Top 100 De Bono Quotes
#1. De Bono argues that the West's tradition of settling disagreement by debate or argument is an example of overreliance on logic.
Steve Volk
#2. The concept of logical thinking is selection and this is brought about by the processes of acceptance and rejection. Rejection is the basis of logical thinking.
Edward De Bono
#3. It's always amazed me how little attention philosophers, psychologists, or anyone else actually has paid to humor.
Edward De Bono
#4. Creativity gives hope that there can be a worthwhile idea.
Edward De Bono
#5. The effective thinker treats arrogance as the major sin of thinking.
Edward De Bono
#6. It is historical continuity that maintains most assumptions,
not repeated assessment of their validity.
Edward De Bono
#7. Everyone has the right to doubt everything as often as he pleases and the duty to do it at least once. No way of looking at things is too sacred to be reconsidered. No way of doing things is beyond improvement.
Edward De Bono
#8. It is not the logical part of thinking that changes emotions but the perceptual part. If we see something differently, our emotions may alter with the altered perception. (p64)
Edward De Bono
#9. The purpose of art is to reflect new emerging values and to define the new heroes and heroines so that people can absorb them into their perceptions.
Edward De Bono
#10. We need both information and thinking. Information is no substitute for thinking and thinking is no substitute for information.
Edward De Bono
#11. A myth is a fixed way of looking at the world which cannot be destroyed because, looked at through the myth, all evidence supports the myth.
Edward De Bono
#12. It is better to have enough ideas for some of them to be wrong, than to be always right by having no ideas at all.
Edward De Bono
#13. Thinking is the ultimate human resource. Yet we can never be satisfied with our most important skill. No matter how good we become, we should always want to be better
Edward De Bono
#14. We still seek to solve conflicts with 'judgement' instead of designing the way forwards.
Edward De Bono
#15. Although feelings are not supposed to intrude on business discussions, they do anyway - we just disguise them as logic.
Edward De Bono
#16. As competition intensifies, the need for creative thinking increases. It is no longer enough to do the same thing better ... no longer enough to be efficient and solve problems.
Edward De Bono
#17. Simplicity before understanding is simplistic; simplicity after understanding is simple.
Edward De Bono
#18. Everywhere I go, I see very much the same thing. I see the same compassion for people who live half a world away. I see the same concern about events beyond these borders. And, increasingly, I see the same conviction that we can and we must join together to stop the scourge of AIDS and poverty.
Edward De Bono
#19. The purpose of science is not to analyze or describe but to make useful models of the world. A model is useful if it allows us to get use out of it.
Edward De Bono
#20. Opportunity ideas do not lie around waiting to be discovered. Such ideas need to be produced.
Edward De Bono
#21. Once a new idea springs into existence, it cannot be unthought. There is a sense of immortality in a new idea.
Edward De Bono
#22. Child mortality [since 2000 is] down by 2.65 million a year. That's a rate of 7,256 children's lives saved each day ... It drives me nuts that most people don't seem to know this news.
Edward De Bono
#23. You do not go out into the street in your underwear, although usually you are wearing underwear. The underwear is not visible but it is there all the time. It is the same with concepts. They are there. They underlie practical things we do- even when we are not conscious of them.
Edward De Bono
#24. When the story of these times gets written, we want it to say that we did all we could, and it was more than anyone could have imagined.
Edward De Bono
#25. To me, a faith in Jesus Christ that is not aligned with the poor ... it's nothing.
Edward De Bono
#26. The awful thing is that you can never be aware of what you are not aware of.
Edward De Bono
#27. In a sense, words are encyclopedias of ignorance because they freeze perceptions at one moment in history and then insist we continue to use these frozen perceptions when we should be doing better.
Edward De Bono
#28. A characteristic of intuitive solutions and new ideas is that of being obvious once they are discovered.
Edward De Bono
#29. In the art world, creativity involves aesthetic sensibility, emotional resonance and a gift for expression.
Edward De Bono
#30. Possibilities play a much bigger role in thinking than most people believe. Without possibilities you cannot make progress.
Edward De Bono
#31. Many highly intelligent people are poor thinkers. Many people of average intelligence are skilled thinkers. The power of the car is separate from the way the car is driven.
Edward De Bono
#32. Asking a question is the simplest way of focusing thinking ... asking the right question may be the most important part of thinking.
Edward De Bono
#35. I think there is a danger with young people of being dependent in the sense that they don't acquire any identity or self-image of themselves as thinkers.
Edward De Bono
#36. The image that concerns most people is the reflection they see in other people's minds.
Edward De Bono
#37. Creativity can be learned like basketball, which does not mean we will all be NBA stars.
Edward De Bono
#38. Humor is probably the most significant characteristics of the human mind. Far more significant than reason. In fact, reason is actually a very cheap commodity.
Edward De Bono
#39. My thinking was taught to tribes in South Africa like the Zulus and Xhosas. At the time there were about 210 fights breaking out among them every month, but after they listened to my lessons, this fell to just four.
Edward De Bono
#40. We may have a perfectly adequate way of doing something, but that does not mean there cannot be a better way. So we set out to find an alternative way. This is the basis of any improvement that is not fault correction or problem solving.
Edward De Bono
#41. If you do not design the future, someone or something else will design it for you.
Edward De Bono
#42. To develop thinking as a skill, it should be deliberate, focused, confident, and enjoyable.
Edward De Bono
#43. Our existing thinking habits are excellent, just as the rear wheels of a motor car are excellent, but not enough ...
Edward De Bono
#44. An expert is someone who has succeeded in making decisions and judgements simpler through knowing what to pay attention to and what to ignore.
Edward De Bono
#45. To be successful you have to be lucky, or a little mad, or very talented, or find yourself in a rapid growth field.
Edward De Bono
#46. I must say, I don't feel very qualified to be a pop star. I feel very awkward at times in the role.
Edward De Bono
#47. We need creativity in order to break free from the temporary structures that have been set up by a particular sequence of experience.
Edward De Bono
#48. Creativity and lateral thinking have exactly the same basis as humour.
Edward De Bono
#49. Most of the mistakes in thinking are inadequacies of perception rather than mistakes of logic.
Edward De Bono
#50. The weapons of the positive revolution are not bullets and bombs but simple human perceptions. Bullets and bombs may offer physical power but eventually will only work if they change perceptions and values. Why not go the direct route and work with perceptions and values?
Edward De Bono
#51. You cannot look in a new direction by looking harder in the same direction.
Edward De Bono
#52. The system will always be defended by those countless people who have enough intellect to defend but not quite enough to innovate.
Edward De Bono
#53. We do not make very full value of the opportunities provided by technology because we prefer critical to constructive thinking, argument to design.
Edward De Bono
#54. A painter may be looking at the world in a way which is very different from everyone else. If he's a craftsman, he can get other people to see the world through his eyes, and so he enlarges our vision, perception, and there's great value in that.
Edward De Bono
#55. Complexity means distracted effort. Simplicity means focused effort.
Edward De Bono
#56. We may need to solve problems not by removing the cause but by designing the way forward even if the cause remains in place.
Edward De Bono
#57. Creativity gives the possibility of some sort of achievement to everyone.
Edward De Bono
#58. Don't criticise a hypothesis, come up with a better one.
Edward De Bono
#59. Creativity is a great motivator because it makes people interested in what they are doing. Creativity gives hope that there can be a worthwhile idea. Creativity gives the possibility of some sort of achievement to everyone. Creativity makes life more fun and more interesting.
Edward De Bono
#60. Creativity involves breaking out of established patterns in order to look at things in a different way.
Edward De Bono
#61. A discussion should be a genuine attempt to explore a subject rather than a battle between competing egos.
Edward De Bono
#62. In 80% of Socrates' dialogues there was no constructive outcome. He saw his role as simply pointing out what was wrong.
Edward De Bono
#63. Lateral thinking ... is the process of using information to bring about creativity and insight restructuring. Lateral thinking can be learned, practised and used. It is possible to acquire skill in it just as it is possible to acquire skill in mathematics.
Edward De Bono
#64. If you understand the system you can design appropriate action.
Edward De Bono
#65. This new meta-system is very much in favor of the self, but a self that is based on a proper sense of dignity, not on an inflated ego. A person who dare not admit he is wrong inflates his ego but weakens his self.
Edward De Bono
#66. Unhappiness is best defined as the difference between our talents and our expectations.
Edward De Bono
#67. Man owes his success to his creativity. No one doubts the need for it. It is most useful in good times and essential in bad.
Edward De Bono
#69. The quality of our thinking will determine the quality of our future
Edward De Bono
#70. The solid wealth of insurance companies and the success of those who organsie gambling are some indication of the profits to be derived from the efficient use of chance.
Edward De Bono
#71. Companies that solely focus on competition will ultimately die. Those that focus on value creation will thrive.
Edward De Bono
#72. If you wait for opportunities to occur, you will be one of the crowd.
Edward De Bono
#73. You cannot dig a hole in a different place by digging the same hole deeper
Edward De Bono
#74. A good listener is very nearly as attractive as a good talker. You cannot have a beautiful mind if you do not know how to listen.
Edward De Bono
#75. An idea that is developed and put into action is more important than an idea that exists only as an idea.
Edward De Bono
#76. Most executives, many scientists, and almost all business school graduates believe that if you analyze data, this will give you new ideas. Unfortunately, this belief is totally wrong. The mind can only see what it is prepared to see.
Edward De Bono
#77. They enjoy thinking. They enjoy being creative. They enjoy having ideas. Most people do not enjoy thinking at all.
Edward De Bono
#78. Most people ... are put off science because maths is the gateway and they can't handle it. What we should be teaching is operational maths because, in general, the maths we need to carry out science is pretty straightforward.
Edward De Bono
#79. A problem is simply the difference between what one has and what one wants.
Edward De Bono
#80. To cultivate a pleasure in being wrong sounds perverse, yet losing an argument means escaping from an old idea and the acquisition of a new way of looking at things.
Edward De Bono
#81. You can analyse the past, but you need to design the future. That is the difference between suffering the future and enjoying it.
Edward De Bono
#82. Every valuable creative idea must always be logical in hindsight. If it were not, we would never be able to see its value.
Edward De Bono
#83. There is no doubt that creativity is the most important human resource of all. Without creativity, there would be no progress, and we would be forever repeating the same patterns.
Edward De Bono
#84. There may be more danger in prejudices which are apparently founded in logic than in those which are acknowledged as emotions. (p69)
Edward De Bono
#85. Removing the faults in a stage-coach may produce a perfect stage-coach, but it is unlikely to produce the first motor car.
Edward De Bono
#86. Unfortunately, our existing traditional thinking habits insist that you must attack something and show it to be bad before you can suggest a change. It is more difficult to acknowledge that something is excellent and then to ask for change because although it is excellent, it is not enough.
Edward De Bono
#87. What is urgent will always take precedence over what is important.
Edward De Bono
#88. Some people drift along like a cork on a river, feeling that they cannot do anything except drift, moment to moment. This is an attitude of mind. Everyone can be constructive even in tiny ways.
Edward De Bono
#89. To deal with future we have to deal with possibilities. Analysis will only tell us what is.
Edward De Bono
#90. Argument is meant to reveal the truth, not to create it.
Edward De Bono
#91. When the positive revolution takes hold it will no longer be enough for politicians to gain points through attack or being negative. Politicians will be expected to be constructive.
Edward De Bono
#92. Sometimes the situation is only a problem because it is looked at in a certain way. Looked at in another way, the right course of action may be so obvious that the problem no longer exists.
Edward De Bono
#94. Lateral thinking is concerned not with playing with the existing pieces but with seeking to change those very pieces. It is concerned with the perception part of thinking. This is where we organise the external world into the pieces we can then 'process'.
Edward De Bono
#95. Language is the biggest barrier to human progress because language is an encyclopedia of ignorance. Old perceptions are frozen into language and force us to look at the world in an old fashioned way.
Edward De Bono
#96. Western traditions of education have emphasized knowledge analysis, description and debate. They all have a part to play, but today there is a whole vast aspect of doing that has just been left out. Operacy is what keeps society going.
Edward De Bono
#97. Instead of waiting for our attention to be pulled towards something unusual, we can set out frameworks for 'directing' our attention in a conscious manner.
Edward De Bono
#98. You can't dig a different hole by digging the same one deeper.
Edward De Bono
#99. I'm tired of dreaming. I'm into doing at the moment. It's, like, let's only have goals that we can go after.
Edward De Bono
#100. You hold onto religion, you know, rules, regulations, traditions. I think what God is interested in is people's hearts, and that's hard enough.
Edward De Bono
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