How to Win Friends and Influence People

‘I realised why I had failed for years to sell him,’ said Mr Wesson. ‘I had urged him to buy what I thought he ought to have. Then I changed my approach completely. I urged him to give me his ideas. This made him feel that he was creating the designs. And he was. I didn’t have to sell him. He bought.’

that they crave almost as much as they crave food.

This is the day of dramatisation. Merely stating a truth isn’t enough. The truth has to be made vivid, interesting, dramatic.

Even George Washington wanted to be called ‘His Mightiness, the President of the United States’; and Columbus pleaded for the title ‘Admiral of the Ocean and Viceroy of India’.

If our ancestors hadn’t had this flaming urge for a feeling of importance, civilisation would have been impossible. Without it, we should have been just about like animals.

RULE 13 Show a genuine interest in other people. All the effort in the world won’t matter if you’re not inspired. —Chuck Palahniuk Fear not those who argue but those who dodge.

So, as I have already said, Lincoln put the letter aside, for he had learnt by bitter experience that sharp criticisms and rebukes almost invariably end in futility.

So the only way on earth to influence other people is to talk about what they want and show them how to get it.

If you argue and rankle and contradict, you may achieve a victory sometimes; but it will be an empty victory because you will never get your opponent’s goodwill.