How To Win Friends and Influence People

• The desperate men behind prison walls don’t blame themselves for anything – what about the people with whom you and I come in contact?
• Criticism is futile because it puts a man on the defensive, and usually makes him strive to justify himself. Criticism is dangerous, because it wounds a man’s precious pride, hurts his sense of importance, and arouses his resentment.
• Criticisms are like homing pigeons, they always return home. Let’s realize that the person we are going to correct and condemn will probably justify himself.
• Don’t criticize them; they are just what we would be under similar circumstances.
• 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.
• I will speak ill of no man and speak all the good I know of everybody.
• Any fool can criticize, condemn, and complain – and most fools do. But it takes character and self-control to be understanding and forgiving.
• God himself does not propose to judge man until the end of his days. Why should you and I?
• There is only one way under high Heaven to get anybody to do anything. And that is by making the other person want to do it.
• The only way I can get you to do anything is by giving you what you want.
• The deepest principle in human nature is the craving to be appreciated.
• The rare individual who honestly satisfies this heart-hunger will hold people in the palm of his hand and even the undertaker will be sorry when he dies.
• If you tell me how you get your feeling of importance, I’ll tell you what you are.
• The way to develop the best that is in a man is by appreciation and encouragement.
• Don’t be afraid of enemies who attack you. Be afraid of the friends who flatter you.
• Every man I meet is my superior in some way. In that, I learn of him.
• Let’s try to figure out the other man’s good points. Then forget flattery. Give honest, sincere appreciation.
• Bait the hook to suit the fish.
• So the only way on earth to influence the other fellow is to talk about what he wants and show him how to get it.
• Action springs out of what we fundamentally desire.
• The only way to influence people is to talk in terms of what the other person wants.
• Before you speak pause and ask, how can I make him want to do it.
• Even if I had convinced him that he was wrong, his pride would have made it difficult for him to back down and give in.
• If there is any one secret of success it lies in the ability to get the other persons point of view and see things from his angle as well as your own.
• The rare individual who unselfishly tries to serve others has an enormous advantage. He has little competition.
• First arouse in the other person an eager want. He who can do this has the whole world with him.
• You can make more friends in 2 months by becoming genuinely interested in other people than one can in two years by trying to get other people interested in him.
• Why should people be interested in you unless you are first interested in them?
• It is the individual who is not interested in his fellow men who has the greatest difficulties in life and provides the greatest injury to others. It is from among such individuals that all human failures spring.
• If we want to make friends, let’s put ourselves out to do things for other people – things that require time, energy, unselfishness, and thoughtfulness.
• Let’s greet people with animation and enthusiasm.
• Become genuinely interested in other people.
• Give a heart-warming smile, the kind of a smile that will bring a good price in the market place.
• A man rarely succeeds at anything unless he has fun doing it.
• You must have a good time meeting people if you expect them to have a good time meeting you.
• Action seems to follow felling, 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.
• Nothing is good or bad, but thinking makes it so.
• A man without a smiling face must not open a shop.
• Remember that name and call it easily, and you have paid him a subtle and very effective compliment. But forget it or misspell it – and you have placed yourself at a sharp disadvantage.
• Remember that a man’s name is to him the sweetest and most important sound in any language.
• I had him thinking of me as a good conversationalist when, in reality, I had been merely a good listener and encouraged him to talk.
• Many people fail to make a favorable impression because they don’t listen attentively. They have been so much concerned with what they are going to say next they do not keep their ears open.
• If you aspire to be a good conversationalist, be an attentive listener.
• Be a good listener. Encourage others to talk about themselves.
• The royal road to a man’s heart is to talk to him about the things he treasures most.
• Talk in terms of the other mans interests.
• The deepest principle in human nature is the craving to be appreciated.
• Do unto others as you would have others to unto you.
• Talk to a man about himself and he will listen for hours.
• Make the other person feel important – and do it sincerely.
• Why prove to a man he is wrong? Is that going to make him like you?
• There’s only one way to get the best of an argument, and that’s to avoid it.
• Men must be taught as if you taught them not and things unknown proposed as things forgotten.
• Be wiser than other people, if you can; but do not tell them so.
• I am convinced that it doesn’t pay to tell a man he is wrong.
• Show respect for the other man’s opinions. Never tell a man he is wrong.
• When we are right, let’s try to win people gently and tactfully to our way of thinking. And when we are wrong, let’s admit our mistakes quickly and with enthusiasm.
• Begin in a friendly way.
• The more yeses we can get at the very beginning, the more likely we are to succeed in capturing the attention for our ultimate proposal.
• He who treads lightly goes far.
• Almost every successful man likes to reminisce about his early struggles.
• The truth is that even our friends would far rather talk to us about their achievements than listen to us boast about ours.
• We ought to be modest, for neither you nor I amount to much. Both of us will pass on and be completely forgotten a century from now
• Let the other man do a great deal of the talking.
• No man likes to feel that he is being sold something or told to do a thing. We much prefer to feel that we are buying of our own accord or acting on our own ideas.
• Let the other fellow feel that the idea is his.
• There is a reason why the other man thinks and acts as he does.
• By becoming interested in the cause, we are less likely to dislike the effect.
• Try honestly to see things from the other person’s point of view.
• Be sympathetic with the other person’s ideas and desires.
• The way to get things done is to stimulate competition. Throw down a challenge.
• Begin with praise and honest appreciation.
• Call attention to people’s mistakes indirectly.
• You have made a mistake but you were not born with judgment. That comes only with experience.
• Talk about your own mistakes before criticizing the other person.
• Ask questions instead of giving direct orders.
• Compared with what we ought to be, we are only half-awake. We are making use of only a small part of our physical and mental resources. The human individual thus lives far within his limits. He possesses powers of various sorts which he habitually fails use.
• Give a man a fine reputation to live up to.
• Make the fault you want to correct seem easy to correct; make the thing you want the other person to do seem easy to do.
• I shall pass this way only once, so if I can do any kindness, let me do it now. Let me not defer nor neglect it, for I shall not pass this way again.

Source: How To Win Friends and Influence People By: Dale Caragie