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 BONOCreativity and lateral thinking have exactly the same basis as humour.
More Edward de Bono Quotes
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Everyone has the right to doubt everything as often as he pleases and the duty to do it at least once. No way of looking at things is too sacred to be reconsidered. No way of doing things is beyond improvement.
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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.
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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.
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Most executives, many scientists, and almost all business school graduates believe that if you analyze data, this will give you new ideas. Unfortunately, this belief is totally wrong. The mind can only see what it is prepared to see.
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Possibilities play a much bigger role in thinking than most people believe. Without possibilities you cannot make progress.
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The winner is the chef who takes the same ingredients as everyone else and produces the best results.
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Unhappiness is best defined as the difference between our talents and our expectations.
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There is no doubt that creativity is the most important human resource of all. Without creativity, there would be no progress, and we would be forever repeating the same patterns.
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Complexity creates confusion, simplicity focus.
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Simplicity before understanding is simplistic; simplicity after understanding is simple.
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Mock the devil, and he will flee from thee.
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It’s always amazed me how little attention philosophers, psychologists, or anyone else actually has paid to humor.
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Humor is by far the most significant activity of the human brain.
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On trade, our hypocrisy is at its most appalling. Trade reform isn’t about charity, it’s about justice, and this campaign, Trade Justice is an unstoppable idea.
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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.
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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.
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You can analyse the past, but you have to design the future.
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The simple process of focusing on things that are normally taken for granted is a powerful source of creativity.
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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.
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In the future, instead of striving to be right at a high cost, it will be more appropriate to be flexible and plural at a lower cost. If you cannot accurately predict the future then you must flexibly be prepared to deal with various possible futures.
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It’s not enough to rage against the lie.. you’ve got to replace it with the truth.
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The awful thing is that you can never be aware of what you are not aware of.
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What is urgent will always take precedence over what is important.
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I’m a very loyal and unreliable friend.
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To deal with future we have to deal with possibilities. Analysis will only tell us what is.
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One very important aspect of motivation is the willingness to stop and to look at things that no one else has bothered to look at. This simple process of focusing on things that are normally taken for granted is a powerful source of creativity.
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