Quotes from work
How to Win Friends and Influence People

How to Win Friends and Influence People
Dale Carnegie

This fascinating book deals with what is probably the greatest personal problem in the world today: worry. It is a practical, concrete, easy-to-read and inspiring handbook on conquering worry. This book may easily double or even triple the happiness you have.

“criticism is dangerous, because it wounds a person's precious pride, hurt his sense of importace and arouse resentment.”

Dale Carnegie How to Win Friends and Influence People

Source: How to Win Friends and Influence People

“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.”

Dale Carnegie How to Win Friends and Influence People

Source: How to Win Friends and Influence People

“Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain - and most fools do. But it takes character and self-control to be understanding and forgiving.”

Dale Carnegie How to Win Friends and Influence People

Part 1 : Fundamental Techniques in Handling People, p. 36.
Source: How to Win Friends and Influence People (1936)
Context: Benjamin Franklin, tactless in his youth, became so diplomatic, so adroit at handling people that he was made American Ambassador to France. The secret of his success? "I will speak ill of no man," he said, "... 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. "A great man shows his greatness," says Carlyle, "by the way he treats little men."

“If You Want to Gather Honey, Don't Kick Over the Beehive”

Dale Carnegie How to Win Friends and Influence People

Source: How to Win Friends and Influence People

“If you tell me how you get your feeling of importance, I'll tell you what you are.”

Dale Carnegie How to Win Friends and Influence People

Source: How to Win Friends and Influence People

“Names are the sweetest and most important sound in any language.”

Dale Carnegie How to Win Friends and Influence People

Source: How to Win Friends and Influence People

“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.”

Dale Carnegie How to Win Friends and Influence People

Source: How to Win Friends and Influence People

“i really like reading books”

Dale Carnegie How to Win Friends and Influence People

Source: How to Win Friends and Influence People

“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.”

Dale Carnegie How to Win Friends and Influence People

Source: How to Win Friends and Influence People

“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.”

Dale Carnegie How to Win Friends and Influence People

Source: How to Win Friends and Influence People

“Every act you have ever performed since the day you were born was performed because you wanted something. How about the time you gave a large contribution to the Red Cross? Yes, that is no exception to the rule. You gave the Red Cross the donation because you wanted to lend a helping hand; you wanted to do a beautiful, unselfish, divine act.”

Dale Carnegie How to Win Friends and Influence People

Source: How to Win Friends and Influence People (1936), p. 40 (in 2016 edition)

“The average person is more interested in their own name than in all the other names in the world put together.”

Dale Carnegie How to Win Friends and Influence People

Source: How to Win Friends and Influence People (1936), p. 73 (in 1998 edition)

“Here is one of the best bits of advice every given about the fine art of human relationships. "If there is any one secret of success," says Henry Ford, "it lies in the ability to get the other person’s point of view and see things from that person’s angle as well as from your own."”

Dale Carnegie How to Win Friends and Influence People

Source: How to Win Friends and Influence People (1936), p. 42 (in 2016 edition)

“If out of reading this book you get just one thing—an increased tendency to think always in terms of other people’s point of view, and see things from their angle—if you get that one thing out of this book, it may easily prove to be one of the building blocks of your career.”

Dale Carnegie How to Win Friends and Influence People

Source: How to Win Friends and Influence People (1936), p. 63

“A drop of honey can catch more flies than a gallon of gall.”

Dale Carnegie How to Win Friends and Influence People

Source: How to Win Friends and Influence People (1936), p. 143 (in 1998 edition)

“I often went fishing up in Maine during the summer. 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 didn’t 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?"”

Dale Carnegie How to Win Friends and Influence People

Why not use the same common sense when fishing for people?
Source: How to Win Friends and Influence People (1936), Ch. 3.

“Abilities wither under criticism, they blossom under encouragement.”

Dale Carnegie How to Win Friends and Influence People

Source: How to Win Friends and Influence People (1936), p. 220 (in 1998 edition)

“Looking at the other person’s point of view and arousing in him an eager want for something is not to be construed as manipulating that person so that he will do something that is only for your benefit and his detriment. Each party should gain from the negotiation.”

Dale Carnegie How to Win Friends and Influence People

Source: How to Win Friends and Influence People (1936), p. 61 (in 2016 edition)