Top highlights from How to Win Friends and Influence People
It isn't what you have or who you are or where you are or what you are doing that makes you happy or unhappy. It is what you think about it.
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Don't be afraid of enemies who attack you. Be afraid of the friends who flatter you.
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You can make more friends in two months by becoming interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get other people interested in you.
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Any fool can criticize, complain, and condemnand most fools do. But it takes character and self-control to be understanding and forgiving.
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When dealing with people, remember you are not dealing with creatures of logic, but with creatures bristling with prejudice and motivated by pride and vanity.
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Everybody in the world is seeking happinessand there is one sure way to find it. That is by controlling your thoughts. Happiness doesn't depend on outward conditions. It depends on inner conditions.
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Talk to someone about themselves and they'll listen for hours.
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Actions speak louder than words, and a smile says, I like you. You make me happy. I am glad to see you.
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Personally I am very fond of strawberries and cream, but I have found that for some strange reason, fish prefer worms. So when I went fishing, I didnt think about what I wanted. I thought about what they wanted. I didn't bait the hook with strawberries and cream. Rather, I dangled a worm or grasshopper in front of the fish and said: "Wouldn't you like to have that?"Why not use the same common sense when fishing for people?
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When dealing with people, let us remember we are not dealing with creatures of logic. We are dealing with creatures of emotion, creatures bristling with prejudices and motivated by pride and vanity.
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You can't win an argument. You can't because if you lose it, you lose it; and if you win it, you lose it.
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A man convinced against his will Is of the same opinion still
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To be interesting, be interested.
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Names are the sweetest and most important sound in any language.
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I have come to the conclusion that there is only one way under high heaven to get the best of an argument and that is to avoid it. Avoid it as you would avoid rattlesnakes and earthquakes.
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All men have fears, but the brave put down their fears and go forward, sometimes to death, but always to victory.
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If You Want to Gather Honey, Don't Kick Over the Beehive
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Why talk about what we want? That is childish. Absurd. Of course, you are interested in what you want. You are eternally interested in it. But no one else is. The rest of us are just like you: we are interested in what we want.
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Instead of condemning people, lets try to understand them. Lets try to figure out why they do what they do. Thats a lot more profitable and intriguing than criticism; and it breeds sympathy, tolerance and kindness. To know all is to forgive all.
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criticism is dangerous, because it wounds a person's precious pride, hurt his sense of importace and arouse resentment.
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If some people are so hungry for a feeling of importance that they actually go insane to get it, imagine what miracle you and I can achieve by giving people honest appreciation this side of insanity.
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By fighting you never get enough, but by yielding you get more than you expected.
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Once I did bad and that I heard ever. Twice I did good, but that I heard never.
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Only knowledge that is used sticks in your mind.
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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.
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If you argue and rankle and contradict, you may achieve a victory sometimes; but it will be an empty victory because you will never get your opponent's good will.
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Winning friends begins with friendliness.
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A barber lathers a man before he shaves him.
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The chronic kicker, even the most violent critic, will frequently soften and be subdued in the presence of a patient, sympathetic listener a listener who will be silent while the irate fault-finder dilates like a king cobra and spews the poison out of his system.
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Control your temper. Remember, you can measure the size of a person by what makes him or her angry.
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The world is full of people who are grabbing and self-seeking. So the rare individual who unselfishly tries to serve others has an enormous advantage.
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John Wanamaker, founder of the stores that bear his name, once confessed: "I learned thirty years ago that it is foolish to scold. I have enough trouble overcoming my own limitations without fretting over the fact that God has not seen fit to distribute evenly the gift of intelligence.
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We are interested in others when they are interested in us.
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If you tell me how you get your feeling of importance, I'll tell you what you are.
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Emerson said: Every man I meet is my superior in some way. In that, I learn of him.
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People who can put themselves in the place of other people, who can understand the workings of their minds, need never worry about what the future has in store for them.
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You cannot teach a man anything; you can only help him to find it within himself.
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Action seems to follow feeling, but really action and feeling go together; and by regulating the action, which is under the more direct control of the will, we can indirectly regulate the feeling, which is not.
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If you want to know how to make people shun you and laugh at you behind your back and even despise you, here is the recipe: Never listen to anyone for long. Talk incessantly about yourself. If you have an idea while the other person is talking, dont wait for him or her to finish: bust right in and interrupt in the middle of a sentence.
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Buddha said: Hatred is never ended by hatred but by love, and a misunderstanding is never ended by an argument but by tact, diplomacy, conciliation and a sympathetic desire to see the other persons viewpoint.
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The only way I can get you to do anything is by giving you what you want.
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We are gods in the chrysalis.
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about 15 percent of ones financial success is due to ones technical knowledge and about 85 percent is due to skill in human engineeringto personality and the ability to lead people.
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Remember that a persons name is to that person the sweetest and most important sound in any language.
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I shall pass this way but once; any good, therefore, that I can do or any kindness that I can show to any human being, let me do it now. Let me not defer nor neglect it, for I shall not pass this way again.
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IN A NUTSHELL FUNDAMENTAL TECHNIQUES IN HANDLING PEOPLE PRINCIPLE 1 Dont criticize, condemn or complain. PRINCIPLE 2 Give honest and sincere appreciation. PRINCIPLE 3 Arouse in the other person an eager want.
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I consider my ability to arouse enthusiasm among my people, said Schwab, the greatest asset I possess, and the way to develop the best that is in a person is by appreciation and encouragement. There is nothing else that so kills the ambitions of a person as criticisms from superiors.
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If your temper is aroused and you tell 'em a thing or two, you will have a fine time unloading your feelings. But what about the other fellow? Will he share your pleasure? Will your belligerent tones, your hostile attitude, make it easy for him to agree with you? "If you come at me with your fists doubled," said Wood row Wilson, "I think I can promise you that mine will double as fast as yours; but if you come to me and say, 'Let us sit down and take counsel together, and, if we differ from one another, understand why it is that we differ from one another, just what the points at issue are,' we will presently find that we are not so far apart after all, that the points on which we differ are few and the points on which we agree are many, and that if we only have the patience and the candor and the desire to get together, we will get together.
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The deepest principle in human nature is the craving to be appreciated.
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The reason why rivers and seas receive the homage of a hundred mountain streams is that they keep below them. Thus they are able to reign over all the mountain streams. So the sage, wishing to be above men, putteth himself below them; wishing to be before them, he putteth himself behind them. Thus, though his place be above men, they do not feel his weight; though his place be before them, they do not count it an injury.
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That is what every successful person loves: the game. The chance for self-expression. The chance to prove his or her worth, to excel, to win.
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A persons toothache means more to that person than a famine in China which kills a million people. A boil on ones neck interests one more than forty earthquakes in Africa.
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Instead of condemning people, lets try to understand them. Lets try to figure out why they do what they do. Thats a lot more profitable and intriguing than criticism; and it breeds sympathy, tolerance and kindness. To know all is to forgive all. As Dr. Johnson said: God himself, sir, does not propose to judge man until the end of his days. Why should you and I?
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Be hearty in your approbation and lavish in your praise, and people will cherish your words and treasure them and repeat them over a lifetime repeat them years after you have forgotten them.
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The secret of his success? I will speak ill of no man, he said, . . and speak all the good I know of everybody.
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If you want enemies, excel your friends; but if you want friends, let your friends excel you.
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Criticism is futile because it puts a person on the defensive and usually makes him strive to justify himself. Criticism is dangerous, because it wounds a persons precious pride, hurts his sense of importance, and arouses resentment.
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To change somebody's behavior, change the level of respect she receives by giving her a fine reputation to live up to. Act as though the trait you are trying to influence is already one of the person's outstanding characteristics.
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