“Every time we interact with another person at work, we have a choice to make: do we try to claim as much value as we can, or contribute value without worrying about what we receive in return?”

Good guys are most likely to finish last, but also most likely to finish first.

Enemies make better allies than frenemies.

This profound book shatters that assumption, showing that the more vital skill is asking the right questions….

When you put off a task, you buy yourself time to engage in divergent thinking rather than foreclosing on one particular idea.

Dissenting opinions are useful even when they’re wrong. So instead of speaking to highly agreeable audiences, target suggestions to people with a history of originality.

Negative relationships are unpleasant but predictable.

Most people believe that great leaders are distinguished by their ability to give compelling answers.

Being a giver is not good for a 100-yard dash, but it’s valuable in a marathon.

When you’re dealing with an ambivalent relationship, you’re constantly on guard, grappling with questions of trust.

This is what I find most magnetic about successful givers: they get to the top without cutting others down, finding ways of expanding the pie that benefit themselves and the people around them.

The more I help out, the more successful I become. But I measure success in what it has done for the people around me. That is the real accolade.

Focus attention and energy on making a difference in the lives of others, and success might follow as a by-product.

Whereas success is zero-sum in a group of takers, in groups of givers, it may be true that the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.

Berger poses many fascinating questions, including this one: What if companies had mission questions rather than mission statements? This is a book everyone ought to read – without question.

There are takers, who are always trying to serve themselves; matchers, who are always trying to get equal benefit for themselves and others; and givers, who are always trying to help people.

People tend to have one of three ‘styles’ of interaction.

Prayer and encouraging words change things. We’re all human. We all go through stuff.

I always had a great appreciation for jazz, but I’m a very pedestrian musician. I get by. I like to think that my main instrument is vocabulary.

A writer should have another lifetime to see if he’s appreciated.

Gratitude is the appreciation of what is, of life, of existence, of anybody and anything, for just the way it is.

What will carry us into living freedom is not the holding of attention so much as the holding of appreciation.

Spanking is a one handed round of applause in appreciation of a magnificent Ass.

An appreciation of words is so rare that everybody naturally thinks he possesses it, and this universal sentiment results in the misuse of a material whose beauty enriches the loving student beyond the dreams of avarice.

You never realise the value of something until it’s gone, hence why you should always appreciate the little things in life.