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A question is a polite way of demanding something.

Edward de Bono

Thinking is the ultimate human resource. Yet we can never be satisfied with our most important skill. No matter how good we become, we should always want to be better.
EDWARD DE BONO

Better Goodness Human Resource Thinking Ultimate
My thinking was taught to tribes in South Africa like the Zulus and Xhosas. At the time there were about 210 fights breaking out among them every month, but after they listened to my lessons, this fell to just four.
EDWARD DE BONO

Fight Lesson Listening Teaching Thinking Time
Asking a question is the simplest way of focusing thinking asking the right question may be the most important part of thinking.
EDWARD DE BONO

Focus Important Question Simplicity 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
Do we have the will to make poverty history?
EDWARD DE BONO

History Poverty Willing Yourself
Most of the mistakes in thinking are inadequacies of perception rather than mistakes of logic.
EDWARD DE BONO

Logic Mistake Thinking
The analysis of data will not by itself produce new ideas.
EDWARD DE BONO

Analysis Data Ideas Production
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
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
To develop thinking as a skill, it should be deliberate, focused, confident, and enjoyable.
EDWARD DE BONO

Confidence Development Enjoyment Skills
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
Argument is meant to reveal the truth, not to create it.
EDWARD DE BONO

Argument Creation Reveal Truth Yourself
The winner is the chef who takes the same ingredients as everyone else and produces the best results.
EDWARD DE BONO

Best Chef Ingredient Result Win
Unhappiness is best defined as the difference between our talents and our expectations.
EDWARD DE BONO

Best Definition Expectation Happiness Ourselves Talent
In the art world, creativity involves aesthetic sensibility, emotional resonance and a gift for expression.
EDWARD DE BONO

Aesthetic Art Criteria Emotional Expression Reason World
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
Effectiveness without values is a tool without a purpose.
EDWARD DE BONO

Effect Purpose Tools Value
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
I think there is a danger with young people of being dependent in the sense that they don’t acquire any identity or self-image of themselves as thinkers.
EDWARD DE BONO

Dangerous Identity Image People Thinking Young
It is historical continuity that maintains most assumptions, not repeated assessment of their validity.
EDWARD DE BONO

Assume History Maintain Repeat Valid
Although feelings are not supposed to intrude on business discussions, they do anyway – we just disguise them as logic.
EDWARD DE BONO

Business Discussion Feeling Logic
Creativity can be learned like basketball, which does not mean we will all be NBA stars.
EDWARD DE BONO

Creativity Learning Level
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.
EDWARD DE BONO

Attraction Beautiful Goodness Listening Love Yourself
We need creativity in order to break free from the temporary structures that have been set up by a particular sequence of experience.
EDWARD DE BONO

Break Creativity Experience Freedom Need Order Temporary
Complexity creates confusion, simplicity focus.
EDWARD DE BONO

Complex Creation Creativity Focus Simplicity
Teaching thinking for just five hours to unemployed youngsters increased employment 500 percent.
EDWARD DE BONO

Employment Teaching Thinking
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

A question is a polite way of demanding something.

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A question is a polite way of demanding something.

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