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It is better to have enough ideas for some of them to be wrong, than to be always right by having no ideas at all.

Edward de Bono

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
Language is the biggest barrier to human progress because language is an encyclopedia of ignorance. Old perceptions are frozen into language and force us to look at the world in an old fashioned way.
EDWARD DE BONO

Fashion Human Language Progress Way
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
Logic will never change emotion or perception.
EDWARD DE BONO

Change Emotion Logic Perception
They enjoy thinking. They enjoy being creative. They enjoy having ideas. Most people do not enjoy thinking at all.
EDWARD DE BONO

Creativity Enjoyment Ideas Thinking
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
Most people are put off science because maths is the gateway and they can’t handle it. What we should be teaching is operational maths because, in general, the maths we need to carry out science is pretty straightforward.
EDWARD DE BONO

Operational People Science Teaching
The simple process of focusing on things that are normally taken for granted is a powerful source of creativity.
EDWARD DE BONO

Creativity Focus Powerful Process Simplicity Source
Man owes his success to his creativity. No one doubts the need for it. It is most useful in good times and essential in bad.
EDWARD DE BONO

Bad Creativity Doubt Essential Man Need Success
Creative thinking – in terms of idea creativity – is not a mystical talent. It is a skill that can be practised and nurtured.
EDWARD DE BONO

Creativity Ideas Nurture Practice Talent Thinking
Creativity involves breaking out of established patterns in order to look at things in a different way.
EDWARD DE BONO

Creativity Different Establishment Order Pattern Way
Possibilities play a much bigger role in thinking than most people believe. Without possibilities you cannot make progress.
EDWARD DE BONO

Play Possible Progress Thinking
Traditional thinking is all about “what is” Future thinking will also need to be about what can be.
EDWARD DE BONO

Future Thinking Traditional Willing
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
Sometimes the situation is only a problem because it is looked at in a certain way. Looked at in another way, the right course of action may be so obvious that the problem no longer exists.
EDWARD DE BONO

Action Problem Situation Time Way
To deal with future we have to deal with possibilities. Analysis will only tell us what is.
EDWARD DE BONO

Analysis Deal Future Possible

It is better to have enough ideas for some of them to be wrong, than to be always right by having no ideas at all.

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It is better to have enough ideas for some of them to be wrong, than to be always right by having no ideas at all.

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