A memory is what is left when something happens and does not completely unhappen.
– Edward de Bono
An expert is someone who has succeeded in making decisions and judgements simpler through knowing what to pay attention to and what to ignore.
– Edward de Bono
An idea that is developed and put into action is more important than an idea that exists only as an idea.
– Edward de Bono
Argument is meant to reveal the truth, not to create it.
– Edward de Bono
Creativity involves breaking out of established patterns in order to look at things in a different way.
– Edward de Bono
Creativity is a great motivator because it makes people interested in what they are doing. Creativity gives hope that there can be a worthwhile idea. Creativity gives the possibility of some sort of achievement to everyone. Creativity makes life more fun and more interesting.
– Edward de Bono
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.
– Edward de Bono
If you wait for opportunities to occur, you will be one of the crowd.
– Edward de Bono
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.
– Edward de Bono
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.
– Edward de Bono
It has always surprised me how little attention philosophers have paid to humor, since it is a more significant process of mind than reason. Reason can only sort out perceptions, but the humor process is involved in changing them.
– Edward de Bono
It is well known that problem avoidance is an important part of problem solving. Instead of solving the problem you go upstream and alter the system so that the problem does not occur in the first place.
– Edward de Bono
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.
– Edward de Bono
Most of the mistakes in thinking are inadequacies of perception rather than mistakes of logic.
– Edward de Bono
One very important aspect of motivation is the willingness to stop and to look at things that no one else has bothered to look at. This simple process of focusing on things that are normally taken for granted is a powerful source of creativity.
– Edward de Bono
Opportunity ideas do not lie around waiting to be discovered. Such ideas need to be produced.
– Edward de Bono
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.
– Edward de Bono
The need to be right all the time is the biggest bar to new ideas. It is better to have enough ideas for some of them to be wrong than to be always right by having no ideas at all.
– Edward de Bono
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.
– Edward de Bono
We need creativity in order to break free from the temporary structures that have been set up by a particular sequence of experience.
– Edward de Bono
Humor is by far the most significant activity of the human brain.
– Edward de Bono
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.
– Edward de Bono
Removing the faults in a stage-coach may produce a perfect stage-coach, but it is unlikely to produce the first motor car.
– Edward de Bono
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.