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I know it aches, how your heart it breaks. You can only take so much. Walk on.

Edward de Bono

It is well known that “problem avoidance” is an important part of problem solving. Instead of solving the problem you go upstream and alter the system so that the problem does not occur in the first place.
EDWARD DE BONO

Avoidance Important Place Problem System
It’s always amazed me how little attention philosophers, psychologists, or anyone else actually has paid to humor.
EDWARD DE BONO

Amazing Attention Humor Pay
If you never change your mind, why have one?
EDWARD DE BONO

Change Mindset Oneself Yourself
Child mortality since 2000 is down by 2.65 million a year. That’s a rate of 7,256 children’s lives saved each day. It drives me nuts that most people don’t seem to know this news.
EDWARD DE BONO

Children Live News People
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.
EDWARD DE BONO

Better Ignorance Moments Oneself Word
I’m a very loyal and unreliable friend.
EDWARD DE BONO

Friendship Loyalty Myself
Lateral thinking is the process of using information to bring about creativity and insight restructuring. Lateral thinking can be learned, practised and used. It is possible to acquire skill in it just as it is possible to acquire skill in mathematics.
EDWARD DE BONO

Creativity Information Mathematics Process Thinking
Happiness is for those who don’t really need it. So I can live without happiness.
EDWARD DE BONO

Happiness Live Myself Need
This new meta-system is very much in favor of the self, but a self that is based on a proper sense of dignity, not on an inflated ego. A person who dare not admit he is wrong inflates his ego but weakens his self.
EDWARD DE BONO

Dignity Himself Proper System Weakness Wrong
What is urgent will always take precedence over what is important.
EDWARD DE BONO

Important Urgent
Creativity can be learned like basketball, which does not mean we will all be NBA stars.
EDWARD DE BONO

Creativity Learning Level
Creativity and lateral thinking have exactly the same basis as humour.
EDWARD DE BONO

Basis Creativity Thinking
You cannot look in a new direction by looking harder in the same direction.
EDWARD DE BONO

Direction Hard Yourself
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

Finding Philosophy Thinking
Creativity gives the possibility of some sort of achievement to everyone.
EDWARD DE BONO

Achievement Creativity Possible
Maybe the social value of truth is as a destination – so long as we do not assume we have arrived there.
EDWARD DE BONO

Arrival Destination Social Truth Value
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.
EDWARD DE BONO

Destroy Evidence Support Way World
The quality of our thinking will determine the quality of our future.
EDWARD DE BONO

Determination Future Ourselves Quality Thinking
Once a new idea springs into existence, it cannot be unthought. There is a sense of immortality in a new idea.
EDWARD DE BONO

Existence Ideas Immortal Spring
What the joke displays is a switch in perception. This is important in changing the way we think.
EDWARD DE BONO

Change Display Important Joke Perception Thinking
Mock the devil, and he will flee from thee.
EDWARD DE BONO

Devil Run
I do a great deal of work with young children, and if you give a child a problem, he may come up with a highly original solution, because he doesn’t have the established route to it.
EDWARD DE BONO

Children Deal Establishment Greatness Route Work Young
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.
EDWARD DE BONO

God Music Recognition Run
Complexity creates confusion, simplicity focus.
EDWARD DE BONO

Complex Creation Creativity Focus Simplicity
The awful thing is that you can never be aware of what you are not aware of.
EDWARD DE BONO

Aware Awful Yourself
Argument is meant to reveal the truth, not to create it.
EDWARD DE BONO

Argument Creation Reveal Truth Yourself
Western traditions of education have emphasized knowledge analysis, description and debate. They all have a part to play, but today there is a whole vast aspect of doing that has just been left out. Operacy is what keeps society going.
EDWARD DE BONO

Analysis Debate Description Education Society Tradition

I know it aches, how your heart it breaks. You can only take so much. Walk on.

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I know it aches, how your heart it breaks. You can only take so much. Walk on.

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