Edward de Bono Quotes

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.

Many highly intelligent people are poor thinkers. Many people of average intelligence are skilled thinkers. The power of a car is separate from the way the car is driven.

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

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.

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.

A memory is what is left when something happens and does not completely unhappen.

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

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

The winner is the chef who takes the same ingredients as everyone else and produces the best results.

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

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

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

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

If you never change your mind, why have one?

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

(...) being right all the time acquires a huge importance in education, and there is this terror of being wrong. The ego is so tied to being right that later on in life you are reluctant to accept that you are ever wrong, because you are defending not the idea but your self-esteem. (...) this terror of being wrong means that people have enormous difficulties in changing ideas.

If you do not design the future, someone or something else will design it for you.

Argument is meant to reveal the truth, not to create it.

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.

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.

One very important aspect of motivation is the willingness to stop and to look at things that no one else has bothered to look at. This simple process of focusing on things that are normally taken for granted is a powerful source of creativity.

An expert is someone who has succeeded in making decisions and judgements simpler through knowing what to pay attention to and what to ignore.

We may need to solve problems not by removing the cause but by designing the way forward even if the cause remains in place.

The image that concerns most people is the reflection they see in other people's minds.

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'.

Dealing with complexity is an inefficient and unnecessary waste of time, attention and mental energy. There is never any justification for things being complex when they could be simple.

You can analyse the past, but you have to design the future

Creativity is a great motivator because it mades people interested in what they are doing.

An idea that is developed and put into action is more important than an idea that exists only as an idea.

It's not enough to rage against the lie.. you've got to replace it with the truth.

What the joke displays is a switch in perception. This is important in changing the way we think.

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

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.

Lateral thinking... is the process of using information to bring about creativity and insight restructuring. Lateral thinking can be learned, practised and used. It is possible to acquire skill in it just as it is possible to acquire skill in mathematics.

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

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.

The power of a car is separate from the way the car is driven.

You can't dig a different hole by digging the same one deeper.

Effectiveness without values is a tool without a purpose.

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

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

Language is the biggest barrier to human progress because language is an encyclopedia of ignorance. Old perceptions are frozen into language and force us to look at the world in an old fashioned way.

Sometimes the situation is only a problem because it is looked at in a certain subjective, negative, ungrateful way.

Western traditions of education have emphasized knowledge analysis, description and debate. They all have a part to play, but today there is a whole vast aspect of doing that has just been left out. Operacy is what keeps society going.

America is not just a country, it's an idea.

Traditional thinking is all about "what is" Future thinking will also need to be about what can be.

The simple process of focusing on things that are normally taken for granted is a powerful source of creativity.

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.

Opportunity ideas do not lie around waiting to be discovered. Such ideas need to be produced.

Mock the devil, and he will flee from thee.