Lateral Thinking Edward De Bono Quotes

Everyone has the right to doubt everything as often as he pleases and the duty to do it at least once. No way of looking at things is too sacred to be reconsidered. No way of doing things is beyond improvement.

To cultivate a pleasure in being wrong sounds perverse, yet losing an argument means escaping from an old idea and the acquisition of a new way of looking at things.

A problem is simply the difference between what one has and what one wants.

That wasn't a mistake, was ‘a fully justified venture which, for reasons beyond your control, did not work

почти всичко може да бъде допълнително опростено.

No amount of excellence on the part of a computer can lead to the solution of a problem if the problem has been incorrectly defined by the programmer. In

In an atomic pile an explosion is prevented by inserting rods of cadmium, which mop up the particles that are shooting around. In this way the energy in the pile is controlled. If there are too many rods, the chain reaction stops and the pile can no longer produce any energy. People who are unable to appreciate new ideas are like the rods: some of them are necessary to prevent a destructive explosion, but too many make it impossible for the pile to produce any energy.

A landscape is a memory surface. The contours of the surface offer an accumulated memory trace of the water that has fallen upon it. The rainfall forms little rivulets which combine into streams and then into rivers. Once the pattern of drainage has been formed then it tends to become ever more permanent since the rain is collected into the drainage channels and tends to make them deeper. It is the rainfall that is doing the sculpting and yet it is the response of the surface to the rainfall that is organizing how the rainfall will do its sculpting.

This book is intended for use both at home and at school. At school the emphasis has traditionally always been on vertical thinking which is effective but incomplete. This selective type of thinking needs to be supplemented with the generative qualities of creative thinking. This is beginning to happen in some schools but even so creativity is usually treated as something desirable which is to be brought about by vague exhortation. There is no deliberate and practical procedure for bringing it about. This book is about lateral thinking which 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

conclusion the soundness of that conclusion is proved by the soundness of the steps by which it has been reached. With lateral thinking the steps do not have to be sequential. One may jump ahead to a new point and then fill in the gap afterwards.

With vertical thinking one concentrates and excludes what is irrelevant, with lateral thinking one welcomes chance intrusions

numerous books and audiobooks specifically designed to help stimulate the imagination and create solutions to problems: Super Creativity by Tony Buzan; The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron; Lateral Thinking, Six Thinking Hats, and Super Thinking, all by Edward De Bono; Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain by Betty Edwards; The Zen of Seeing by Frederick Franck; Writing Down the Bones by Natalie Goldberg; Peak Learning by Ronald Gross; Thinkertoys by Michael Michaiko; Superlearning by Sheila Ostrander and Lynn Schroeder; Writing the Natural Way by Gabriele Rico; A Kick in the Seat of the Pants by R. von Oech.

Lateral thinking has very much to do with perception. In lateral thinking we seek to put forward different views. All are correct and all can coexist. The different views are not derived each from the other but are independently produced. In this sense lateral thinking has to do with exploration just as perception has to do with exploration.

be moving usefully in some direction. With lateral thinking one may play around without any purpose or direction. One may play around with experiments, with models, with notation, with ideas. The movement and change of lateral thinking is not an end in itself but a way of bringing about repatterning. Once there is movement and change then the maximizing properties of the mind will see to it that something useful happens. 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.’ Vertical thinking is analytical, lateral thinking is provocative.

Other than his ex-wife and despite appearances with a series of cultivated blondes, Edward de Bono has never publicly aligned himself with a woman. 'I’m looking for a fat, cross-eyed hunchback,' he explains, stifling a giggle. 'A prosthetic hump would do.' His delight evaporates when asked about his three grandchildren. 'Am I a doting grandfather?' He pauses. 'I’m a … something grandfather, yes.' The fact that De Bono remains unperturbed by this lack betrays an emotionally austere childhood, and his passions for play, toys, and bad jokes tell of the same deprivation.