Edward de Bono Quotes

I often try to think about, What sounds like a bad idea, but if you find the right plan of attack, it's actually a really good idea? I spend a lot of time really trying to systematically tackle problems from different angles.

Creativity is bound up in our ability to find new ways around old problems.

You have to think outside the box.

Great leaders and great organizations are good at seeing what most of us can’t see. They are good at giving us things we would never think of asking for.

It is especially important to encourage unorthodox thinking when the situation is critical

If you are going to try and change things, you had better have your wits about you.

Everything hangs on one's thinking.

If general perception changes from seeing the glass as 'half-full' to seeing it as 'half empty' there are major innovative opportunities.

Lateral thinking... is the process of using information to bring about creativity and insight restructuring. Lateral thinking can be learned, practised and used. It is possible to acquire skill in it just as it is possible to acquire skill in mathematics.

Some people are aware of another sort of thinking which... leads to those simple ideas that are obvious only after they have been thought of... the term 'lateral thinking' has been coined to describe this orther sort of thinking; 'vertical thinking' is used to denote the conventional logical process.

The world has improved mostly because unorthodox people did unorthodox things. Not surprisingly, they had the courage and daring to think they could make a difference.

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

The difficulty lies, not in the new ideas, but in escaping from the old ones.

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

You can think of creativity as applied imagination.

Every time you show something to somebody they're going in one direction, when they see that thing you did they're going to go off track - maybe towards a direction that you think is more important. They'll be more discerning, they'll probably see things a little bit more profoundly, they'll spend more time trying to understand what's in front of them.

If everyone has to think outside the box, maybe it is the box that needs fixing.

Yet I have come to believe that while the past is unchangeable, our perceptions of is are malleable.

People don't just get upset. They contribute to their upsetness. They always have the power to think, and to think about their thinking, and to think about thinking about their thinking, which the goddamn dolphin, as far as we know, can't do. Therefore they have much greater ability to change themselves than any other animal has, and I hope that REBT teaches them how to do it.

I've got so much in my brain and I want to change the way we think sometimes.

What merit there is in my thinking is derived from two peculiarities: (1) My inability to be familiar with anything. I simply can't take things for granted. (2) My endless patience. I assume that the only way to find an answer is to hang on long enough and keep groping.

We continue to think of new things in old ways.

Creativity exists in the present moment. You can't find it anywhere else.

To work is to undertake to think something other than what one has thought before

The lack of predictability with television is something that's constantly changing what your perception of who you think your character is.