You have not converted a man because you have silenced him.

Morley draws a sharp line between persuasion and coercion. To “silence” an opponent—through censorship, intimidation, social pressure, or sheer rhetorical domination—may end the argument in public, but it does not change the opponent’s mind. The remark implies that genuine conversion requires reasons that can be freely weighed, not the removal of a voice. In a broader liberal tradition associated with Morley’s politics and journalism, the quote defends open debate as both a moral good and a practical necessity: suppressed dissent tends to persist underground, while convictions altered by argument are more stable and socially constructive.