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Persuade   /pərswˈeɪd/   Listen
Persuade

verb
(past & past part. persuaded; pres. part. persuading)
1.
Win approval or support for.  Synonyms: carry, sway.  "His speech did not sway the voters"
2.
Cause somebody to adopt a certain position, belief, or course of action; twist somebody's arm.



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"Persuade" Quotes from Famous Books



... sin that has ever been invented has ever been demolished? There are always new human beings springing into life to commit it, and to find pleasure in it. Reggie, some day I will write a gospel of strange sins, and I will persuade the S. P. C. K. Society to publish it in dull, misty scarlet, powdered ...
— The Green Carnation • Robert Smythe Hichens

... Mordred desired; for he did not doubt that if Sir Lancelot came he would have little trouble to persuade the king that he was innocent. When the messenger was gone, therefore, Sir Mordred sent a servant after him, who slew him in a wood and hid his body under ...
— King Arthur's Knights - The Tales Re-told for Boys & Girls • Henry Gilbert

... has made great efforts to persuade industrial managers and technical experts of the old regime to enter its service. Many very prominent men have done so. And the Soviet Government pays them as high as $45,000 a year for their services, although ...
— The Bullitt Mission to Russia • William C. Bullitt

... pains to persuade me to visit him on shore, embraced me repeatedly, and gave me to understand that we might cast anchor by his island, and that we should there have as many pigs as we pleased. At length he took my arm, and leading me to the railing, whence we could see the throngs ...
— A New Voyage Round the World in the Years 1823, 24, 25, and 26. Vol. 1 • Otto von Kotzebue

... for what I am going to write: but if you could prevail upon the rest of your family to join in the scheme which 'you,' and her 'virtuous sister,' Miss Arabella, and the Archdeacon, and I, once talked of, (which is to persuade the unhappy young lady to go, in some 'creditable' manner, to some one of the foreign colonies,) it might not save only her 'own credit' and 'reputation,' but the 'reputation' and 'credit' of all her 'family,' and a great deal of 'vexation' moreover. ...
— Clarissa, Or The History Of A Young Lady, Volume 8 • Samuel Richardson

... de quelle facon, sous quelle forme, dans quelles conditions, d'apres quelles lois, a quelle fin, agissent sur nos destinees les puissances superieures, les influences inintelligibles, les principes infinis, dont, en tant que poete, il est persuade que l'univers est plein. Et comme il est arrive a une heure ou loyalement il lui est a peu pres impossible d'admettre les anciennes, et ou celles qui les doivent remplacer ne sont pas encore determinees, n'ont pas encore de ...
— Figures of Several Centuries • Arthur Symons

... priests preach politics every Sunday. The people like it better than the old style of Instruction. They call their sermons Instructions, you know, and they instruct the people to some tune. No doubt they have a right to persuade their flocks to follow a certain course. The temptation to preach something which at once catches the people's attention and furthers their own views is very great, and perhaps excusable. But is their teaching ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)

... his answer; it was a passionate one, but it was not convincing. Pondering it and trying to persuade myself he alluded only to business cares and anxieties, I let the minute slip by and entered the house with doubts unsolved, but with no further effort to understand him. Remember, he was thirty-five and I but ...
— The Hermit Of ——— Street - 1898 • Anna Katharine Green (Mrs. Charles Rohlfs)

... Stael; he is now in London, and tells me the French and the Holy Alliance are tyrannising sadly at Geneva, and have ordered all the Italian patriots who had taken refuge there to decamp. There is one of these, Count Somebody or other, whose name I cannot persuade myself to get up to look for, whom M. de Stael wishes I would take by the hand in London, and what I am to do with him when I have him by the hand ...
— The Life and Letters of Maria Edgeworth, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth

... with my men, though it was no easy task to persuade them to take up their habitation among so many ghosts of the departed, not to speak of the noisome fevers and the wild beasts and snakes that haunted it, for I had information that the Spaniards would pass through the ...
— Montezuma's Daughter • H. Rider Haggard

... received from Spain proposals for a peace, which the exhausted state of his country would not permit him to neglect; and he had used his utmost endeavours to persuade his allies, the queen of England and the United Provinces, to enter into the negotiations for a general pacification. But Philip II. still refused to acknowledge the independence of his revolted subjects, the only basis on which the new republic would condescend to ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin

... not know Emily; she is strangely sensitive. But I will go and try to persuade her to return.... Although only distantly related, you are ...
— Vain Fortune • George Moore

... would be delighted that she should be asleep. But that's not the question. As I cannot surprise you into—there's no harm in saying it!—into loving me, I'm driven to use what they call the "arts of persuasion"! But in order to persuade, it's necessary to ...
— Fair Margaret - A Portrait • Francis Marion Crawford

... la Busby.—It is a very astonishing thing that I never could persuade school-boys that this is a most succulent, scholastic supper-dish, exceptionally brisk and pungent in its flavour. Perhaps their aversion to it is based on the fact that the tournedos is usually served very hot indeed towards ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 102, May 21, 1892 • Various

... "Can't I persuade you to try? You dear person, I don't know that I will even attempt to. It might have some effect on you, and I don't want anything to have any effect on you. I prefer you exactly as you are. Now I want to make myself quite comfortable, in order that I may enjoy myself as ...
— Daisy's Aunt • E. F. (Edward Frederic) Benson

... who read too exclusively those books written with rigid determination down to their level, neglecting certain old classics for which we fondly believe there are no substitutes. You cannot always persuade the children of this generation to attack "Robinson Crusoe," and if they do they are too sophisticated to thrill properly when they come to Friday's footsteps in the sand. Think of it, my contemporaries: think of substituting for that intense ...
— Children's Rights and Others • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin

... spoke, and tried to persuade the guest to change his mind, but he sorrowfully shook his head. At length, seeing that his resolution was firmly fixed, she took from a cabinet a little box which contained her picture, and gave it to ...
— The Crimson Fairy Book • Various

... in fact, I could have shipped him off before this happened, and tried to persuade him ...
— Two Sides of the Face - Midwinter Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... politely received—perhaps it was the season which made Mrs. Mack and her son-in-law on more than ordinarily good terms. When, turning to the Campaigner, Clive said he wished that she could persuade me to stay to dinner, she acquiesced graciously and at once in that proposal, and vowed that her daughter would be delighted if I could condescend to eat their humble fare. "It is not such a dinner as you have seen at her house, with six side-dishes, two flanks, that splendid ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray

... protest against it. He explained the wrecked condition of the rebel army to the staff officer, who brought the order, and giving his opinion that retreat was wholly unnecessary, he urged the officer to return to Schofield and persuade him to countermand the order. He also sent his brother, Captain Cox, of his own staff, to remonstrate with Schofield, and to say that General Cox would be responsible with his head for holding the position. When Captain ...
— The Battle of Franklin, Tennessee • John K. Shellenberger

... key, the reader who should search for it would not only waste his time but miss even the poor satisfaction of having guessed an idle riddle. He whom I call Parson West is now dead. He was an entirely conscientious man; which means that he would rather do wrong himself than persuade or advise another man—above all, a young man—to do it. I am sure therefore that in burying the body of John Emmet as he did, and enlisting my help, he did what he thought right, though the action was undoubtedly an illegal one. Still, the question is one for casuists; ...
— Old Fires and Profitable Ghosts • A. T. Quiller-Couch

... demanded by her or submitted to, and the result was satisfactory to the virtue of the accused damsel. Then naturally exploded the just indignation of insulted honour. Her brother, Lord Hastings, came up to town, saw Melbourne, who is said to have endeavoured to smother the affair, and to have tried to persuade Lord Hastings to do so; but he was not at all so inclined, and if he had been, it was too late, as all the world had begun to talk of it, and he demanded and obtained an audience of the Queen. I abstain from ...
— The Greville Memoirs (Second Part) - A Journal of the Reign of Queen Victoria from 1837 to 1852 - (Volume 1 of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville

... day, just as other employees go each day to their place of employment. They take no meals in her house, and her housekeeping expenses have diminished as much as her own comfort has increased. Her employees are better and more efficient than any she ever had under the old regime, and nothing could persuade her to return to her former methods ...
— Wanted, a Young Woman to Do Housework • C. Helene Barker

... fallen out worse, I admit," said the girl. "My own day was at the point of being dull to tears—and here I am chattering as if I hadn't a grief in the world! Let me persuade you to take ...
— A Chair on The Boulevard • Leonard Merrick

... food, as in the Polynesian islands and China, it is described as an extremely stupid animal.[530] Blumenbach remarks that "many dogs, such as the badger-dog, have a build so marked and so appropriate for particular purposes, that I should find it very difficult to persuade myself that this astonishing figure was an accidental consequence of degeneration."[531] But had Blumenbach reflected on the great principle of selection, he would not have used the term degeneration, ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, Volume II (of 2) • Charles Darwin

... have done Have fallen from me, are no longer mine; I have passed on beyond them, and have left them As milestones on the way. What lies before me, That is still mine, and while it is unfinished No one shall draw me from it, or persuade me, By promises of ease, or wealth, or honor, Till I behold the finished dome uprise Complete, as now I see ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

... received from his majesty's fleet, flourished in a manner not to be paralleled during such troubles. In this state of things, he said, the king in his wisdom thought it unnecessary to use many words to persuade them to bear up against all difficulties, effectually to stand by and defend his majesty, vigorously to support the king of Prussia and the rest of his majesty's allies, and to exert themselves to reduce their enemies to equitable terms of accommodation. He observed to the house ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett

... passe somethynge without your power Nowe to be remedyed, I am persuaded (Thoughe I persuade my selfe to littill purposse) To tell you of a practyse gainst ...
— A Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. III • Various

... persuade her to conciliate the Alcalde—to tell him some story or another. It does not surely matter if it be not the strict truth. Anything to get these men out of the house. My maid Maria is so flighty. Ah—these young people! What a trial—my ...
— In Kedar's Tents • Henry Seton Merriman

... with whom he carries on long conversations, and who inspires him with great thoughts and ideals. His wife and friends of course think he is crazy, and instead of allowing him to continue his intercourse with the familiar spirit, they persuade him he is ill, and make him take medicine. The result is wholesale tragedy. His life is ruined, his wife is separated from him; at last he dies. The idea seems to be that he should not have been disobedient unto the heavenly vision. Imagination ...
— Essays on Russian Novelists • William Lyon Phelps

... and seized there was nothing to prevent his going back and obtaining more, taking the chance of being more successful in evading the authorities the second time.[403] Accordingly prevention as well as cure was tried, and Captain Eastman, Mr. Sibley, and others sought, with some success, to persuade the Indians to refuse to accept liquor.[404] Two years later the Indian agent, R. G. Murphy, organized a temperance society among the Sioux, who, an observer stated, were careful in living up to the ...
— Old Fort Snelling - 1819-1858 • Marcus L. Hansen

... getting the departments of agriculture to subscribe to the northern nut growers journal. There are several county offices along the northern shore of Lake Ontario and in those counties nuts are produced. I think their representatives might be induced to persuade the department to subscribe to ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the 13th Annual Meeting - Rochester, N.Y. September, 7, 8 and 9, 1922 • Various

... was proclaimed that no one should kill a swan. The reason of an existing tabu seemed to be sufficiently explained when it was told that certain human beings had become swans. It is not impossible that the Druids made use of hypnotic suggestion to persuade others that they had assumed another form, as Red Indian shamans have been known to do, or even hallucinated others into the belief that their own form had ...
— The Religion of the Ancient Celts • J. A. MacCulloch

... few days at Dodge to discover that great discontent existed about the Medicine Lodge concessions, to see that the young men were chafing and turbulent, and that it would require much tact and good management on the part of the Indian Bureau to persuade the four tribes to go quietly to their reservations, under an agreement which, when entered into, many of them protested ...
— The Memoirs of General P. H. Sheridan, Complete • General Philip Henry Sheridan

... time. I shall adhere only to that part of the argument, how far a person has a right to make a [9]pleasure of that, which occasions pain and death to the animal-creation: and I shall shew in what manner the Quakers argue upon this subject, and how they persuade themselves, that they have no right to pursue such diversions, but particularly when they consider themselves as a ...
— A Portraiture of Quakerism, Volume I (of 3) • Thomas Clarkson

... De Vere should bring Fred in for a drink, and that they would persuade him to take a glass of lager beer, that should contain a large ...
— Under Fire - A Tale of New England Village Life • Frank A. Munsey

... instantly guessed the cause of her distress. He could speak but a few words of English; but he made signs for her to follow him. She did so, and after a few minutes' walk, they arrived at the door of an Indian wigwam. He invited her to enter, but not being able to persuade her to do so, he darted into the wigwam, and spoke a few words to his wife, who instantly appeared, and by the kindness of her manner induced the stranger to enter their humble abode. Venison was prepared ...
— Forest & Frontiers • G. A. Henty

... seemed to be holding a consultation. Dory imagined that Pearl was trying to persuade the captain to venture in among the rocks. If so, he was not successful; for the Missisquoi did not come ...
— All Adrift - or The Goldwing Club • Oliver Optic

... revolutions in civil society seldom produce anything better than a change of vices, yet surely no wise or good man can lament the subversion of Saxon polity for that which followed. Their laws were contemptible for imbecility, their habits odious for intemperance; and if we can for a moment persuade ourselves that their language has any charm, that proceeds less, perhaps, from anything harmonious and expressive in itself, or anything valuable in the information it conveys, than that it is rare and not of very easy attainment; that it forms ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby

... rock at the extremity of earth's remotest wilds, frowning over old ocean. The daughters of O-ce'a-nus, who constitute the chorus of the tragedy, come to comfort and calm him; and even the aged Oceanus himself, and afterward Mercury, do all they can to persuade him to submit to his oppressor, Jupiter. But all to no purpose; he sternly and triumphantly refuses. Meanwhile, the tempest rages, the lightnings flash upon the rock, the sands are torn up by whirlwinds, the seas are dashed against the sky, and ...
— Mosaics of Grecian History • Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson

... said Miss Hinckley to me to-day, "to persuade the people who have taken children to care for that our society can be trusted to take charge of what will surely be a burden to them. All my work now is to inspire confidence. We have received hundreds ...
— The Johnstown Horror • James Herbert Walker

... were to this issue brought, Both in one grave were to be laid: But flinty-hearted Hannah thought, By stubborn means for to persuade, Their friends and neighbours from the same, For which ...
— Ancient Poems, Ballads and Songs of England • Robert Bell

... her hand, and sitting down silently at her table began to watch her hands arranging the cards. From the dancing room, they still heard the laughter and merry voices trying to persuade Natasha ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy

... proportion, therefore, as the Lapps have become enlightened (like all other savage tribes), they have become less interesting. Retaining nearly all that is repulsive in their habits of life, they have lost the only peculiarities which could persuade one to endure the ...
— Northern Travel - Summer and Winter Pictures of Sweden, Denmark and Lapland • Bayard Taylor

... world admires, The more he grew in years, the more inflamed 40 With glory, wept that he had lived so long Ingloroious. But thou yet art not too late." To whom our Saviour calmly thus replied:— "Thou neither dost persuade me to seek wealth For empire's sake, nor empire to affect For glory's sake, by all thy argument. For what is glory but the blaze of fame, The people's praise, if always praise unmixed? And what the people but a ...
— Paradise Regained • John Milton

... her dress, increasing her usual difficulty in walking, compelled her to cling to him; and he could hardly persuade himself that he was not in a delightful dream, notwithstanding the torrent of musical abuse with which she overwhelmed him. The prince being therefore in no hurry, they came upon the lake at quite another part, where the bank ...
— The Light Princess and Other Fairy Stories • George MacDonald

... Hephzy was standing before them. Her face was set and determined and she looked highly indignant. Mr. Cripps' face was red and frowning and he gesticulated with a red hand, which clasped a Testament. His English was by no means as pure and undefiled as when he had endeavored to persuade us into ...
— Kent Knowles: Quahaug • Joseph C. Lincoln

... the Countess said, 'and our good mother will already be on the dais awaiting us. Would that our father were here with her. He will be present at the tournament, and I will do my utmost to persuade him to take a month of summer here at Penshurst, and dismiss ...
— Penshurst Castle - In the Days of Sir Philip Sidney • Emma Marshall

... here lay the little strip of God's acre that the now childless widow called her own. You come by the new electric line, one of those high-speed suburban roads which, all over the country, are doing so much to persuade city people back to the land. The cars are steam-road size. Two of them had been provided for the mourners, and there was no room to spare; for the Paynter family connection was large, and it seemed that little ...
— Queed • Henry Sydnor Harrison

... expect from her. I am financially involved with Rufus Carder to an extent that gives me constant anxiety. He has happened to see you and taken a violent fancy to you, and this fact has made him withdraw the pressure that has made my nights miserable. He has been trying to persuade me to let you come out here. He knows that his cousin Juliet is not attached to you, and, since seeing me in one of my attacks of pain, he is constantly reminding me how precarious is my life and that if he had a daughter like ...
— In Apple-Blossom Time - A Fairy-Tale to Date • Clara Louise Burnham

... were wont to come from a distance every Sunday, being entertained in their Vicar's kitchen between the services. These lingered about the house in distress, unable to persuade themselves to seek their distant homes while one so dear to them ...
— Fletcher of Madeley • Brigadier Margaret Allen

... trip into Virginia," he replied. Then observing the anxious look which came to Helen's face, he continued, "We tried to persuade her not to go, but she said this might be a real clue and she could not be satisfied to remain home. Father would have insisted, for mother is really worn out, but she was so anxious to go that she and father went ...
— Hester's Counterpart - A Story of Boarding School Life • Jean K. Baird

... affection, really wait for your death with eagerness in order to possess your fortune. You might as well have never had those children!—I know all this as you yourself know it— I also know that through the word-impressions and influence of so- called 'friends' who wish to persuade you of your age, the disintegrating process has begun,—but this can be arrested. You yourself can arrest it!—the dream of Faust is no fallacy!—only that the renewal of youth is not the work of magic evil, but of natural ...
— The Life Everlasting: A Reality of Romance • Marie Corelli

... POLITICAL PARTIES. There are usually at least two political parties in every country in which there is constitutional government. Each of the parties nominates candidates at every election, and tries in every legitimate way to persuade the people to ...
— Civil Government of Virginia • William F. Fox

... as the whole tribe of Adamses had been for three generations with the impenetrable stupidity of the British mind, and weary of the long struggle to teach it its own interests, the fourth generation could still not quite persuade itself that this new British prejudice was natural. The private secretary suspected that Americans in New York and Boston had something to do with it. The Copperhead was at home in Pall Mall. Naturally the Englishman was a coarse animal and liked ...
— The Education of Henry Adams • Henry Adams

... testimonial, Miss Wayne, I hope you don't expect me to run away without hearing you!" He turned to his hostess. "I will stay for a cup of coffee with pleasure, Mrs. Carstairs, and you will persuade Miss Wayne to ...
— Afterwards • Kathlyn Rhodes

... that's what does it in you. It's something, a kind of longing, that's always been in the world, and you know it's in others because you know it's in you, in your own heart, your own soul. When you begin to try for it, to give out that you're a prophet, an apostle, you don't have to argue, to persuade anybody, or convince anybody. They're only too glad to believe what you say from the first word; and if you tell them you're Christ, didn't He always say He would come back, and how do they know but what it's ...
— The Leatherwood God • William Dean Howells

... garden; while the seed that had her own way was roaming over the world. The truant one soon lost all her influence over the winds, who finally refused to carry about a good-for-nothing seed while they had so much needful work to perform. A cold northern blast was the last one she could persuade to bear her, and he dropped her on a rock, where she at last perished from exposure to the ...
— Allegories of Life • Mrs. J. S. Adams

... an humble dwelling near our studio. Don Ramon being a small tobacconist, and his wife, Dona Choncha, a laundress, we have sometimes patronised the little family, and in this manner I make the acquaintance of my future model. It is, however, far from easy to persuade the old lady that my admiration for her daughter is wholly confined to the picturesque; for when I broach the model-subject, Dona Choncha smiles incredulously, and says she will consult her friends. While she is doing ...
— The Pearl of the Antilles, or An Artist in Cuba • Walter Goodman

... persuade myself to believe that the consideration I have suggested requires the aid of any auxiliary. But, unfortunately, auxiliary arguments are at hand. Five millions of dollars, and probably more, on ...
— The World's Best Orations, Vol. 1 (of 10) • Various

... phenomenon is merely an inference, and in this inference approximate generalizations usually have a large share. If, therefore, we make our election to hold by the law, no quantity of evidence whatever ought to persuade us that there has occurred any thing in contradiction to it. If, indeed, the evidence produced is such that it is more likely that the set of observations and experiments on which the law rests should have been inaccurately performed or incorrectly interpreted, than ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill

... "He wants you to do his own work, and if you give in to him you are lost. He covers a canvas with paint and then asks you to put yourself into it. He might as well hold up a looking-glass to you. Any man can paint a beautiful picture if he could persuade Miss Brooke ...
— Esther • Henry Adams

... father, with great good-humor, "it is your birthday. Do you think you could persuade Lord Evelyn and Mr. Brand to come to ...
— Sunrise • William Black

... should be the same to her hereafter. All men should stand already condemned. Never again should one among them betray her mind to reveal itself, persuade her heart to response, her lips to sacrifice their sweetness and their pride, her soul to stir in its sleep, awake, and answer. And for what the minds and hearts of men might bring upon themselves, let men be responsible. Their inclinations, offers, protests, promises as far as they regarded herself ...
— Athalie • Robert W. Chambers

... rapid marches to overtake the mountain men—the "Hornets," from the "Switzerland of America," and cut off Col. Clarke's forces. Failing in this, he afterward moved more slowly and frequently halted to collect all the Tories he could persuade to join him. He crossed Broad river, ravaging the country through which he marched. About the last of September he encamped at Gilberttown, near the present town of Rutherfordton. la his march to this ...
— Sketches of Western North Carolina, Historical and Biographical • C. L. Hunter

... 'im three days and a silver watch-chain to persuade the cook, but he did at last; and one arternoon, when old Bill, who was getting on fust-class, was resting 'is leg in 'is bunk, the cook went below and turned in ...
— Short Cruises • W.W. Jacobs

... (not flagrantly to contradict) what I had asserted. They believed they saw in her returning temper, and staggered resolution, a love for me, which her indignation had before suppressed; and they joined to persuade her to tarry till the Captain came, and to hear his proposals; representing the dangers to which she would be exposed; the fatigues she might endure; a lady of her appearance, unguarded, unprotected. On the other hand they dwelt upon my ...
— Clarissa, Volume 5 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson

... matter is easy. I will open an account with him; then, after a little, I will affect doubts as to his solvency, and ask for a bill; and we shall then place our young friend in the hands of the Mutual Loan Society, and M. Verminet will easily persuade him to write his name across the bottom of a piece of stamped paper. He will bring it to me; I will accept it, and then we shall have ...
— Caught In The Net • Emile Gaboriau

... well-being of all members of your family. It seems cruel that you should go off to the glorious Republic when there are other places in Rome besides the Piazza Poli. Now that you are safely out of it, I must try to persuade you that it was the most unhealthy place in the whole city, not only because I really believe it to be so, but that malaria may not be mingled and cherished with every remembrance of this delicious, artistic, ...
— Hawthorne and His Circle • Julian Hawthorne

... considering what had just been said to him. "Anyway, it will be good for him, to go out into the world, your boy," he went on, trying to persuade Fausch. "It is always ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various

... that America is the best country in the world, Illinois is the best State in America, the street he lives on is the best street in his city, and his house the best house on the street. Now he is trying to persuade me that Chicago outgrew New York long ago and is now the first city in the world. Wait a minute ... there comes another one. That one is a New Yorker." He stopped the gentleman who was passing by and proceeded to introduce them ...
— The Shield • Various

... consider. Then "No," she answered; "nothing can be done." She paused, and he was about to speak when she added: "I was wrong to try to persuade him." ...
— Those Who Smiled - And Eleven Other Stories • Perceval Gibbon

... his wife and children excepted, no one speaks to the king but through a tube. In one and the same nation, the virgins discover those parts that modesty should persuade them to hide, and the married women carefully cover and conceal them. To which, this custom, in another place, has some relation, where chastity, but in marriage, is of no esteem, for unmarried women may prostitute themselves to as many as they please, and being ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne

... he called rushed forward with several others, and the first success raised the courage of the anchorites so rapidly and wonderfully that the bishop soon found it difficult to restrain their zeal, and to persuade them to be ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... neighbors came to call, and we tried our best to persuade the men to accompany us up the mountain and help to carry the loads from the point where the mules would have to stop; but they declined absolutely and positively. I think one of the men might have gone, but as ...
— Inca Land - Explorations in the Highlands of Peru • Hiram Bingham

... talk over matters with you," he was saying. "I feel that if you were to understand our position exactly, what we hope to do for the public, what we intend to do for the development of the city, I might persuade you that our cause is a just one—that we are entitled to all we ask and that, really, we are making a most liberal ...
— A Woman for Mayor - A Novel of To-day • Helen M. Winslow

... thanks. On their way home, they talked of nothing else but fur companies, lakes, rivers, prairies, and rocky mountains; buffaloes, wolves, bears, and beavers; and it was quite as much as Brian and Basil could do, to persuade their brother Austin from making up his mind at once to be a voyageur, a coureur des bois, or a trapper. The more they were against it, so much the more his heart seemed set upon the enterprise; and the wilder they made the buffaloes that would attack him, and the bears and wolves that would ...
— History, Manners, and Customs of the North American Indians • George Mogridge

... Vernon; but I confess myself not equally satisfied with the behaviour of his lady. She is perfectly well-bred, indeed, and has the air of a woman of fashion, but her manners are not such as can persuade me of her being prepossessed in my favour. I wanted her to be delighted at seeing me. I was as amiable as possible on the occasion, but all in vain. She does not like me. To be sure when we consider that I DID take ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen

... persuade Mr Mole to renounce his heresy, and though many attempts were made to exchange him for some Jesuits caught in England, he lay for thirty years in the prison of the Inquisition, and died there, at the ...
— English Travellers of the Renaissance • Clare Howard

... go without him. They walked on silently. He was thinking of the other man. The Sieur hoped to persuade some better-class emigrants ...
— A Little Girl in Old Quebec • Amanda Millie Douglas

... I'd better tell you what I'm thinking of. You know, of course, that I closed my hospital. I—a series of things happened, and I decided I was in the wrong business. That wouldn't be important, except for what it leads to. They are trying to persuade me to go back, and—I'm trying to persuade myself that I'm fit to go back. You see,"—his tone was determinedly cheerful, "my faith in myself has been pretty nearly gone. When one loses that, there ...
— K • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... thought the distribution which we have adopted would best bring before you the spirit and genius of his government; and we were convinced, that, if upon these four great heads of charge your Lordships should not find him guilty, nothing could be added to them which would persuade ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. XI. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... quite out of the track of the trade wind, which we ought to pick up, according to the charts and sailing directions, about 500 miles to the northward and westward of this place. I have been trying to persuade Tom to steam out five or six hundred miles, so that we may make a quick passage and economise our time as much as possible, but he is anxious to do the whole voyage under sail, and we are therefore taking very little coal on board, in order to be in ...
— A Voyage in the 'Sunbeam' • Annie Allnut Brassey

... little ladies are grown tall; and your son is become a learned young man. I love them all, and I love your naughty lady, whom I never shall persuade to love me. When the Lives are done, I shall send them to complete her collection, but must send them in paper, as for want of a pattern, I cannot bind them to fit ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 3 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill

... What kind of a man shall I be esteemed by the citizens, and what kind of a man shall I be esteemed by my newly-married wife? With what kind of a husband will she think that she is mated? Therefore either let me go to the hunt, or persuade me by reason that these things are better for me done ...
— The History Of Herodotus - Volume 1(of 2) • Herodotus

... the dark bowels of the earth to glitter in the light of day, there is no more significant scene than this that took place on the bright sands of San Salvador so long ago—Columbus attentively examining the ring in the nose of a happy savage, and trying to persuade him to show him the place that it was brought from; and the ...
— Christopher Columbus, Complete • Filson Young

... repented they had undertaken the commission. They set him on an ass, and were conducting him towards the city, when he was met on the road by Herod and his father Nicetes, who took him into their chariot, and endeavored to persuade him to a little compliance, saying: "What harm is there in saying Lord Caesar, or even in sacrificing, to escape death?" By the word Lord was meant nothing less than a kind of deity or godhead. The bishop at first was silent, ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler

... conception is at present held to be admissible, it is because long and varied experience has now shown that mineral matter never does assume the form and structure we find in fossils. If any one were to try to persuade you that an oyster-shell (which is also chiefly composed of carbonate of lime) had crystallized out of sea-water, I suppose you would laugh at the absurdity. Your laughter would be justified by the fact that all experience tends ...
— Discourses - Biological and Geological Essays • Thomas H. Huxley

... subject; that at least a time would have been limited for the importation of slaves. He never could agree to let them be imported without limitation, and then be represented in the National Legislature. Indeed, he could so little persuade himself of the rectitude of such a practice, that he was not sure he could assent to it under any circumstances. At all events, either slaves should not be represented, or exports should ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society

... ability to see things that were to most men invisible. In summer, when the weekly reports showed a mile or more or less of track laid, it was not so hard; but when days were spent in placing a single bent in a bridge, and weeks were consumed on a switch back in a pinched-out canon, it was hard to persuade sane men that business sense demanded that they pile on more fuel. But they did it; and, as the work went on, it became apparent to those interested in such undertakings that all the heroes of the White Pass were not ...
— The Last Spike - And Other Railroad Stories • Cy Warman

... to conceive is thus triumphantly vindicated. But it is enough that such assertions should be either contradictory to the known laws of nature, or exceed the limits of our experience, that their fallacy or irrelevancy to our consideration should be demonstrated. They persuade, indeed, only those who desire to be persuaded. This desire to be for ever as we are; the reluctance to a violent and unexperienced change, which is common to all the animated and inanimate combinations of the universe, is, indeed, the secret persuasion which ...
— A Defence of Poetry and Other Essays • Percy Bysshe Shelley

... rebel artillery with proper escort brought her to. A major, one of those who had been at my headquarters the day before, came at once aboard and after some search made a direct demand for my delivery. It was hard to persuade him that I was not there. This officer was Major Barrett, of St. Louis. I had been acquainted with his ...
— Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, Complete • Ulysses S. Grant

... him to exalt every valley, make low every hill and mountain, make the crooked straight, and the rough places plain. He finds no way prepared, he must make one; he finds no school-house ready, he must build one; he finds no people anxiously awaiting him, he must persuade them. In many cases the Negro teacher who is imbued with the spirit of sacrifice and service can truly say as did the Master, 'The foxes have holes and the birds of the air have nests, but the teacher who would redeem a poverty stricken and ignorant people, has not where ...
— Twenty-Five Years in the Black Belt • William James Edwards

... consciousness of their own rectitude, the poverty of the one, and the temptation of the other. Gin-drinking is a great vice in England, but wretchedness and dirt are a greater; and until you improve the homes of the poor, or persuade a half-famished wretch not to seek relief in the temporary oblivion of his own misery, with the pittance which, divided among his family, would furnish a morsel of bread for each, gin-shops will increase in number and splendour. If Temperance ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens

... to do was to despatch the guide into the valleys and gorges below, which from our camping place could not be seen, only surmised, that he might persuade some Tarahumares to act as carriers on an excursion I contemplated making through the region. In a couple of days a party was made up, consisting, besides myself, of Mr. Taylor, the guide, two Mexicans, and five Tarahumares ...
— Unknown Mexico, Volume 1 (of 2) • Carl Lumholtz

... easily be imagined.' Thus speaking, your excellency then showed me the command for the count's arrest, signed by the empress. Upon which I asked: 'Is there no means of saving the count?' 'There is one,' said you. 'Persuade the count to return immediately to St. Petersburg, leaving his ward behind him here, and I swear to you, in the name of the empress, that no harm ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach

... preachers have seen sin as God sees it, and begin to apply the divine standard to the human conscience; only when our eagerness and yearning well over into our eyes and broken tones, only when we know the terror of the Lord, and begin to persuade men as though we would pluck them out of the fire, by our strenuous expostulation and entreaties—shall we see the effects that followed the preaching of the Baptist when soldiers, publicans, Pharisees, and scribes, crowded around him, saying, "What ...
— John the Baptist • F. B. Meyer

... be difficult to persuade her to accept it. Enderwood, you know, offered to share his fortune with her and she refused." There was a questioning smile on Mrs. ...
— Rodney, the Ranger - With Daniel Morgan on Trail and Battlefield • John V. Lane

... "Persuade nothing! Yuh belong to me, and if anybody tries to throw his loop over your head, why—" Billy looked dangerous; ...
— The Long Shadow • B. M. Bower

... bedside the whole of the night, after I heard what had been determined against the Cardinal by the council of Ministers, to beg her to use all her interest with the King to persuade him to revoke the order of the warrant for the prelate's arrest. To this the Queen replied, 'Then the King, the Ministers, and the people, ...
— The Secret Memoirs of Louis XV./XVI, Complete • Madame du Hausset, an "Unknown English Girl" and the Princess Lamballe

... Love and Pleasure, Madam, so incongruous?—Methinks the very name of Love exhilerates; meaner delights were meant but to persuade us, Toys to provoke and heighten our desires, which Love confirms and Crowns ...
— The Fine Lady's Airs (1709) • Thomas Baker

... unaccompanied with exalted virtue, can never constitute greatness. In whatever position placed, or whatever inducements persuade, virtue and a conscientious conviction of right must regulate the mind and conduct of man to make him great. The tortuous course of politics, made so by unprincipled men, renders the truly upright man usually a poor politician. ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks

... you see, if a fellow hasn't his liberty, where's the good of money? I don't know how I got into it, but I can't get away now; and the lawyer fellows, and trustees, and all that sort of prudent people, get about one, and persuade, and exhort, and they bully you, by Jove! into what they call a marriage of convenience—I forget the French word—you know; and then, you see, your feelings may be very different, and all that; and where's the good of money, I say, if ...
— Wylder's Hand • J. Sheridan Le Fanu

... thousand guilders, and that New Netherland should be so long mortgaged to the English as security for the payment thereof. One of the most influential among the Eight Men had by letter(2) enforced by precedents previously endeavored to persuade the Director to this course, as they had also a few days before Resolved(3) that the provisions destined for Curacao should be unloaded from the vessels and the major portion of the men belonging to them detained, and to send the ships away thus empty. This ...
— Narrative of New Netherland • Various

... not long keep up the fiction of being in the hunt. No amount of self-deception could persuade them, when the end of the straggling line of fellows going up the ridge was a clear half-mile ahead, that they were in it. Still every minute they held on they felt more like staying, and when they reflected that it was ...
— Follow My leader - The Boys of Templeton • Talbot Baines Reed

... about his eyes. They don't dare remove the bandages, and whether or not he can see cannot be decided for a week or more. He has to stay in a dark room and be very quiet, and it is like trying to prove that impossible is possible to persuade him into lying in his bed in Roxanne's room, while we exert ourselves to the point of desperation to keep him happy ...
— Phyllis • Maria Thompson Daviess

... fortnight. We had a rather difficult time to persuade Mrs. Johnson to give up the important papers. She is very matter of fact and I suppose has heard many a wild story that came to nothing. You see she always keeps whatever comes with a child until the girl is eighteen, ...
— A Modern Cinderella • Amanda M. Douglas

... forbidding the doing of any business except by those willing to worship the image. Those refusing the worship are killed. He will have an assistant doing wonderful miracles by Satanic power to deceive and persuade the people. During this time there is a loosing out on the earth of countless hordes of unseen demons to ...
— Quiet Talks on the Crowned Christ of Revelation • S. D. Gordon

... these fine folks would like to do, you see, Mr. Hardy, is to persuade us poor devils to get up the row, while they DIRECT it. DIRECT it, that's their word; but we're not ...
— The Revolution in Tanner's Lane • Mark Rutherford

... advantage of her, true enough, that's certain; but she let them do it. Why, Georgiana—you couldn't make her give more than five cents' worth of lemon taffy for five cents if you talked to her all day; but any three-year-old baby on Pulaski Street can persuade ma that she's giving short weight. I do feel so bad about it, Mrs. Tarbell. And ma lost three buttons off her black silk yesterday, and won't have them sewed on. You might think she ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, November 1885 • Various

... only to you, but to all of you—were the words of Diotima; and I am persuaded of their truth. And being persuaded of them, I try to persuade others, that in the attainment of this end human nature will not easily find a helper better than love: And therefore, also, I say that every man ought to honour him as I myself honour him, and walk in his ways, and exhort others to do the same, ...
— Symposium • Plato

... to Fionn with news that they had seen Diarmid and Grania, and though Ossian and Diarmid's friends tried to persuade Fionn that the men had been mistaken, Fionn was not to be deceived. 'Well did I know the meaning of the three shouts of Feargus, and why you sent Bran, my own hound, away. But it shall profit him nothing, for Diarmid shall not leave Derry till he has paid ...
— The Book of Romance • Various

... that the universe came from some primitive substance; Leucippus and Democritus spoke to me of empty space with primitive corpuscles or atoms. Anaxagoras made believe that the atom had reason. Xenophanes wished to persuade me that God and the Universe were one. Empedocles, the wisest of the whole company, despaired at the imperfection of reason, and went in despair and flung himself head foremost ...
— Historical Miniatures • August Strindberg



Words linked to "Persuade" :   talk into, palaver, stimulate, carry, bring around, persuasible, rope in, cause, inveigle, act upon, make, coax, convince, assure, charm, persuasion, win over, cajole, prevail, influence, persuasive, work, have, sweet-talk, hustle, badger, chat up, tempt, seduce, get, bring round, convert, sell, drag, blarney, persuader, induce, score, dissuade, wheedle, brainwash



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