Edward de Bono Quotes - Page 6

Everywhere I go, I see very much the same thing. I see the same compassion for people who live half a world away. I see the same concern about events beyond these borders. And, increasingly, I see the same conviction that we can and we must join together to stop the scourge of AIDS and poverty.

Analysis is simplifying, breaking down things into parts, picking out strands and elements. Analysis is comparing unknown things with things that are known. Analysis also involves picking out relationships and putting them back together as a whole.

Lateral thinking is concerned not with playing with the existing pieces but with seeking to change those very pieces. It is concerned with the perception part of thinking. This is where we organise the external world into the pieces we can then 'process'.

America is an idea, but it's an idea that brings with it some baggage, like power brings responsibility. It's an idea that brings with it equality, but equality even though it's the highest calling, is the hardest to reach. The idea that anything is possible, that's one of the reasons why I'm a fan of America. It's like hey, look there's the moon up there, let's take a walk on it, bring back a piece of it. That's the kind of America that I'm a fan of.

One can think of a secretary actively operating a filing system, of a librarian actively cataloguing books, of a computer actively sorting out information. The mind however does not actively sort out information. The information sorts itself out and organises itself into patterns. The mind is passive. The mind only provides an opportunity for the information to behave in this way. The mind provides a special environment in which information can become self-organising. This special environment is a memory surface with special characteristics.

I know it aches, how your heart it breaks. You can only take so much. Walk on.

Creativity gives the possibility of some sort of achievement to everyone.

Some people are aware of another sort of thinking which... leads to those simple ideas that are obvious only after they have been thought of... the term 'lateral thinking' has been coined to describe this orther sort of thinking; 'vertical thinking' is used to denote the conventional logical process.

It's always amazed me how little attention philosophers, psychologists, or anyone else actually has paid to humor.

The purpose of art is to reflect new emerging values and to define the new heroes and heroines so that people can absorb them into their perceptions.

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.

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.

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.

Maybe the social value of truth is as a destination - so long as we do not assume we have arrived there.

The weapons of the positive revolution are not bullets and bombs but simple human perceptions. Bullets and bombs may offer physical power but eventually will only work if they change perceptions and values. Why not go the direct route and work with perceptions and values?

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.

This is not about charity, it's about justice... The war against terror is bound up in the war against poverty - I didn't say that, Colin Powell said that . . . In these disturbing and distressing times, surely it's cheaper, and smarter, to make friends out of potential enemies than it is to defend yourself against them..Justice is the surest way to get peace.

This is not about charity, it's about justice... The war against terror is bound up in the war against poverty - I didn't say that, Colin Powell said that . . .

Explaining belief has alwayas been difficult. How do you explain a love and a logic at the heart of the universe when the world is so out of whack? Explaining faith is impossible - vision over visibility - instinct over intellect - a songwriter plays a chore with the faith that he will hear the next one in his head.

It wouldn't cost too much to change the rules of trade so that poor countries can work their way out of poverty. But the world's leaders won't act unless they hear enough people telling them. And every day they fail to act, thousands of people die because they can't afford the basics of survival.

You hold onto religion, you know, rules, regulations, traditions. I think what God is interested in is people's hearts, and that's hard enough.

Our existing thinking habits are excellent, just as the rear wheels of a motor car are excellent, but not enough.

We do not make very full value of the opportunities provided by technology because we prefer critical to constructive thinking, argument to design.

With vertical thinking one may look for different approaches until one finds a promising one. With lateral thinking one goes on generating as many approaches as one can even after one has found a promising one. With vertical thinking one is trying to select the best approach but with lateral thinking one is generating different approaches for the sake of generating them.

In a sense, words are encyclopedias of ignorance because they freeze perceptions at one moment in history and then insist we continue to use these frozen perceptions when we should be doing better.