Edward de Bono Quotes

You cannot look in a new direction by looking harder in the same direction.

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.

Creative thinking is not a talent, it is a skill that can be learned. It empowers people by adding strength to their natural abilities which improves teamwork, productivity and, where appropriate, profits.

Creativity involves breaking out of established patterns in order to look at things in a different way.

If you wait for opportunities to occur, you will be one of the crowd.

The mind can only see what it is prepared to see.

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

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.'

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

The quality of our thinking will determine the quality of our future

Most of the mistakes in thinking are inadequacies of perception rather than mistakes of logic.

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.

Asking a question is the simplest way of focusing thinking...asking the right question may be the most important part of thinking.

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.

Humor is by far the most significant activity of the human brain.

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.

Companies that solely focus on competition will ultimately die. Those that focus on value creation will thrive.

Perception is real even when it is not reality.

Studies have shown that 90% of error in thinking is due to error in perception. If you can change your perception, you can change your emotion and this can lead to new ideas.

A discussion should be a genuine attempt to explore a subject rather than a battle between competing egos.

Only the human brain can deliberately change perceptions, change patterns, invent concepts and tolerate ambiguity.

If you never change your mind, why have one?

The need to be right all the time is the biggest bar to new ideas.

To be successful you have to be lucky, or a little mad, or very talented, or find yourself in a rapid growth field.

Unhappiness is best defined as the difference between our talents and our expectations.