Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain — and most fools do. But it takes character and self-control to be understanding and forgiving.

PRINCIPLE 6 Praise the slightest improvement and praise every improvement. Be “hearty in your approbation and lavish in your praise.”

PRINCIPLE 12 Throw down a challenge.

PRINCIPLE 9 Be sympathetic with the other person’s ideas and desires.

Alfred Adler, the famous Viennese psychologist, wrote a book entitled What Life Should Mean to You. In that book he says: “It is the individual who is not interested in his fellow men who has the greatest difficulties in life and provides the greatest injury to others. It is from among such individuals that all human failures spring.”

PRINCIPLE 6 Let the other person do a great deal of the talking.

I shall pass this way but once; any good, therefore, that I can do or any kindness that I can show to any human being, let me do it now. Let me not defer nor neglect it, for I shall not pass this way again. Emerson said: “Every man I meet is my superior in some way. In that, I learn of him.”

PRINCIPLE 5 Talk in terms of the other person’s interests.

If we are so contemptibly selfish that we can’t radiate a little happiness and pass on a bit of honest appreciation without trying to get something out of the other person in return — if our souls are no bigger than sour crab apples, we shall meet with the failure we so richly deserve.