Dale Carnegie Quotes
-
When Theodore Roosevelt was in the White House, he confessed that if he could be right 75 percent of the time, he would reach the highest measure of his expectation. . . . If that was the highest rating that one of the most distinguished men of the twentieth century could hope to obtain, what about you and me?
-
It was this desire for a feeling of importance that led an uneducated, poverty-stricken grocery clerk to study some law books he found in the bottom of a barrel of household plunder that he had bought for fifty cents. You have probably heard of this grocery clerk. His name was Lincoln.
-
Listen first. Give your opponents a chance to talk. Let them finish. Do not resist, defend or debate. This only raises barriers. Try to build bridges of understanding.
-
Criticism of others is futile and if you indulge in it often you should be warned that it can be fatal to your career.
-
Flattery is counterfeit, and like counterfeit money, it will eventually get you into trouble if you pass it to someone else.
-
You can sing only what you are. You can paint only what you are. You must be what your experiences, your environment, and your heredity have made you. For better or for worse, you must play your own little instrument in the orchestra of life.
-
Each time I spoke, I gained a little courage. It took a long while-but today I have more happiness than I ever dreamed possible. In rearing my own children, I have always taught them the lesson I had to learn from such bitter experience: No matter what happens, always be yourself!
-
The world is so full of people who are grabbing and self-seeking. So the rare individual who unselfishly tries to serve others has an enormous advantage. He has little competition.
-
When we have a brilliant idea, instead of making others think it is ours, why not let them cook and stir the idea themselves.
-
The most important thing in life is not simply to capitalize on your gains. Any fool can do that. The important thing is to profit from your losses. That requires intelligence, and makes the difference between a man of sense and a fool.
-
The trouble with most of us is that we keep our eyes closed to opportunities that thrust themselves at us; and rare is the man who searches for his opportunity or sees one even when he stumbles over it.
-
Don't you have much more faith in ideas that you discover for yourself than in ideas that are handed to you on a silver platter?
-
Your smile brightens the lives of all who see it. To someone who has seen a dozen people frown, scowl or turn their faces away, your smile is like the sun breaking through the clouds.
-
By talking to yourself about the things you have to be grateful for you can fill your mind with thoughts that soar and sing.
-
I can look back at my own life and see where a few words of praise have sharply changed my entire future. Can't you say the same thing about your life?
-
There is only one excuse for a speaker's asking the attention of his audience: he must have either truth or entertainment for them.
-
Put a 'stop-loss' order on your worries. Decide just how much anxiety a thing may be worth- and refuse to give it any more.
-
There is a reason why the other man thinks and acts as he does. Ferret out that reason — and you have the key to his actions, perhaps to his personality. Try honestly to put yourself in his place.
-
Practice, practice, practice in speaking before an audience will tend to remove all fear of audiences, just as practice in swimming will lead to confidence and facility in the water. You must learn to speak by speaking.
-
Perhaps you will forget tomorrow the kind words you say today, but the recipient may cherish them over a lifetime.
-
If you got it, ask yourself why and try to repeat the action. If you failed, ask yourself why and try to learn from the experience.
-
When ill luck besets us, to ease the tension we have only to remember that happiness is relative. The next time you are tempted to grumble about what has happened to you, why not pause and be glad that it is no worse than it is.
-
arouse in the other person an eager want. He who can do this has the whole world with him. He who cannot walks a lonely way.
-
The resentment that criticism engenders can demoralize employees, family members and friends, and still not correct the situation that has been condemned.