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Intelligence is something we are born with. Thinking is a skill that must be learned.

Edward de Bono

You can analyse the past, but you need to design the future. That is the difference between suffering the future and enjoying it.
EDWARD DE BONO

Design Difference Enjoyment Future Need Past Suffering Yourself
Simplicity before understanding is simplistic; simplicity after understanding is simple.
EDWARD DE BONO

Simplicity Understand
If you do not design the future, someone or something else will design it for you.
EDWARD DE BONO

Design Future Yourself
The image that concerns most people is the reflection they see in other people’s minds.
EDWARD DE BONO

Image Mindset People Reflection
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
Unhappiness is best defined as the difference between our talents and our expectations.
EDWARD DE BONO

Best Definition Expectation Happiness Ourselves Talent
You can analyse the past, but you have to design the future.
EDWARD DE BONO

Analysis Design Future Past Yourself
The power of a car is separate from the way the car is driven.
EDWARD DE BONO

Car Drive Power Separate
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
When the story of these times gets written, we want it to say that we did all we could, and it was more than anyone could have imagined.
EDWARD DE BONO

Imagination Story Time Writing
An idea that is developed and put into action is more important than an idea that exists only as an idea.
EDWARD DE BONO

Development Existence Ideas
There’s a danger in the internet and social media. The notion that information is enough, that more and more information is enough, that you don’t have to think, you just have to get more information – gets very dangerous.
EDWARD DE BONO

Dangerous Information Social Media Thinking Yourself
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.
EDWARD DE BONO

Future Possible Preparation Strive
Removing the faults in a stage-coach may produce a perfect stage-coach, but it is unlikely to produce the first motor car.
EDWARD DE BONO

Car Mistake Production Remove
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
Happiness is for those who don’t really need it. So I can live without happiness.
EDWARD DE BONO

Happiness Live Myself Need
The solid wealth of insurance companies and the success of those who organsie gambling are some indication of the profits to be derived from the efficient use of chance.
EDWARD DE BONO

Chance Company Insurance Solid Wealth
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
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
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.
EDWARD DE BONO

Beyond Doubt Improvement Right Sacred Way
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
To develop thinking as a skill, it should be deliberate, focused, confident, and enjoyable.
EDWARD DE BONO

Confidence Development Enjoyment Skills
Mock the devil, and he will flee from thee.
EDWARD DE BONO

Devil Run
The system will always be defended by those countless people who have enough intellect to defend but not quite enough to innovate.
EDWARD DE BONO

Count Defend Enough Innovation People System
Argument is meant to reveal the truth, not to create it.
EDWARD DE BONO

Argument Creation Reveal Truth Yourself
It is historical continuity that maintains most assumptions, not repeated assessment of their validity.
EDWARD DE BONO

Assume History Maintain Repeat Valid
Creativity gives hope that there can be a worthwhile idea.
EDWARD DE BONO

Creativity Hope Idea Worth

Intelligence is something we are born with. Thinking is a skill that must be learned.

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Intelligence is something we are born with. Thinking is a skill that must be learned.

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