There is only one way… to get anybody to do anything. And that is by making the other person want to do it.
- Dale Carnegie
Quotees Archive
They that soar too high, often fall hard, making a low and level Dwelling preferable. The tallest Trees are most in the Power of the Winds, and Ambitious Men of the Blasts of Fortune. Buildings have need of a good Foundation, that lie so much exposed to the Weather.
- Dale Carnegie
Think and Thank. Think of all we have to be grateful for, and thank God for all our boons and bounties.
- Dale Carnegie
Think of your life as an hourglass. You know there are thousands of grains of sand in the top of the hourglass; and they all pass slowly and evenly through the narrow neck in the middle. Nothing you or I could do would make more than one grain of sand pass through this narrow neck without impairing the hourglass. You and I and everyone else are like this hourglass…if we do not take [tasks] one at a time and let them pass…slowly and evenly, then we are bound to break our own…structure.
- Dale Carnegie
This is the day of dramatization. Merely stating a truth isn’t enough. The truth has to be made vivid, interesting, dramatic. You have to use showmanship. The movies do it. Television does it. And you will have to do it if you want attention.
- Dale Carnegie
Those convinced against their will are of the same opinion still.
- Dale Carnegie
Those two priceless abilities: first, the ability to think. Second, the ability to do things in the order of their importance.
- Dale Carnegie
Those who do not know how to fight worry die young.
- Dale Carnegie
Those who keep the peace of their inner selves in the midst of the tumult of the modern city are immune from nervous diseases.
- Dale Carnegie
Three-fourths of the people you will ever meet are hungering and thirsting for sympathy. Give it to them, and they will love you.
- Dale Carnegie
Thus the sovereign voluntary path to cheerfulness, if our cheerfulness be lost, is to sit up cheerfully and to act and speak as if cheerfulness were already there. …
- Dale Carnegie
To be interesting, be interested. Ask questions that other persons will enjoy answering. Encourage them to talk about themselves and their accomplishments.
- Dale Carnegie
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.
- Dale Carnegie
Today is life – the only life you are sure of. Make the most of today. Get interested in something. Shake yourself awake. Develop a hobby. Let the winds of enthusiasm sweep through you. Live today with gusto.
- Dale Carnegie
Today is our most precious possession. It is our only sure possession.
- Dale Carnegie
Today is the tommorrow you worried about yesterday.
- Dale Carnegie
the only way to influence people is to talk in terms of what the other person wants.
- Dale Carnegie
The order for the seats amounted to $90,000. Who do you suppose got the order—James Adamson or one of his competitors? From the time of this story until Mr. Eastman’s death.
- Dale Carnegie
The person who gets the farthest is generally the one who is willing to do and dare. The sure-thing boat never gets far from shore.
- Dale Carnegie
The person who has technical knowledge plus the ability to express ideas, to assume leadership, and to arouse enthusiasm among people—that person is headed for higher earning power.
- Dale Carnegie
The person who seeks all their applause from outside has their happiness in another’s keeping.
- Dale Carnegie
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.
- Dale Carnegie
The resentment that criticism engenders can demoralize employees, family members and friends, and still not correct the situation that has been condemned.
- Dale Carnegie
The royal road to a man’s heart is to talk to him about the things he treasures most.
- Dale Carnegie
The secret of being miserable is to have the leisure to bother about whether you are happy or not.
- Dale Carnegie
The secret of his success? I will speak ill of no man, and speak all the good I know of everybody.
- Dale Carnegie
The successful man will profit from his mistakes and try again in a different way.
- Dale Carnegie
The thing for you is a burial permit. You have only to speak and I will see that you get it.
- Dale Carnegie
The unvarnished truth is that almost all the people you meet feel themselves superior to you in some way, and a sure way to their hearts is to let them realise in some subtle way that you realise their importance, and recognise it sincerely.
- Dale Carnegie
The Value of a Smile at Christmas It costs nothing, but creates much. It enriches those who receive, without impoverishing those who give. It happens in a flash and the memory of it sometimes lasts forever. None are so rich they can get along without it, and none so poor but are richer for its benefits. It creates happiness in the home, fosters good will in a business, and is the countersign of friends.
- Dale Carnegie
The way to get things done,” says Schwab, is to stimulate competition. I do not mean in a sordid, money-getting way, but in the desire to excel.
- Dale Carnegie
The words Think and Thank are inscribed in many of the Cromwellian churches of England. These words ought to be inscribed in our hearts, too: Think and Thank. Think of all we have to be grateful for, and thank God for all our boons and bounties.
- Dale Carnegie
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.
- Dale Carnegie
There are a great many wetless” bathing suits worn at the seashore, but no one ever learns to swim in them. To plunge is the only way.
- Dale Carnegie
There are always three speeches, for every one you actually gave. The one you practiced, the one you gave, and the one you wish you gave.
- Dale Carnegie
There are four ways, and only four ways, in which we have contact with the world. We are evaluated and classified by these four contacts: what we do, how we look, what we say, and how we say it.
- Dale Carnegie
Thank your opponents sincerely for their interest. Anyone who takes the time to disagree with you is interested in the same things you are. Think of them as people who really want to help you, and you may turn your opponents into friends.
- Dale Carnegie
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. That is what makes foot-races, and hog-calling, and pie-eating contests. The desire to excel. The desire for a feeling of importance.
- Dale Carnegie
That’s why encouragement is a much more effective teaching device than punishment.
- Dale Carnegie
the ability to deal with people is as purchasable a commodity as sugar or coffee. And I will pay more for that ability,” said John D., than for any other under the sun.
- Dale Carnegie
the average person is more interested in his or her own name than in all the other names on earth put together.
- Dale Carnegie
the best possible way to prepare for tomorrow is to concentrate with all your intelligence, all your enthusiasm, on doing today’s work superbly today. That is the only possible way you can prepare for the future.
- Dale Carnegie
The difference between appreciation and flattery? That is simply. One is sincere and the other insincere. One comes from the heart out, the other from the teeth out. One is unselfish, the other selfish. One is universally admired, the other universally condemned.
- Dale Carnegie
The essence of all art is to have pleasure in giving pleasure.
- Dale Carnegie
the expression one wears on one’s face is far more important than the clothes one wears on one’s back
- Dale Carnegie
The first sign of greatness is when a man does not attempt to look and act great. Before you can call yourself a man at all, Kipling assures us, you must not look too good nor talk too wise.
- Dale Carnegie
The ideas I stand for are not mine. I borrowed them from Socrates. I swiped them from Chesterfield. I stole them from Jesus. And I put them in a book. If you don’t like their rules, whose would you use?
- Dale Carnegie
The legendary French aviation pioneer and author Antoine de Saint-Exupéry wrote: I have no right to say or do anything that diminishes a man in his own eyes. What matters is not what I think of him, but what he thinks of himself. Hurting a man in his dignity is a crime.
- Dale Carnegie
The man who goes farthest is generally the one who is willing to do and dare. The sure-thing boat never gets far from shore.
- Dale Carnegie
the more ‘Yeses’ we can, at the very outset, induce, the more likely we are to succeed in capturing the attention for our ultimate proposal.
- Dale Carnegie