Edward de Bono

“People should realize we're jerks just like them.”

“If you never change your mind, why have one?”

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

“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.”

“In the future, instead of striving to be right at a high cost, it will be more appropriate to be flexible and plural at a lower cost. If you cannot accurately predict the future then you must flexibly be prepared to deal with various possible futures.”

“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.”

“In a sense, words are encyclopedias of ignorance because they freeze perceptions at one moment in history and then insist we continue to use these frozen perceptions when we should be doing better.”

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

“Critical thinking does seem a superior sort of thinking because it seems as though the critic is actually going beyond the scope of what is being criticized in order to criticize it. That is only rarely a true assumption because, most often, the critic will seize on some little aspect that he or she understands and tackle only that.”

“We need creativity in order to break free from the temporary structures that have been set up by a particular sequence of experience.”

“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.”

“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.”

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

“I think there is a danger with young people of being dependent in the sense that they don't acquire any identity or self-image of themselves as thinkers.”

“Creative thinking - in terms of idea creativity - is not a mystical talent. It is a skill that can be practised and nurtured.”

“To be successful you have to be lucky, or a little mad, or very talented, or find yourself in a rapid growth field.”

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

“Humor is probably the most significant characteristics of the human mind. Far more significant than reason. In fact, reason is actually a very cheap commodity.”

“Most executives, many scientists, and almost all business school graduates believe that if you analyze data, this will give you new ideas. Unfortunately, this belief is totally wrong. The mind can only see what it is prepared to see.”

“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.”