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Wisdom in a paragraph

September 25, 2012 by Leave a Comment

from the opening paragraph of Jim Collins’ best selling book, Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap… and Others Don’t.

“Good is the enemy of great. And that is one of the reasons that we have so little that becomes great.  We don’t have great schools, principally because we have good schools. We don’t have great government, principally because we have good government. Few people attain great lives, precisely because it is easy to settle for a good life. The vast majority of companies never become great precisely because they become quite good — and that is their main problem.”

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Wise quotes from eminent social scientists

August 9, 2012 by Leave a Comment

William James

  1. The faculty of voluntarily bringing back a wandering attention, over and over again, is the very root of judgment, character, and will.  No one is compos sui [master of himself] if he have it not.  An education which should improve this faculty would be the education par excellence. But it is easier to define this ideal than to give practical directions for bringing it about.
  2. Act as if what you do makes a difference. It does.
  3. The deepest principle in human nature is the craving to be appreciated.
  4. Nothing is so fatiguing as the eternal hanging on of an uncompleted task.
  5. Most people never run far enough on the first wind to find out they’ve got a second. Give your dreams all you’ve got, and you’ll be amazed at the energy that comes out of you.
  6. The greatest use of life is to spend it for something that will outlast it.

Erich Fromm

  1. To die is poignantly bitter, but the idea of having to die without having lived is unbearable.
  2. Man’s main task in life is to give birth to himself, to become what he potentially is.

Peter Drucker

  1. What gets measured gets managed.
  2. There is nothing so useless as doing efficiently that which should not be done.
  3. Management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things.

John Maynard Keynes

  1. When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?
  2. When the accumulation of wealth is no longer of high social importance, there will be great changes in the code of morals.
  3. The love of money as a possession…will be recognised for what it is, a somewhat disgusting morbidity.
  4. Most men love money and security more, and creation and construction less, as they get older.
  5. Words ought to be a little wild, for they are the assault of thoughts on the unthinking.
  6. Conservatism leads nowhere; it satisfies no ideal.
  7. Successful investing is anticipating the anticipations of others.
  8. Markets can remain irrational a lot longer than you and I can remain solvent.
  9. If farming were to be organised like the stock market, a farmer would sell his farm in the morning when it was raining, only to buy it back in the afternoon when the sun came out.

Margaret Mead

  1. What people say, what people do, and what they say they do are entirely different things.
  2. Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.

Albert Ellis

  1. There are three musts that hold us back: I must do well. You must treat me well. And the world must be easy.
  2. The best years of your life are the ones in which you decide your problems are your own. You do not blame them on your mother, the ecology, or the president. You realize that you control your own destiny.
  3. Acceptance is not love. You love a person because he or she has lovable traits, but you accept everybody just because they’re alive and human.
  4. By not caring too much about what people think, I’m able to think for myself and propagate ideas which are very often unpopular. And I succeed.
  5. I think the future of psychotherapy and psychology is in the school system. We need to teach every child how to rarely seriously disturb himself or herself and how to overcome disturbance when it occurs.
  6. Neurosis is just a high-class word for whining.
  7. The trouble with most therapy is that it helps you feel better. But you don’t get better. You have to back it up with action, action, action.

Ellen Langer

  1. Virtually all of life’s ills boil down to mindlessness. If you can understand someone else’s perspective, then there’s no reason to be angry at them, envy them, steal from them.
  2. Wherever you put the mind, the body will follow.
  3. Anticrastinator: Why get things done later when they can be done now?
  4. Rather than ask ‘How could that be?’ it makes just as much sense to ask ‘Why couldn’t it be so?’
  5. Certainty is a cruel mindset. It hardens our minds against possibility.
  6. What we have learned to look for in a situation determines mostly what we see.
  7. There is always a step small enough from where we are to get us to where we want to be. If we take that small step, there’s always another we can take, and eventually a goal thought to be too far to reach becomes achievable.
  8. No worry before its time.

Carol Dweck

  1. This is hard. This is fun.  (summing up growth mindset thinking)
  2. Test scores and measures of achievement tell you where a student is, but they don’t tell you where a student could end up.
  3. Important achievements require a clear focus, all-out effort, and a bottomless trunk full of strategies.
  4. Just because some people can do something with little or no training, it doesn’t mean that others can’t do it (and sometimes do it even better) with training.
  5. Wow, that’s a really good score. You must have worked really hard. (demonstrating praise, the growth-mindset way)
  6. A company that cannot self-correct cannot thrive.
  7. Choosing a partner is choosing a set of problems. There are no problem-free candidates. (paraphrasing Daniel Wile)
  8. The whole point of marriage is to encourage your partner’s development and have them encourage yours.
  9. Your failures and misfortunes don’t threaten other people. . .It’s your assets and your successes that are problems for people who derive their self-esteem from being superior.
  10. If parents want to give their children a gift, the best thing they can do is to teach their children to love challenges, be intrigued by mistakes, enjoy effort, and keep on learning.
  11. If you don’t give anything, don’t expect anything. Success is not coming to you, you must come to it. (quoting Marva Collins, amazing teacher)
  12. Teaching is a wonderful way to learn.
  13. You’re in charge of your mind. You can help it grow by using it in the right way.
  14. Effort is one of those things that gives meaning to life. Effort means you care about something, that something is important to you and you are willing to work for it.
  15. Vowing, even intense vowing, is often useless. The next day comes and the next day goes. What works is making a vivid, concrete plan. . .about when where, and how.
  16. What did you learn today? What mistake did you make that taught you something? What did you try hard at today?
  17. What can I learn from this [setback]? What will I do next time I’m in this situation? (on handling setbacks the growth mindset way)

Others

  1. Correlation is not causation.
    ~in any typical statistics book
  2. You don’t have to be interesting. You have to be interested. That’s how you have conversations.
    ~John Gottman
  3. It is easier to fight for one’s principles than to live up to them.
    ~Alfred Adler
  4. Don’t worry about the level of individual prominence you have achieved; worry about the individuals you have helped become better people.
    ~Clayton Christensen
  5. Human beings aren’t rational animals; we’re rationalizing animals who want to appear reasonable to ourselves.
    ~Elliot Aronson
  6. Temperament may constrain what can be, but it does not determine it.
    ~Jerome Kagan
  7. What man actually needs is not a tensionless state but rather the striving and struggling for a worthwhile goal, a freely chosen task.
    ~Viktor E. Frankl
Filed Under: career health, how to be a good social scientist academic, wise quotes from eminent social scientists Tagged With: , , ,

Good time management quotes

July 12, 2012 by Leave a Comment

Don’t waste now:

You can do so much in 10 minutes. Ten minutes, once gone, is gone for good.
Divide your life into 10-minute units and sacrifice as few of them as possible in meaningless activity.
~Ingvar Kamprad (founder of IKEA)

Get off your butt and do something. Lots of people have ideas, but few decide to do something about them now. Not tomorrow. Not next week. But today.
~Robert Browning

Soon is not as good as now.
~Seth Godin

Begin what you want to do now. We are not living in an eternity.
~M.B. Ray

Don’t leave for tomorrow what you can do today.
~Ben Franklin (up-dated)

Yesterday is a cancelled check.
Tomorrow is a promissory note.
Today is ready cash. Use it!
~Anon

Make time for planning:

Wars are won in the general’s tent.
~Stephen Covey

A prudent person foresees danger and takes precautions. The simpleton goes blindly on and suffers consequences.
Proverbs 27:12

You can achieve anything you want in life if you have the courage to dream it, the intelligence to make a realistic plan, and the will to see that plan through to the end.
Sidney A. Friedman

Vowing, even intense vowing, is often useless. The next day comes and the next day goes. What works is making a vivid, concrete plan. . .about when where, and how.
~Carol Dweck

In the absence of clearly-defined goals, we become strangely loyal to performing daily trivia until ultimately we become enslaved by it.
~Robert Heinlein

The first step to getting the things you want out of life is this: Decide what you want.
~Ben Stein

Pull the trigger–take action:

An ounce of action is worth a ton of theory.
~Ralph Waldo Emerson

You can’t build a reputation on what you’re going to do.
~Henry Ford

The way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing.
~Walt Disney

A thousand mile journey begins with one step. Start today.
~Unknown

We accomplish in proportion to what we attempt. Have a go!
~Unknown

The only true failure lies in the failure to start.
~Harold Blake Walker

There is always a step small enough from where we are to get us to where we want to be. If we take that small step, there’s always another we can take, and eventually a goal thought to be too far to reach becomes achievable. ~Ellen Langer

Every accomplishment starts with the decision to try.
~Unknown

There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.
~Maya Angelou

We should not be taught to wait for inspiration to start a thing. Action always generates inspiration. Inspiration seldom generates action.
~Frank Tibolt

A wise person does at once, what a fool does at last. Both do the same thing; only at different times.
~Baltasar Gracian

Many people have a good aim in life, but for some reason they never pull the trigger.
~Unknown

It had long since come to my attention that people of accomplishment rarely sat back and let things happen to them. They went out and happened to things.
~Leonardo da Vinci

Vision is not enough. It must be combined with venture. It is not enough to stare up the steps; we must also step up the stairs.
~Vaclac Havel

We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, therefore, is not an act but a habit.
~Aristotle

As I grow older I pay less attention to what men say. I just watch what they do.
~Andrew Carnegie

Action will destroy your procrastination.
~Og Mandino

Keep going:

Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.
~ Thomas Edison

It’s not that I’m so smart, it’s just that I stay with problems longer.
~Albert Einstein

No problem can withstand the assault of sustained thinking.
~Voltaire

Most of the important things in the world have been accomplished by people who have kept on trying when there seemed no hope at all.
~Dale Carnegie

History has demonstrated that the most notable winners usually encountered heart-breaking obstacles before they triumphed. They won because they refused to become discouraged by their defeats.
~B.C. Forbes

Check how things are turning out and correct mistakes:

However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results.
~Winston Churchill

Part of being a winner is knowing when enough is enough. Sometimes you have to give up the fight and walk away and move on to something that’s more productive.
~Donald Trump

What can I learn from this setback? What will I do next time?
~Carol Dweck

If you ask people to do things and they usually don’t get around to them, stop asking yourself, “What’s the matter with people these days?” Instead, ask yourself, “What’s the matter with me? What am I doing ( or failing to do) that causes  people to give me empty promises?”
~Edwin Bliss

Finish what you start:

Once you start something, finish it. Don’t accumulate a backlog of unfinished projects.
~Edwin Bliss

One worthwhile task carried to a successful conclusion is worth half-a-hundred half-finished tasks.
~Malcolm S. Forbes

Nothing is so fatiguing as the eternal hanging on of an uncompleted task.
~William James

We rate ability in men by what they finish, not by what they attempt.
~Unknown

Getting it done is my reward.
~Benjamin Franklin

The reward of a thing done well is to have done it.
~Ralph Waldo Emerson

It is astonishing how long it takes to finish something you are not working on.
~Unknown

It’s not important who starts the game but who finishes it.
~John Wooden

The world is cluttered up with unfinished business in the form of projects that might have been successful, if only at the tide point someone’s patience had turned to active impatience.
~Robert Updegraff

De-clutter your life:

If in doubt, throw it out.
~Anon


A place for everything, and everything in its place.
~Anon


A few fat files are better than a lot of thin ones.
~Edwin Bliss

Less, but better.
~Dieter Rams

Control regret and worry

Never let yesterday use up today.
~Richard H. Nelson

Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could … Tomorrow is a new day; begin it well and serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense.
~Ralph Waldo Emerson

No worry before its time.
~Ellen Langer

Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So. . .sail away from the safe harbor. Explore. Dream. Discover.
~Mark Twain

Don’t worry about failure. Worry about the chances you miss when you don’t even try.
~Sherman Finesilver

What we fear doing most is usually what we most need to do.
~Tim Ferriss

Don’t be too timid and squeamish about your actions. All life is an experiment.
~Ralph Waldo Emerson

Use tools and other people to help you:

No matter how expert you may be, well-designed checklists can improve outcomes.
~Steven Levitt

The shortest pencil is longer than the longest memory.
~Unknown

I not only use all the brains I have, but all that I can borrow.
~Woodrow Wilson

Spend your time wisely:

If you are too busy to exercise, you are too busy.
~Edwin Bliss

It is more important to do the right thing than to do things right.
~Peter Drucker

It’s better to do the right thing slowly than the wrong thing quickly.
~Peter Turla

Deciding what not to do is as important as deciding what to do.
~Steve Jobs

The greatest use of life is to spend it for something that will outlast it.
~William James

If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again. Then quit. There’s no point in being a damn fool about it.
~W. C. Fields

If you had to identify, in one word, the reason why the human race has not achieved, and never will achieve, its full potential, that word would be: “meetings.”
~Dave Barry

Take charge of your time:

Work expands to fill the time available for its completion.
~Parkinson’s Law

You will never “find” time for anything. If you want time, you must make it.
~Charles Bruxton

Don’t say you don’t have enough time. You have exactly the same number of hours per day that were given to Helen Keller, Pasteur, Michelangelo, Mother Teresa, Leonardo da Vinci, Thomas Jefferson, and Albert Einstein.
~H. Jackson Brown

Once you have mastered time, you will understand how true it is that most people overestimate what they can accomplish in a year – and underestimate what they can achieve in a decade!
~Anthony Robbins

Don’t be fooled by the calendar. There are only as many days in the year as you make use of. One man gets only a week’s value out of a year while another man gets a full year’s value out of a week.
~Charles Richards

Nothing is a waste of time if you use the experience wisely.
~Rodin

Perhaps the most valuable result of all education is the ability to make yourself do the thing you have to do when it ought to be done, whether you like it or not; it is the first lesson that ought to be learned; and however early a man’s training begins, it is probably the last lesson that he learns thoroughly.
~Thomas Huxley

Money, I can only gain or lose. But time I can only lose. So, I must spend it carefully.
~Anon

Some time-management truisms:

The first step to getting the things you want out of life is this: Decide what you want.
~Ben Stein

Of all the time-saving techniques ever developed, perhaps the most effective is the frequent use of the word no.
~Edwin Bliss

Nothing will work unless you do.
~John Wooden

We all have times when we think more effectively, and times when we should not be thinking at all.
~Daniel Cohen

It is surprising what a man can do when he has to, and how little most men will do when they don’t have to.
 ~ Walter Linn

Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life.
~ Confucius

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What are some wise quotes on how to improve my cognitive health?

March 8, 2012 by Leave a Comment

Be open-minded

  1. It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it. Aristotle
  2. The greatest lesson in life is to know that even fools are right sometimes. Winston Churchill
  3. Don’t worry about people stealing an idea. If it’s original, you will have to ram it down their throats. Howard Aiken
  4. The highest form of ignorance is when you reject something you don’t know anything about. Wayne Dyer
  5. The world in general doesn’t know what to make of originality; it is startled out of its comfortable habits of thought, and its first reaction is one of anger. W. Somerset Maugham
  6. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Finally, it is accepted as self-evident. Arthur Schopenhauer
  7. We should open ourselves to the impossible and embrace a psychology of possibility. Ellen Langer

Don’t be so certain you’re right

  1. Belief gets in the way of learning. Robert Heinlein
  2. Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect. Mark Twain
  3. The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts. Bertrand Russell
  4. It ain’t what you know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so. Mark Twain
  5. Certainty is a cruel mindset. It hardens our minds against possibility. Ellen Langer

Value learning

  1. Anyone who stops learning is old, whether at twenty or eighty. Anyone who keeps learning stays young. Henry Ford
  2. No matter how busy you may think you are, you must find time for reading, or surrender yourself to self-chosen ignorance. Confucius
  3. Learning without thought is labor lost; thought without learning is perilous. Confucius
  4. The man who does not read books has no advantage over the man that can not read them. Mark Twain
  5. I don’t divide the world into the weak and the strong, or the successes and the failures. . .I divide the world into the learners and the non-learners. Benjamin Barber
  6. Knowledge is proud she knows so much; wisdom is humble that she knows no more. William Cowper

Know when it’s time to change your mind

  1. Part of being a winner is knowing when enough is enough. Sometimes you have to give up the fight and walk away, and move on to something that’s more productive. Donald Trump
  2. Faced with the choice between changing one’s mind and proving that there is no need to do so, almost everyone gets busy on the proof. John Kenneth Galbraith
  3. The most successful businessman is the man who holds onto the old just as long as it is good, and grabs the new just as soon as it is better. Robert P. Vanderpoel
  4. When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir? John Maynard Keynes
  5. That which can be destroyed by the truth should be. P. C. Hodgell

Don’t fall for irrational thinking biases

  1. What we have learned to look for in a situation determines mostly what we see. Ellen Langer
  2. We don’t see things as they are. We see them as we are. Anais Nin
  3. That which we desire most earnestly we believe most easily. Unknown
  4. Change is hard because people over-estimate the value of what they have — and under-estimate the value of what they may gain by giving that up. James Belasco and Ralph Stayer
  5. After living with their dysfunctional behavior for so many years, people become invested in defending their dysfunctions rather than changing them.Marshall Goldsmith
  6. The first principle is that you must not fool yourself, and you are the easiest person to fool. Richard P.Feynman
  7. Correlation is not causation. Most statistics books

Learn from others—even when they’re criticizing you

  1. There are three methods to gaining wisdom. The first is reflection, which is the highest. The second is imitation, which is the easiest. The third is experience, which is the bitterest. Confucius
  2. Fools learn from experience. Wise men learn from the experience of others. Otto von Bismarck
  3. In criticizing, the teacher is hoping to teach. That’s all. Bankei
  4. He who wrestles with us, strengthens our nerves and sharpens our skills. Our antagonist is our helper. Edmund Burke
  5. We find comfort among those who agree with us, and growth among those who don’t. Frank A. Clark

Think differently—imagine what isn’t

  1. Knowing what is and knowing what can be are not the same thing. Ellen Langer
  2. Rather than ask ‘How could that be?’ it makes just as much sense to ask ‘Why couldn’t it be so?’ Ellen Langer
  3. The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge but imagination. Albert Einstein
  4. Some men see things as they are and say why–I dream things that never were and say why not. George Bernard Shaw
  5. Do your own thinking independently. Be the chess player, not the chess piece. Ralph Charell
  6. We need people who can dream of things that never were. John F. Kennedy
  7. Cherish your vision and your dreams as they are the children of your soul, the blueprints of your ultimate achievements. Napoleon Hill

Be courageous about thinking differently

  1. Before the beginning of brilliance, there must be great chaos. Before a brilliant person begins something great, they must look foolish in the crowd. from I Ching written by Fu His
  2. There has to be this pioneer, the individual with the courage, the ambition to overcome the obstacles that always develop when one tries to do something worthwhile that is new and different. Alfred P. Sloan
  3. It is not easy to be a pioneer — but oh, it is fascinating! I would not trade one moment, even the worst moment, for all the riches in the world. Elizabeth Blackwell
  4. Whoever starts out toward the unknown must consent to venture alone. Andre Gide
  5. Only he who attempts the absurd is capable of achieving the impossible. Miguel Unamuno

Use smart problem-solving strategies

  1. What are the facts? Shun wishful thinking, forget what the stars foretell, avoid opinion, care not what the neighbours think. You pilot always into an unknown future. Facts are your only clue. Robert Heinlein
  2. Deciding what not to do is as important as deciding what to do. Steve Jobs
  3. It’s not that I’m so smart, it’s just that I stay with problems longer. Albert Einstein
  4. Important achievements require a clear focus, all-out effort, and a bottomless trunk full of strategies. Carol Dweck
  5. If you can’t explain it to a six year old, you don’t understand it yourself. Albert Einstein
  6. To be able to ask a question clearly is two-thirds of the way to getting it answered. John Ruskin
  7. We all have times when we think more effectively, and times when we should not be thinking at all. Daniel Cohen
  8. The best way to have a good idea is to have lots of ideas. Linus Pauling
  9. Whoever best describes a problem is the one most likely to solve it. Dan Roam
  10. I not only use all the brains I have, but all that I can borrow. Woodrow Wilson
  11. No problem can withstand the assault of sustained thinking. Voltaire
  12. Take calculated risks. That’s quite different from being rash. George S. Patton
  13. How do I know what I think until I hear what I say? E. M. Forster
  14. Progress isn’t made by early risers. It’s made by lazy men trying to find easier ways to do something. Robert Heinlein
  15. The measure of success is not whether you have a tough problem to deal with, but whether it’s the same problem you had last year. John Foster Dulles

Recognize learning is possible

  1. Just because some people can do something with little or no training, it doesn’t mean that others can’t do it (and sometimes do it even better) with training. Carol Dweck
  2. Ask ‘How will they learn best?’ not ‘Can they learn?’ Jaime Escalante (acclaimed teacher)
  3. What any person in the world can learn, almost all persons can learn, if provided with the appropriate prior and current conditions of learning. Benjamin Bloom

Use smart learning habits

  1. What gets measured gets managed. Peter Drucker
  2. However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results. Winston Churchill
  3. No matter how expert you may be, well-designed checklists can improve outcomes. Steven Levitt
  4. The shortest pencil is longer than the longest memory. Unknown
  5. What did you learn today? What mistake did you make that taught you something? What did you try hard at today? Carol Dweck
  6. What can I learn from this [setback]? What will I do next time I’m in this situation? Carol Dweck
  7. Teaching is a wonderful way to learn. Carol Dweck
  8. You’re in charge of your mind. You can help it grow by using it in the right way. Carol Dweck
  9. When one teaches, two learn. Robert Heinlein
  10. To learn and not to do is really not to learn. To know and not do is really not to know. Stephen Covey
  11. You can tell whether a man is clever by his answers. You can tell whether a man is wise by his questions. Naguib Mahfouz

Practice a healthy lifestyle

  1. What’s good for our heart is good for our brain. Well-known medical saying
  2. The brain is the “use it or lose it” organ. Frank Longo
Filed Under: cognitive, quotes to inspire cognitive health Tagged With: , ,

Ironic, paradoxical, quirky quotes to make you think

January 24, 2012 by Leave a Comment
  1. Be quick, but don’t hurry. ~ John Wooden
  2. The team that makes the most mistakes usually wins. ~ Piggy Lambert ,one-time Purdue Basketball coach
  3. Whether you think you can or think you can’t, you’re right. ~ Henry Ford
  4. Would you like me to give you a formula for success? It’s quite simple, really. Double your rate of failure. ~ Thomas Watson
  5. Discipline is just choosing between what you want now and what you want most. ~ Unknown
  6. The only way to have a friend is to be one. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
  7. A friend is a present you give yourself. ~ Robert Louis Stevenson
  8. It is easier to fight for one’s principles than to live up to them. ~ Alfred Adler
  9. Nothing too much. ~ inscription at temple of Delphi
  10. Arguing with a fool proves there are two. ~ Doris M. Smith
  11. Nobody can hurt me without my permission.~ Mohandas Gandhi
  12. You don’t have to be interesting. You have to be interested. ~ John Gottman
  13. Anyone can sympathize with the sufferings of a friend, but it requires a very fine nature to sympathize with a friend’s success. ~ Oscar Wilde
  14. A true friend overlooks your failures and tolerates your success! ~ Doug Larson
  15. The shortest pencil is longer than the longest memory. ~ Unknown
  16. To the man with a hammer, every problem tends to look pretty much like a nail. ~ Unknown
  17. I’m not upset that you lied to me, I’m upset that from now on I can’t believe you. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche
  18. Success in marriage does not come merely through finding the right mate, but through being the right mate. ~Barnett R. Brickner
  19. Knowing what is and knowing what can be are not the same thing. ~ Ellen Langer
  20. Certainty is a cruel mindset. ~ Ellen Langer
  21. What we have learned to look for in a situation determines mostly what we see. ~ Ellen Langer
  22. That which we desire most earnestly we believe most easily. ~ Unknown
  23. What you get by reaching your destination is not nearly as important as what you will become by reaching your destination. ~ Unknown
  24. We tend to get what we expect. ~ Norman Vincent Peale
  25. Everybody dies, but not everybody lives. ~ A Sachs
  26. To be angry is to let others’ mistakes punish yourself. ~ Master Cheng Yen
  27. Memory is the residue of thought. ~ Daniel Willingham
  28. It takes 20 years to make an overnight success. ~ Eddie Cantor
  29. Gentlemen, I take it we are all in complete agreement on the decision here…Then I propose we postpone further discussion. . .to give ourselves time to develop disagreement. ~ Alfred Sloan
  30. To understand all is to forgive all. ~ French saying.
  31. Honest criticism is hard to take, particularly from a relative, a friend, an acquaintance, or a stranger. ~ Franklin P. Jones
  32. Success in marriage does not come merely through finding the right mate, but through being the right mate. ~ Barnett R. Brickner
  33. Ideas that spread win. ~ Seth Godin
  34. I wish to have as my epitaph: ‘Here lies a man who was wise enough to bring into his service men who knew more than he.’ ~ Andrew Carnegie
  35. Try not to become a man of success, but rather to become a man of value. He is considered successful in our day who gets more out of life than he puts in. But a man of value will give more than he receives. ~ Albert Einstein
  36. The only way to have a friend is to be one. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
  37. I love you not because of who you are, but because of who I am when I am with you. ~ Roy Croft
  38. Every exit is an entry somewhere. ~ Tom Stoppard
  39. When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be. ~ Lao-Tzu
  40. The reward of a thing done well is to have done it. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
  41. It is astonishing how long it takes to finish something you are not working on. ~ Unknown
  42. It is surprising what a man can do when he has to, and how little most men will do when they don’t have to. ~ Walter Linn
  43. Don’t worry about people stealing an idea. If it’s original, you will have to ram it down their throats. ~ Howard Aiken
  44. How do I know what I think until I hear what I say? ~ E. M. Forster
  45. The best way to have a good idea is to have lots of ideas. ~ Linus Pauling
  46. Only he who attempts the absurd is capable of achieving the impossible. ~ Miguel Unamuno
  47. Don’t handicap your children by making their lives easy. ~ Robert Heinlein
  48. One man’s theology is another man’s belly laugh. ~ Robert Heinlein
  49. Progress isn’t made by early risers. It’s made by lazy men trying to find easier ways to do something. ~ Robert Heinlein
  50. When one teaches, two learn. ~ Robert Heinlein
  51. Belief gets in the way of learning. ~ Robert Heinlein
  52. What people say, what people do, and what they say they do are entirely different things. ~ Margaret Mead
  53. It ain’t what you know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so. ~ Mark Twain
  54. Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man’s character, give him power. ~ Abraham Lincoln
  55. The measure of success is not whether you have a tough problem to deal with, but whether it’s the same problem you had last year. ~ John Foster Dulles
  56. There is nothing so useless as doing efficiently that which should not be done. ~ Peter Drucker
  57. Management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things. ~ Peter Drucker
  58. We find comfort among those who agree with us, and growth among those who don’t. ~ Frank A. Clark
  59. Life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forward. ~ Soren Kierkegaard
  60. The one who loves least controls the relationship. ~ Unknown
  61. Life is not one thing after another. It’s the same damn thing over and over! ~ Unknown
  62. The liar’s punishment is not in the least that he is not believed, but that he cannot believe anyone else. ~ George Bernard Shaw
  63. This too shall pass. ~ Persian proverb
  64. The miracle is not to walk on water. The miracle is to walk on the green earth, dwelling deeply in the present moment and feeling truly alive. ~ Thich Nhat Hanh
  65. Whenever an individual or business decides that success has been attained, progress stops. ~ Thomas J. Watson
  66. We don’t see things as they are. We see them as we are. ~ Anais Nin
  67. Whoever best describes a problem is the one most likely to solve it. ~ Dan Roam
  68. What gets measured gets managed. ~ Peter Drucker
  69. By working faithfully eight hours a day, you may eventually get to be boss and work twelve hours a day.~ Robert Frost
  70. The greatest mistake you can make in life is to be continually fearing you will make a mistake. ~ Elbert Hubbard
  71. The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts. ~ Bertrand Russell
  72. Knowledge is proud she knows so much; wisdom is humble that she knows no more. ~ William Cowper
  73. Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you did not do than by the ones you did. ~ Mark Twain
  74. The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man. ~ George Bernard Shaw
  75. I am an old man and have known a great many troubles, but most of them never happened. ~ Mark Twain
  76. The first principle is that you must not fool yourself, and you are the easiest person to fool. ~ Richard P.Feynman
  77. The problem human beings face is not that we aim too high and fail, but that we aim too low and succeed. ~ Michelangelo
  78. Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect. ~ Mark Twain
Filed Under: ironic paradoxicial quirky quotes, thought-provoking stuff, toolbox Tagged With: , , , ,

How can I persuade someone to do what I want?

May 4, 2011 by Leave a Comment

 

Answer 1: Follow the advice of the wise — they probably know something!

 

Read these persuasion quotes from the wisdom through the ages for some useful ideas:

1.  Model the behaviour you’re asking the other person to do. In other words, walk the talk! 

  1. A thousand words will not leave as deep an impression as one deed. (Henrik Ibsen)
  2. Example is not the main thing in influencing others. It is the only thing. (Albert Schweitzer)
  3. Act as if what you do makes a difference. It does. (William James)
  4. A leader leads by example, whether he intends to or not. (Unknown)
  5. A leader is one who knows the way, goes the way, and shows the way. (John C. Maxwell)
  6. Your children will see what you’re all about by how you live rather than what you say. (Wayne Dyer)

2.   Expect to have to show patience and to have to try more than once to get your idea accepted.

  1.  You may have to fight a battle more than once to win it. (Margaret Thatcher)
  2. Good ideas are not adopted automatically. They must be driven into practice with courageous patience. (Hyman Rickover)

3.  Appeal to the person’s emotions, not just to their intellect:

  1. When dealing with people, remember you’re not dealing with creatures of logic. You’re dealing with creatures of emotion, creatures bristling with prejudices and motivated by pride and vanity. (Dale Carnegie)
  2. Those that will not hear must be made to feel. (German Proverb)
  3. The real persuaders are our appetites, our fears and above all our vanity. The skillful propagandist stirs and coaches these internal persuaders.(Eric Hoffer)

4. Provide a convincing answer to their unspoken question: “What’s in it for me?” 

  1. If you would persuade, you must appeal to interest rather than intellect. (Benjamin Franklin)
  2. Never appeal to a man’s “better nature”. He may not have one. Invoking his self-interest gives you more leverage. (Robert Heinlein)

5. Before trying to convince the other person that this idea is good,  convince yourself first. 

  1. Let one who wants to move and convince others, first be convinced and moved themselves. If a person speaks with genuine earnestness the thoughts, the emotion and the actual condition of their own heart, others will listen because we all are knit together by the tie of sympathy. (Thomas Carlyle)
  2. That which we do not believe, we cannot adequately say; even though we may repeat the words ever so often. Ralph Waldo Emerson
  3. Before you try to convince anyone else, be sure you are convinced, and if you cannot convince yourself, drop the subject.   (John H. Patterson)

6. Make your message interesting. 

  1. The truth isn’t the truth until people believe you, and they can’t believe you if they don’t know what your saying, and they can’t know what you’ve saying if they don’t listen to you, and they won’t listen to you if you’re not interesting, and you won’t be interesting until you say things imaginatively, originally, freshly. (William Bernbach)
  2. If you can’t get people to listen to you any other way, tell them it’s confidential. (Unknown)

7. Don’t just tell them what to do, teach them how to do it. 

  1. To convert somebody go and take them by the hand and guide them. (Saint Thomas Aquinas)

8. Carefully help them to discover they want to do this without your having to tell them. 

  1. People are usually more convinced by reasons they discovered themselves than by those found out by others. (Blaise Pascal)

9.  Be friendly – make them like you.

  1. If you wish to win a man over to your ideas, first make him your friend. (Abraham Lincoln)
Filed Under: being influential/persuasive, communication Tagged With: , , ,