How to Win Friends & Influence People

It isn't what you have or who you are or where you are or what you are doing that makes you happy or unhappy. It is what you think about it.

Don't be afraid of enemies who attack you. Be afraid of the friends who flatter you.

You can make more friends in two months by becoming interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get other people interested in you.

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

When dealing with people, remember you are not dealing with creatures of logic, but with creatures bristling with prejudice and motivated by pride and vanity.

Talk to someone about themselves and they'll listen for hours.

Actions speak louder than words, and a smile says, 'I like you. You make me happy. I am glad to see you'.

Personally I am very fond of strawberries and cream, but I have found that for some strange reason, fish prefer worms. So when I went fishing, I didn’t think about what I wanted. I thought about what they wanted. I didn't bait the hook with strawberries and cream. Rather, I dangled a worm or grasshopper in front of the fish and said: "Wouldn't you like to have that?" Why not use the same common sense when fishing for people?

You can't win an argument. You can't because if you lose it, you lose it; and if you win it, you lose it [the other person will resent you].

Names are the sweetest and most important sound in any language.

To be interesting, be interested.

If You Want to Gather Honey, Don't Kick Over the Beehive

If some people are so hungry for a feeling of importance that they actually go insane to get it, imagine what miracle you and I can achieve by giving people honest appreciation this side of insanity.

By fighting you never get enough, but by yielding you get more than you expected.

Why talk about what we want? That is childish. Absurd. Of course, you are interested in what you want. You are eternally interested in it. But no one else is. The rest of us are just like you: we are interested in what we want.

A barber lathers a man before he shaves him.

Instead of condemning people, let’s try to understand them. Let’s try to figure out why they do what they do. That’s a lot more profitable and intriguing than criticism; and it breeds sympathy, tolerance and

Winning friends begins with friendliness.

Arouse in the other person an eager want. He who can do this has the whole world with him. He who cannot walks a lonely way.

Only knowledge that is used sticks in your mind.