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Each quote is by Edward de Bono and needs to be accredited to him.

• "You can analyse the past but you have to design the future."
• "Thinking is a skill that can be taught. Unless we teach thinking we waste over fifty per cent of the talent available in society."
• “The quality of our thinking will determine the quality of our future”
• " Like the front left wheel of a car, our traditional thinking is excellent - but inadequate."
• "Thinking is far too often concerned with the judgement of "what is" rather than the design of "what can be."
• "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."
• "Some people drift along like a cork on a river, feeling that they cannot do anything except drift, moment to moment. This is an attitude of mind. Everyone can be constructive even in tiny ways."
• "Humour is by far the most significant activity of the human brain."
• "If you never change your mind, why have one?"
• "Perception is real even when it is not reality"
• "If you do not design your own future, someone else will do it for you"
• "In winning an argument you gain nothing, in losing you gain another point of view"
• "A good idea never excludes a better one"
• "Intelligence is like the horse-power of a car - thinking is the skill with which the car is driven"
• "You do not use the reverse gear all the time but when you need it you really do. It's the same with creativity"
• "If you learn the successes of the past you risk being trapped by them"
• "Possibility is to progress as hunger is to cooking"
• "Everyone behaves logically within a personal bubble of perception, values and experience"
• "Arrogance is the real system sin because it cuts the system off from reaction and reality"
• "With a provocation there may not be a reason for saying something until after it is said"
• ""I think therefore I am" I do, therefore I matter"
• "Logic will not change emotions but perception will"
• "Once an idea has been thought, it cannot be unthought"
• "All valued creative ideas are logical in hindsight"
• "The excellence of the brain is that it makes stable patterns for dealing with a stable universe"
• "Information has a value only if you have a frame to which to view it"
• "Design is the putting together of known ingredients to create new value"
• "Every negotiating meeting should be preceeded by a design meeting"
• "If you never change your mind - why have one?"
• "You can never be insulted if you never feel insulted"
• "You should always make a point of finding more than you were seeking"
• "Cleverness is like a sharp focus lens. Wisdom is a wide angle lens."
• "Our thinking consists of recognizing standard situations, and then providing the standard answer"
• "Without value sensitivity you will not recognize a good idea even if you have created it yourself"
• "A question is only a way of directing attention"
• "You cannot improve your decision making by being"
• "You should always make a point of finding more than you were seeking."
• "Cleverness is like a sharp focus lens, wisdom is a wide angle lens."
• "Our thinking consists of recognizing standard situations and then providing the standard answer."
• "Without value sensitivity you will not recognize a good idea even if you have created it yourself."
• "A question is only a way of directing attention."
• "You cannot improve your decision making by being unable to create options"
• "Proof is often no more than lack of imagination."
• "Most organizations are run on the basis of maintenance and problem solving"
• "When you cannot remove the cause of a problem you may have to design a way forward."
• "Adjectives tell you more about the observer than about what is being observed."
• "There are different ways of feeling right and most of them are wrong."
• "If you do not know where you are going you may have made a wrong choice of starting point"
• "To reach the top of a mountain it is not enough to have an intention; you need to learn some climbing techniques"
• "Being different for the sake of being different is to creativity as noise is to music"
• "Other people’s opinions are no more random than your own: they are based on something."
• "A proto truth is a truth you hold to be true so long as you are trying to change it."
• "There is retardant doubt and propellant doubt"
• "Possibilities supply the hypotheses in science and the visions in technology."
• "When you cannot find the cause or cannot remove it, you have to design a way forward to solve the problem."
• "We are expert at identifying “What is” but novices at designing “what can be.”"
• "With movement you do not judge whether something is right or wrong, you move forward to new ideas."
• "Once thought a thought cannot be unthought."
• "Happiness is the difference between our expectations and our abilities."
• "The purpose of thinking is to so arrange the world that we can enjoy our values."
• "Criticism is easy because you can always choose something different and then complain about the difference."
• "The human race has not really started ‘Thinking’ yet."
• "Discovering the truth is important, but so is creating value."
• "You can maximize on the past but not on the future."
• "In the end all decisions are emotional"
• "Aesthetics is a choreography of attention."
• "Democracy works by substituting acceptable ideas for better ideas."
• "Defending or attacking cases is hardly the best way to explore a subject."
• "Philosophy is a game about words played with words."
• "Complexity is always a failure in simplicity."
• "Most organizations operate on the basis of continuity and problem solving."
• "There is simplicity before understanding and there is simplicity after understanding."
• "The only virtue of novelty is that it deserves attention."
• "If you reward creative results you will not get creative effort. If you reward effort you will get results."
• "In a two horse race, one horse comes in last and the other before the last."
• "You can seek to shade behaviour by guilt or gilt."
• "Never trust a clever man who shows no wisdom."
• "The main purpose of bureaucracy is to sustain bureaucracy."
• "A good new idea is good because it is good not because it is new."
• "If you have nothing to say you can never tell when you have said enough."
• "Strong emotions make us hostage to whatever arouses those emotions."
• "A mistake is most useful when you avoid it the next time."
• "Competition means running in the same race. With surpetition you create your own race with a value monopoloy."
• "In a race you can come in second, yet you can be last."
• "Logic will never change emotions but perception will."
• "Logic is only a game played in a particular universe."
• "When we analyse and judge we are thinking backwards, when we design values we are thinking forward."
• "Design is to the future as analysis is to the past."
• "An hypothesis seeks to discover the truth, a protothesis seeks to design a value."
• "Universities sterilize most of the good minds in society."
• "Language is anencyclopaedia of ignorance which forces us to look at the world in an old-fashioned way."
• "Language is possibly the biggest barrier to human progress."
• "Arrogance is the basic system sin because it cuts off all communication."
• "A wine glass is half-empty or half-full – or it is too big."
• "Any system with an input spread over time and the need to optimize periodically is always sub-optimal."
• "Because we have been trained to solve problems, we cannot think when there are no problems."
• "The more successful you are at defending your point of view, the less likely are you to make progress."
• "There is nothing more wasted than a brilliant mind locked into an idea it can defend"
• "If your idea needs support from a peer group, you are unlikely to have breakthrough ideas."
• "The most reasonable hypothesis is not enough. We need other hypothesis in order to see the evidence differently."
• "The creativity of children comes from ignorance, innocence and the enjoyment of new ideas."
• "If you adapt too well, you change too little."
• "Certainty is the enemy of possibility and so the enemy of change."
• "You need to be ahead of your information not behind it."
• "To know what you know is arrogance. To know what you don’t know is wisdom."
• "Criticism is too often the only talent of those who have no other talent."
• "The effectiveness of communication is determined by the receiver not the sender."
• "The purpose of thinking is to abolish thinking and to turn everything into routine."
• "Do you want to do better what you are doing – or to do better things."
• "If most of life was not routine we would never have time for what is not routine."
• "The prime purpose of perception is not to be objective but to trigger a pattern available in our repertoire."
• "Creativity is the vitamin that is needed for good thinking."
• "Recognition is looking backwards. Design is moving forward."
• "Truth is to analysis what value is to design"
• "Creativity only produces choices, it is judgement that produces mistakes."
• "If advertising was really effective we might have to make it illegal."
• "The purpose of thinking is to so arrange the world that we can enjoy and deliver our values."