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The vertical thinker says: ‘I know what I am looking for.’ The lateral thinker says: ‘I am looking but I won’t know what I am looking for until I have found it.’

Edward de Bono

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

Discover Ideas Lying Need Opportunity Production
Creativity gives hope that there can be a worthwhile idea.
EDWARD DE BONO

Creativity Hope Idea Worth
Dealing with complexity is an inefficient and unnecessary waste of time, attention and mental energy. There is never any justification for things being complex when they could be simple.
EDWARD DE BONO

Attention Deal Mental Energy Necessary Simplicity Time
Argument is meant to reveal the truth, not to create it.
EDWARD DE BONO

Argument Creation Reveal Truth Yourself
A question is a polite way of demanding something.
EDWARD DE BONO

Demand Polite Question
An expert is someone who has succeeded in making decisions and judgements simpler through knowing what to pay attention to and what to ignore.
EDWARD DE BONO

Attention Expert Ignorance Judgement Pay Success
It’s not enough to rage against the lie.. you’ve got to replace it with the truth.
EDWARD DE BONO

Enough Lying Replacement Truth
Most of the mistakes in thinking are inadequacies of perception rather than mistakes of logic.
EDWARD DE BONO

Logic Mistake Thinking
Sometimes the situation is only a problem because it is looked at in a certain subjective, negative, ungrateful way.
EDWARD DE BONO

Gratitude Problem Situation Time Way
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.
EDWARD DE BONO

Better Improvement Perfection Problem Solve Way
Studies have shown that 90% of error in thinking is due to error in perception. If you can change your perception, you can change your emotion and this can lead to new ideas.
EDWARD DE BONO

Change Error Ideas Leadership Mistake Perception Study
The power of a car is separate from the way the car is driven.
EDWARD DE BONO

Car Drive Power Separate
Do we have the will to make poverty history?
EDWARD DE BONO

History Poverty Willing Yourself
If you do not design the future, someone or something else will design it for you.
EDWARD DE BONO

Design Future Yourself
Effectiveness without values is a tool without a purpose.
EDWARD DE BONO

Effect Purpose Tools Value
Humor is probably the most significant characteristics of the human mind. Far more significant than reason. In fact, reason is actually a very cheap commodity.
EDWARD DE BONO

Cheap Human Humor Mindset Reason

The vertical thinker says: ‘I know what I am looking for.’ The lateral thinker says: ‘I am looking but I won’t know what I am looking for until I have found it.’

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The vertical thinker says: ‘I know what I am looking for.’ The lateral thinker says: ‘I am looking but I won’t know what I am looking for until I have found it.’

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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