A Quote by Muriel Spark

It is impossible to persuade a man who does not disagree, but smiles. — © Muriel Spark
It is impossible to persuade a man who does not disagree, but smiles.
Every time Mulder smiles, people say, 'God, it was great to see you smile. Mulder never smiles.' I say, 'Mulder smiles a whole lot. He smiles at least once a show.' People get these ideas in their heads and they're impossible to shake. But, to be honest with you, Mulder is every bit as vulnerable and quirky as Ally McBeal. I think Mulder has pretty good legs, too.
I love smiles. That is a fact. How to develop smiles? There are a variety of smiles. Some smiles are sarcastic. Some smiles are artificial-diplomatic smiles. These smiles do not produce satisfaction, but rather fear or suspicion. But a genuine smile gives us hope, freshness. If we want a genuine smile, then first we must produce the basis for a smile to come.
Allowances can always be made for your friends to disagree with you. Disagreement, vehement disagreement, is healthy. Debate is impossible without it. Evil does not question itself, only hope questions itself. Even the incorruptible are corruptible if they cannot accept the possibility of being mistaken. Infallibility is a sin in any man. All laws can be broken and are. Often. Like when a bumblebee flies or an ancient regime is toppled.
That it does not matter what a man believes is a statement heard on every side today. ... What he believes tells him what the world is for. How can men who disagree about what the world is for agree about any of the minutiae of daily conduct? The statement really means that it does not matter what a man believes so long as he does not take his beliefs seriously.
You can persuade a man to believe almost anything provided he is clever enough, but it is much more difficult to persuade someone less clever.
Your modest savant smiles as he says to his admirers: What have I done? Nothing. Man does not invent a force, he directs it.
I disagree with a lot of things, but hey, what a person does is between them and their maker. I can disagree with somebody, and I can still be friends with them.
When people disagree with you, what you ultimately have to do is persuade people to agree with you - period.
Do you know what it is to be a man violently in love? To live for a woman's smiles and laughter, to hunger for her touch until life itself seems impossible without it, to desire her as you desire to breathe?
My ability to persuade my wife to marry me was quite my most brilliant achievement ... Of course, it would have been impossible for any ordinary man to have got through what I had to go through in peace and war without the devoted aid of what we call, in England, one's better half.
We all want to believe in impossible things, I suppose, to persuade ourselves that miracles can happen.
A man who is truly humble is not troubled when he is wronged and he says nothing to justify himself against the injustice, but he accepts slander as truth; he does not attempt to persuade men that he is calumniated, but he begs forgiveness.
I like to see the smiles on people's faces when I show them I can do the impossible.
You can disagree with another person's opinions. You can disagree with their doctrines. You can't disagree with their experience.
Nothing that is possible in spirit is impossible in flesh and blood. Nothing that man can think is impossible. Nothing that man can imagine is impossible of realization.
We do not suffer by accident. It does not often happen that the interference of friends will persuade a young man of independent fortune to think no more of a girl whom he was violently in love with only a few days before.
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