Dr. Edward De Bono Quotes

Creativity makes life more fun and more interesting.

Complexity creates confusion, simplicity focus.

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

Creativity gives the possibility of some sort of achievement to everyone.

Creativity gives hope that there can be a worthwhile idea.

The quality of our thinking will determine the quality of our future

There is no doubt that creativity is the most important human resource of all.

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

A discussion should be a genuine attempt to explore a subject rather than a battle between competing egos.

We need both information and thinking. Information is no substitute for thinking and thinking is no substitute for information.

When the story of these times gets written, we want it to say that we did all we could, and it was more than anyone could have imagined.

Thinking is the ultimate human resource. Yet we can never be satisfied with our most important skill. No matter how good we become, we should always want to be better

Man owes his success to his creativity. No one doubts the need for it. It is most useful in good times and essential in bad.

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.

A good design is not a democratic consensus.

You cannot dig a hole in a different place by digging the same hole deeper

Possibilities play a much bigger role in thinking than most people believe. Without possibilities you cannot make progress.

Creativity can be learned like basketball, which does not mean we will all be NBA stars.

The purpose of art is to reflect new emerging values and to define the new heroes and heroines so that people can absorb them into their perceptions.

On trade, our hypocrisy is at its most appalling. Trade reform isn't about charity, it's about justice, and this campaign, Trade Justice is an unstoppable idea.

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.

Happiness is for those who don't really need it. So I can live without happiness.

Maybe the social value of truth is as a destination - so long as we do not assume we have arrived there.

This is not about charity, it's about justice... The war against terror is bound up in the war against poverty - I didn't say that, Colin Powell said that . . .

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.

It's always amazed me how little attention philosophers, psychologists, or anyone else actually has paid to humor.

What is urgent will always take precedence over what is important.

To develop thinking as a skill, it should be deliberate, focused, confident, and enjoyable.

To deal with future we have to deal with possibilities. Analysis will only tell us what is.

I'm tired of dreaming. I'm into doing at the moment. It's, like, let's only have goals that we can go after.

The analysis of data will not by itself produce new ideas.

A myth is a fixed way of looking at the world which cannot be destroyed because, looked at through the myth, all evidence supports the myth.

The purpose of science is not to analyze or describe but to make useful models of the world. A model is useful if it allows us to get use out of it.

The awful thing is that you can never be aware of what you are not aware of.

A question is a polite way of demanding something.

The concept of logical thinking is selection and this is brought about by the processes of acceptance and rejection. Rejection is the basis of logical thinking.

The solid wealth of insurance companies and the success of those who organsie gambling are some indication of the profits to be derived from the efficient use of chance.

In the art world, creativity involves aesthetic sensibility, emotional resonance and a gift for expression.

Although feelings are not supposed to intrude on business discussions, they do anyway - we just disguise them as logic.

The vertical thinker says: 'I know what I am looking for.' The lateral thinker says: 'I am looking but I won't know what I am looking for until I have found it.'

Complexity means distracted effort. Simplicity means focused effort.

Only the human brain can deliberately change perceptions, change patterns, invent concepts and tolerate ambiguity.

Don't criticise a hypothesis, come up with a better one.

Do we have the will to make poverty history?

We still seek to solve conflicts with 'judgement' instead of designing the way forwards.

The music that really turns me on is either running toward God or away from God. Both recognize the pivot, that God is at the center of the jaunt.

The Church has its problems, but the older I get, the more comfort I find there.

Once a new idea springs into existence, it cannot be unthought. There is a sense of immortality in a new idea.

Creativity and lateral thinking have exactly the same basis as humour.

It is historical continuity that maintains most assumptions, not repeated assessment of their validity.