Dale Carnegie Quotes

My optimism and confidence come not from feeling I'm luckier than other mortals, and they sure don't come from visualizing victory. They're the result of a lifetime spent visualizing defeat and figuring out how to prevent it. Like most astronauts, I'm pretty sure that I can deal with what life throws at me because I've thought about what to do if things go wrong, as well as right. That's the power of negative thinking.

I highly recommend inviting the worst-case scenario into your life.

We're hoping for the best, but we need to prepare for the worst.

I do a lot of lectures on survival. I always say you can't change what happened, so have a little wallow, feel very sorry for yourself, and then get up and move forward. You can't change what happened.

Acceptance doesn't mean resignation; it means understanding that something is what it is and that there's got to be a way through it.

Bad things happen. Cope!

You can learn to prevent a storm, or you can learn to ride the storm. If you learn to ride the storm, the storm is not a problem anymore.

When you can look at failure and say, 'What is the worst case scenario,' it's not as bad as it seems.

When things don't go your way, it bites you from within, and you have to find a way to get out of it.

What you're supposed to do when you don't like a thing is change it. If you can't change it, change the way you think about it. Don't complain.

If a problem can be solved it will be. If it can not be solved there is no use worrying about it.

Plan for the worst, expect the best.

I learned, when hit by loss, to ask the right question: "What next?" instead of "Why me?" . . . Whenever I am willing to ask "What is necessary next?" I have moved ahead. Whenever I have taken no for a final answer I have stalled and gotten stuck.

What to do if you find yourself stuck in a crack in the ground underneath a giant boulder you can't move, with no hope of rescue. Consider how lucky you are that life has been good to you so far. Alternatively, if life hasn't been good to you so far, which given your current circumstances seems more likely, consider how lucky you are that it won't be troubling you much longer.

What kind of world is this? And what do you do about it? What do you do when the worst thing that can happen actually happens?

The sooner we realize that the world has changed, the sooner we can accept it and make something of what we've got. Whining isn't a scalable solution.

I don't have any problems in life, just situations.

All of us suffer difficulties in our lives. And if you say to yourself 'find a way,' you'll make it through.

I don't worry about the things I can't change.

I always tried to turn every disaster into an opportunity.

When things go wrong or don't turn out the way you pictured them in your head, you just have to go with the best intentions defense. I have a lot of good intentions.

I was terrified the first time that I had a big problem in my business. I was obviously terrified when they diagnosed me with cancer in 1994. I was terrified when my son used to drive too fast. But I do believe in the fact that fear is not an option, so I always try to face it and not be afraid.

Because if you're prepared and you know what it takes, it's not a risk. You just have to figure out how to get there. There is always a way to get there.

Making the best of things is... a damn poor way of dealing with them. My whole life has been a series of escapes from that quicksand.

Sometimes you have got to look at things really positively - without putting your head in the sand, you have got to manage the negatives and keep putting a positive slant on it, keep trying to find answers.