Quotes from Edward de Bono

Logic will never change emotion or perception.

In a sense, words are encyclopedias of ignorance because they freeze perceptions at one moment in history and then insist we continue to use these frozen perceptions when we should be doing better.

Opportunity ideas do not lie around waiting to be discovered. Such ideas need to be produced.

It has always surprised me how little attention philosophers have paid to humor, since it is a more significant process of mind than reason. Reason can only sort out perceptions, but the humor process is involved in changing them.

Companies that solely focus on competition will ultimately die. Those that focus on value creation will thrive.

The winner is the chef who takes the same ingredients as everyone else and produces the best results.

Mock the devil, and he will flee from thee.

The music that really turns me on is either running toward God or away from God. Both recognize the pivot, that God is at the center of the jaunt.

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.

Happiness is for those who don't really need it. So I can live without happiness.

Creativity gives hope that there can be a worthwhile idea.

There is no doubt that creativity is the most important human resource of all.

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.

If you wait for opportunities to occur, you will be one of the crowd.

A myth is a fixed way of looking at the world which cannot be destroyed because, looked at through the myth, all evidence supports the myth.

It may be that Japanese culture is not ego-based like Western culture: argument has often a strong ego base. The most likely explanation is that Japanese culture was not influenced by those Greek thinking idioms which were refined and developed by medieval monks as a means of proving heretics to be wrong. (p36)

It is not the logical part of thinking that changes emotions but the perceptual part. If we see something differently, our emotions may alter with the altered perception. (p64)

Everything can be simplified. With enough simplification and enough patience on the part of the parent, anything can be simplified to the point that even very young children can begin to understand it.

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.

There's a danger in the internet and social media. The notion that information is enough, that more and more information is enough, that you don't have to think, you just have to get more information - gets very dangerous.

Critical thinking does seem a superior sort of thinking because it seems as though the critic is actually going beyond the scope of what is being criticized in order to criticize it. That is only rarely a true assumption because, most often, the critic will seize on some little aspect that he or she understands and tackle only that.

In real-life situations apparently logical lines of argument are often (not always) based on an inability to see alternative possibilities. In a similar way the ability to think of an alternative explanation is by far the best way of destroying the arrogance of an apparently logical line of argument.

When the positive revolution takes hold it will no longer be enough for politicians to gain points through attack or being negative. Politicians will be expected to be constructive.

Thinking is the ultimate human resource.