Edward de Bono Quotes

“A memory is what is left when something happens and does not completely unhappen.”

“An idea that is developed and put into action is more important than an idea that exists only as an idea.”

“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.”

“f you never change your mind, why have one?”

“In 80% of Socrates' dialogues there was no constructive outcome. He saw his role as simply pointing out what was 'wrong'.”

“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.”

“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.”

“Most of the mistakes in thinking are inadequacies of perception rather than mistakes of logic.”

“Simplicity before understanding is simplistic; simplicity after understanding is simple.”

“The image that concerns most people is the reflection they see in other people's minds.”

“The need to be right all the time is the biggest bar to new ideas.”

“The simple process of focusing on things that are normally taken for granted is a powerful source of creativity.”

“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.”

“We need creativity in order to break free from the temporary structures that have been set up by a particular sequence of experience.”

“A discussion should be a genuine attempt to explore a subject rather than a battle between competing egos.”

“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.”

“A question is a polite way of demanding something.”

“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.”

“Democracy is an excellent way of ensuring that nothing much gets done. There are always interests that might get trampled upon.”

“The system will always be defended by those countless people who have enough intellect to defend but not quite enough to innovate.”

“A problem is simply the difference between what one has and what one wants.”

“No amount of excellence on the part of a computer can lead to the solution of a problem if the problem has been incorrectly defined by the programmer.”

“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.”

“Creativity involves provocation, exploration and risk taking. Creativity involves 'thought experiments.' You cannot tell in advance how the experiment is going to turn out. But you want to be able to carry out the experiment.”

“Real life, however, is very different from school sums. There is usually more than one answer. Some answers are much better than others: they cost less, are more reliable or are more easy to implement. There is no reason at all for supposing that the first answer has to be the best one.”

“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.”

“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.”

“If you understand the system you can design appropriate action.”