In our system leadership is by consent not command. To lead a President must persuade. Personal contacts and experiences help shape his thinking. They can be critical to his persuasiveness and thus to his leadership.

The standard rumor at the time was that Rumsfeld as chief of staff had persuaded President Ford to appoint George H.W. Bush as director of Central Intelligence assuming that that got rid of a potential competitor for the presidency.

I never did very well in math - I could never seem to persuade the teacher that I hadn't meant my answers literally.

We must seek to persuade member states and institutions that better regulation in Europe does not mean cutting health and safety in the workplace nor does it mean dismantling social standards.

Government is force pure and simple. There's no way to sugar-coat that. And because government is force it will attract the worst elements of society - people who want to use government to avoid having to earn their living and to avoid having to persuade others to accept their ideas voluntarily.

We are persuaded that good Christians will always be good citizens and that where righteousness prevails among individuals the Nation will be great and happy. Thus while just government protects all in their religious rights true religion affords to government it's surest support.

It takes time to persuade men to do even what is for their own good.

I cannot persuade myself that a beneficent and omnipotent God would have designedly created parasitic wasps with the express intention of their feeding within the living bodies of Caterpillars.

My most brilliant achievement was my ability to be able to persuade my wife to marry me.

No distance of place or lapse of time can lessen the friendship of those who are thoroughly persuaded of each other's worth.