Dale Carnegie
Dale Carnegie
Dale Harbison Carnegiewas an American writer and lecturer and the developer of famous courses in self-improvement, salesmanship, corporate training, public speaking, and interpersonal skills. Born into poverty on a farm in Missouri, he was the author of How to Win Friends and Influence People, a bestseller that remains popular today. He also wrote How to Stop Worrying and Start Living, Lincoln the Unknown, and several other books...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionEntrepreneur
Date of Birth24 November 1888
CityMaryville, MO
CountryUnited States of America
Remember my name and you add to my feeling of importance.
You are merely not feeling equal to the tasks before you.
It never hurts a fool to appear before an audience, for his capacity is not a capacity for feeling.
If you tell me how you get your feeling of importance, I'll tell you what you are.
Obviously, circumstances alone do not make us happy or unhappy. It is the way we react to circumstances that determines our feelings. Jesus said that the kingdom of heaven is within you. That is where the kingdom of hell is, too.
Any fool can try to defend his or her mistakes- and most fools do- but it raises one above the herd and gives one a feeling of nobility and exultation to admit one's mistakes.
One of the surest ways of making a friend and influencing the opinion of another is to give consideration to his opinion, to let him sustain his feeling of importance.
It is the way we react to circumstances that determines our feelings.
Feeling sorry for yourself, and you present condition, is not only a waste of energy but the worst habit you could possibly have.
One of the most appalling comments on our present way of life is that half of all the beds in our hospitals are reserved for patients with nervous and mental troubles, patients who have collapsed under the crushing burden of accumulated yesterdays and fearful tomorrows. Yet a vast majority of those people would be walking the streets today, leading happy, useful lives, if they had only heeded the words of Jesus: Have no anxiety about the morrow; or the words of Sir William Osler; Live in day-tight compartments.
The chronic kicker, even the most violent critic, will frequently soften and be subdued in the presence of a patient, sympathetic listener— a listener who will be silent while the irate fault-finder dilates like a king cobra and spews the poison out of his system.
Suppose you had inherited the same body and temperament and mind that Al Capone had. Suppose you had had his environment and experiences. You would then be precisely what he was. . . . For it is those things - and only those things - that made him what he was. . . . You deserve very little credit for being what you are - and remember, the people who come to you irritated, bigoted, unreasoning, deserve very little discredit for being what they are.
When Theodore Roosevelt was in the White House, he confessed that if he could be right 75 percent of the time, he would reach the highest measure of his expectation. . . . If that was the highest rating that one of the most distinguished men of the twentieth century could hope to obtain, what about you and me?
My popularity, my happiness and sense of worth depend to no small extent upon my skill in dealing with people.