Some register the changes of the wind, and die fully convinced that the wind is changeable.—There are men yet more profound, who have heard that two colorless liquors may produce a color by union, and that two cold bodies will grow hot of they are mingled: they mingle them, and produce the effect expected, say it is strange, and mingle them again.
In Tryon Edwards, A Dictionary of Thoughts (1908), 243.
Science quotes on:  |  Change (639)  |  Chemistry (376)  |  Cold (115)  |  Color (155)  |  Count (107)  |  Dexterity (8)  |  Do (1905)  |  Dust (68)  |  Effect (414)  |  Electricity (168)  |  Energy (373)  |  Enquiry (89)  |  Entomologist (7)  |  Expect (203)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Eye (440)  |  Find (1014)  |  Flower (112)  |  Grow (247)  |  Heat (180)  |  Himself (461)  |  Hot (63)  |  Idleness (15)  |  Indignation (5)  |  Antonie van Leeuwenhoek (17)  |  Liquid (50)  |  Lodestone (7)  |  Magnetism (43)  |  Meteorology (36)  |  Microscope (85)  |  Mingle (9)  |  More (2558)  |  Morning (98)  |  Never (1089)  |  Observation (593)  |  Physics (564)  |  Pollen (6)  |  Profound (105)  |  Ramble (3)  |  Rank (69)  |  Reaction (106)  |  Register (22)  |  Repeat (44)  |  Research (753)  |  Say (989)  |  Sleep (81)  |  Speak (240)  |  Spider (14)  |  Strange (160)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Turn (454)  |  Two (936)  |  Union (52)  |  Wheel (51)  |  Will (2350)  |  Wind (141)  |  Yesterday (37)

I despair of persuading people to drop the familiar and comforting tactic of dichotomy. Perhaps, instead, we might expand the framework of debates by seeking other dichotomies more appropriate than, or simply different from, the conventional divisions. All dichotomies are simplifications, but the rendition of a conflict along differing axes of several orthogonal dichotomies might provide an amplitude of proper intellectual space without forcing us to forgo our most comforting tool of thought.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Amplitude (4)  |  Appropriate (61)  |  Axe (16)  |  Comfort (64)  |  Conflict (77)  |  Conventional (31)  |  Debate (40)  |  Despair (40)  |  Dichotomy (4)  |  Differ (88)  |  Different (595)  |  Division (67)  |  Drop (77)  |  Expand (56)  |  Familiar (47)  |  Force (497)  |  Forgo (4)  |  Framework (33)  |  Instead (23)  |  Intellectual (258)  |  More (2558)  |  Most (1728)  |  Other (2233)  |  People (1031)  |  Proper (150)  |  Provide (79)  |  Seek (218)  |  Several (33)  |  Simplification (20)  |  Simply (53)  |  Space (523)  |  Tactic (9)  |  Thought (995)  |  Tool (129)

If a man, holding a belief which he was taught in childhood or persuaded of afterwards, keeps down and pushes away any doubts which arise about it in his mind, purposely avoids the reading of books and the company of men that call in question or discuss it, and regards as impious those questions which cannot easily be asked without disturbing it—the life of that man is one long sin against mankind.
In 'The Ethics of Belief', Contemporary Review (Jan 1877), collected in Leslie Stephen and Frederick Pollock (eds.), Lectures and Essays: By the Late William Kingdon Clifford, F.R.S. (1886), 346.
Science quotes on:  |  Against (332)  |  Arise (162)  |  Ask (420)  |  Avoid (123)  |  Belief (615)  |  Book (413)  |  Call (781)  |  Childhood (42)  |  Company (63)  |  Discuss (26)  |  Disturb (31)  |  Doubt (314)  |  Down (455)  |  Life (1870)  |  Long (778)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mankind (356)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Question (649)  |  Reading (136)  |  Regard (312)  |  Sin (45)

If you want to achieve conservation, the first thing you have to do is persuade people that the natural world is precious, beautiful, worth saving and complex. If people don’t understand that and don’t believe that in their hearts, conservation doesn't stand a chance. That’s the first step, and that is what I do.
From interview with Michael Bond, 'It’s a Wonderful Life', New Scientist (14 Dec 2002), 176, No. 2373, 48.
Science quotes on:  |  Beautiful (271)  |  Belief (615)  |  Chance (244)  |  Complex (202)  |  Conservation (187)  |  Do (1905)  |  First (1302)  |  Heart (243)  |  Natural (810)  |  Natural World (33)  |  People (1031)  |  Precious (43)  |  Saving (20)  |  Stand (284)  |  Step (234)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Understand (648)  |  Want (504)  |  World (1850)  |  Worth (172)

In a class I was taking there was one boy who was much older than the rest. He clearly had no motive to work. I told him that, if he could produce for me, accurately to scale, drawings of the pieces of wood required to make a desk like the one he was sitting at, I would try to persuade the Headmaster to let him do woodwork during the mathematics hours—in the course of which, no doubt, he would learn something about measurement and numbers. Next day, he turned up with this task completed to perfection. This I have often found with pupils; it is not so much that they cannot do the work, as that they see no purpose in it.
In Mathematician's Delight (1943), 52.
Science quotes on:  |  Accurate (88)  |  Boy (100)  |  Class (168)  |  Complete (209)  |  Completed (30)  |  Course (413)  |  Desk (13)  |  Do (1905)  |  Doubt (314)  |  Draw (140)  |  Drawing (56)  |  Hour (192)  |  Learn (672)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Measurement (178)  |  Motive (62)  |  Next (238)  |  Number (710)  |  Perfection (131)  |  Pupil (62)  |  Purpose (336)  |  Required (108)  |  Rest (287)  |  Scale (122)  |  See (1094)  |  Sitting (44)  |  Something (718)  |  Task (152)  |  Try (296)  |  Turn (454)  |  Wood (97)  |  Woodwork (2)  |  Work (1402)

It may be observed of mathematicians that they only meddle with such things as are certain, passing by those that are doubtful and unknown. They profess not to know all things, neither do they affect to speak of all things. What they know to be true, and can make good by invincible arguments, that they publish and insert among their theorems. Of other things they are silent and pass no judgment at all, chusing [choosing] rather to acknowledge their ignorance, than affirm anything rashly. They affirm nothing among their arguments or assertions which is not most manifestly known and examined with utmost rigour, rejecting all probable conjectures and little witticisms. They submit nothing to authority, indulge no affection, detest subterfuges of words, and declare their sentiments, as in a Court of Judicature [Justice], without passion, without apology; knowing that their reasons, as Seneca testifies of them, are not brought to persuade, but to compel.
Mathematical Lectures (1734), 64.
Science quotes on:  |  Acknowledge (33)  |  Affection (44)  |  Affirm (3)  |  Apology (8)  |  Argument (145)  |  Authority (99)  |  Certain (557)  |  Choose (116)  |  Compel (31)  |  Confirm (58)  |  Conjecture (51)  |  Court (35)  |  Declare (48)  |  Detest (5)  |  Do (1905)  |  Doubt (314)  |  Doubtful (30)  |  Good (906)  |  Ignorance (254)  |  Indulge (15)  |  Invincible (6)  |  Judgment (140)  |  Justice (40)  |  Know (1538)  |  Knowing (137)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Known (453)  |  Little (717)  |  Manifestly (11)  |  Mathematician (407)  |  Meddle (3)  |  Most (1728)  |  Nature Of Mathematics (80)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Observed (149)  |  Other (2233)  |  Pass (241)  |  Passing (76)  |  Passion (121)  |  Probable (24)  |  Profess (21)  |  Publish (42)  |  Rashly (2)  |  Reason (766)  |  Reject (67)  |  Rigour (21)  |  Lucius Annaeus Seneca (21)  |  Sentiment (16)  |  Silent (31)  |  Speak (240)  |  Submit (21)  |  Testify (7)  |  Theorem (116)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Unknown (195)  |  Witticism (2)  |  Word (650)

The priest persuades a humble people to endure their hard lot, a politician urges them to rebel against it, and a scientist thinks of a method that does away with the hard lot altogether.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Against (332)  |  Altogether (9)  |  Endure (21)  |  Hard (246)  |  Humble (54)  |  Lot (151)  |  Method (531)  |  People (1031)  |  Politician (40)  |  Priest (29)  |  Rebel (7)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Think (1122)  |  Urge (17)

The universe is asymmetric and I am persuaded that life, as it is known to us, is a direct result of the asymmetry of the universe or of its indirect consequences. The universe is asymmetric.
Acknowledging the role of molecules that have stereoisomers, some the mirror image of the others, and microorganisms whose chemistry prefers only one of those forms.
Comptes Rendus de l'Académie des Science (1 Jun 1874). Reprinted in Oeuvres, Vol. 1, 361. In J.B.S. Haldane, Nature, 185, 87. As cited in Alan L. Mackay,The Harvest of a Quiet Eye (1977), 117. Pasteur's application of a microorganism with a chemical behaviour preferring a specific stereoisomer is in Sven Klussmann, The Aptamer Handbook (2006), 420.
Science quotes on:  |  Asymmetry (6)  |  Chemistry (376)  |  Consequence (220)  |  Direct (228)  |  Form (976)  |  Image (97)  |  Indirect (18)  |  Known (453)  |  Life (1870)  |  Microorganism (29)  |  Mirror (43)  |  Molecule (185)  |  Other (2233)  |  Result (700)  |  Role (86)  |  Universe (900)

Two years ago 1 tried to appeal to Rockefeller’s conscience about the absurd method of allocating grants, unfortunately without success. Bohr has now gone to see him, in an attempt to persuade him to take some action on behalf of the exiled German scientists.
Science quotes on:  |  Absurd (60)  |  Action (342)  |  Appeal (46)  |  Attempt (266)  |  Behalf (4)  |  Niels Bohr (55)  |  Conscience (52)  |  Exile (6)  |  Funding (20)  |  German (37)  |  Grant (76)  |  Method (531)  |  John D. Rockefeller (2)  |  Scientist (881)  |  See (1094)  |  Success (327)  |  Two (936)  |  Unfortunately (40)  |  Year (963)

You can certainly destroy enough of humanity so that only the greatest act of faith can persuade you that what’s left will be human.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Act (278)  |  Act Of Faith (4)  |  Certainly (185)  |  Destroy (189)  |  Enough (341)  |  Faith (209)  |  Great (1610)  |  Greatest (330)  |  Human (1512)  |  Humanity (186)  |  Leave (138)  |  Will (2350)


Carl Sagan Thumbnail In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion. (1987) -- Carl Sagan
Quotations by:Albert EinsteinIsaac NewtonLord KelvinCharles DarwinSrinivasa RamanujanCarl SaganFlorence NightingaleThomas EdisonAristotleMarie CurieBenjamin FranklinWinston ChurchillGalileo GalileiSigmund FreudRobert BunsenLouis PasteurTheodore RooseveltAbraham LincolnRonald ReaganLeonardo DaVinciMichio KakuKarl PopperJohann GoetheRobert OppenheimerCharles Kettering  ... (more people)

Quotations about:Atomic  BombBiologyChemistryDeforestationEngineeringAnatomyAstronomyBacteriaBiochemistryBotanyConservationDinosaurEnvironmentFractalGeneticsGeologyHistory of ScienceInventionJupiterKnowledgeLoveMathematicsMeasurementMedicineNatural ResourceOrganic ChemistryPhysicsPhysicianQuantum TheoryResearchScience and ArtTeacherTechnologyUniverseVolcanoVirusWind PowerWomen ScientistsX-RaysYouthZoology  ... (more topics)
Sitewide search within all Today In Science History pages:
Visit our Science and Scientist Quotations index for more Science Quotes from archaeologists, biologists, chemists, geologists, inventors and inventions, mathematicians, physicists, pioneers in medicine, science events and technology.

Names index: | A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z |

Categories index: | 1 | 2 | A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z |
Thank you for sharing.
- 100 -
Sophie Germain
Gertrude Elion
Ernest Rutherford
James Chadwick
Marcel Proust
William Harvey
Johann Goethe
John Keynes
Carl Gauss
Paul Feyerabend
- 90 -
Antoine Lavoisier
Lise Meitner
Charles Babbage
Ibn Khaldun
Euclid
Ralph Emerson
Robert Bunsen
Frederick Banting
Andre Ampere
Winston Churchill
- 80 -
John Locke
Bronislaw Malinowski
Bible
Thomas Huxley
Alessandro Volta
Erwin Schrodinger
Wilhelm Roentgen
Louis Pasteur
Bertrand Russell
Jean Lamarck
- 70 -
Samuel Morse
John Wheeler
Nicolaus Copernicus
Robert Fulton
Pierre Laplace
Humphry Davy
Thomas Edison
Lord Kelvin
Theodore Roosevelt
Carolus Linnaeus
- 60 -
Francis Galton
Linus Pauling
Immanuel Kant
Martin Fischer
Robert Boyle
Karl Popper
Paul Dirac
Avicenna
James Watson
William Shakespeare
- 50 -
Stephen Hawking
Niels Bohr
Nikola Tesla
Rachel Carson
Max Planck
Henry Adams
Richard Dawkins
Werner Heisenberg
Alfred Wegener
John Dalton
- 40 -
Pierre Fermat
Edward Wilson
Johannes Kepler
Gustave Eiffel
Giordano Bruno
JJ Thomson
Thomas Kuhn
Leonardo DaVinci
Archimedes
David Hume
- 30 -
Andreas Vesalius
Rudolf Virchow
Richard Feynman
James Hutton
Alexander Fleming
Emile Durkheim
Benjamin Franklin
Robert Oppenheimer
Robert Hooke
Charles Kettering
- 20 -
Carl Sagan
James Maxwell
Marie Curie
Rene Descartes
Francis Crick
Hippocrates
Michael Faraday
Srinivasa Ramanujan
Francis Bacon
Galileo Galilei
- 10 -
Aristotle
John Watson
Rosalind Franklin
Michio Kaku
Isaac Asimov
Charles Darwin
Sigmund Freud
Albert Einstein
Florence Nightingale
Isaac Newton


by Ian Ellis
who invites your feedback
Thank you for sharing.
Today in Science History
Sign up for Newsletter
with quiz, quotes and more.