The most important persuasion tool you have in your entire arsenal is integrity.

Something traumatic happened to me when I was younger. I was with this old black woman, and she was very wise, very Alice Walker, The Color Purple...she looked at me and she says, "Baby...you know I used to be able to fly but I can't fly no more, baby. But baby, you...? You too fat to fly.

Intellectuals … advertise their superiority to political practice but are absolutely in its thrall. … It is no accident that Marxist theory and practice use the intellectuals as tools and keep them in brutal subservience.

Tell all the Truth but tell it slant —
Success in Circuit lies
Too bright for our infirm Delight
The Truth's superb surpriseAs Lightning to the Children eased
With explanation kind
The Truth must dazzle gradually
Or every man be blind —

Annette O'Toole - Lisa Bridges (seasons 1 & 2; guest seasons 3 & 4)

Innovation and commerce are as powerful tools for creating social progress as they are for driving technological advancement

?Our young people don’t wear the clothes or respect their forefathers, the girls have hair extensions and wear western clothes. This does not make me feel comfortable. They are vandalising our traditions. This is why I talk to them, try to motivate them with my travels and teach them too about Aids.”

[https://www.cartooningforpeace.org/en/dessinateurs/adene/ On Cartooning for Peace]

Minister: I’m going crazy and it’s Modi who is driving me crazy. He doesn’t get bribed nor allows anyone else to. He doesn’t sleep and doesn’t let others too.

I said, you wanna be startin' somethin',
You got to be startin' somethin',
I said, you wanna be startin' somethin',
You got to be startin' somethin',
It's too high to get over,
It's too low to get under,
You're stuck in the middle,
And the pain is thunder.

While al-Mughirah was striking the idol with the axe, Abū Sufyan was saying, “Alas for you, alas!” When al-Mughirah had demolished it, he took its treasure and ornamentations and sent [it] to Abū Sufyän. Its ornamentation was made up of various items, while its treasure consisted of gold and onyx.

They are reduced to wrongdoers of the mind
Merely because: They misused parables.
(...)
They are people who have missed life, stuck in a place where life is misunderstood
Everything they have gone through —— is a mere tragedy of birth

Even the Italian master in politicks, the subtle and renouned Machiavel acknowledges, that no republic ever yet stood on a stable foundation without satisfying the common people.

I was having dinner at a restaurant in Miami, and when the waiter offered me coffee, he asked me if I took it with or without sugar…I said, ‘Chico, you’re Cuban. How can you even ask that? With sugar!’

For far too long, education in India has been seen by the establishment as a ‘civilising’ mission designed to make adivasis and dalits into mental clones of the upper castes, even if they continue in their subordinate jobs. Merit is defined merely as efficiency in achieving this goal.

?You like irony now too?”
“Irony tastes good. Like sausage.”