Week 2021-52: Osho [Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh] - Collected Quotes

"A single word from you will show the mind inside; a single word and your whole being is exposed. Not even a word is needed; just a gesture and your chattering mind will be there. Even if you are silent, your silence will not reveal anything other than the chattering monkey within." (Osho, "Hsin Hsin Ming: The Book of Nothing", [talks] 1974)

"The mind cannot be healthy because it can never be whole. Mind is always divided; division is its base." (Osho, "Hsin Hsin Ming: The Book of Nothing", [talks] 1974)

"Tantra says there is nobody above you whom you have to follow, through whom you have to get your pattern." (Osho [Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh], "Tantra: the Supreme Understanding", 1975)

"Mindfulness is Buddha's word for meditation. By mindfulness he means: you should always remain alert, watchful. You should always remain present. Not a single thing should be done in a sort of sleepy state of mind. You should not move like a somnambulist, you should move with a sharp consciousness." (Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, "The Discipline of Transcendence: Discourses on the Forty-two Sutras of Buddha", 1978)

"One has to reach to the absolute state of awareness: that is Zen. You cannot do it every morning for a few minutes or for half an hour and then forget all about it. It has to become like your heartbeat. You have to sit in it, you have to walk in it. Yes, you have even to sleep in it." (Osho [Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh], "Walking in Zen, Sitting in Zen", 1982)

"All the Buddhas of all the ages have been telling you a very simple fact: Be - don't try to become. Within these two words - being and becoming, your whole life is contained. Being is enlightenment, becoming is ignorance." (Osho [Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh], "The Book of Wisdom", 1983)

"Remain in wonder if you want mysteries to open up for you. Mysteries never open up for those who go on questioning. Questioners sooner or later end up in a library. They end up with scriptures, because scriptures are full of answers. And answers are dangerous, they kill your wonder." (Osho [Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh], "The Book of Wisdom", 1983)

"Enlightenment is always through surrender, but surrender is achieved through intelligence. Only idiots cannot surrender. To surrender you need great intelligence. To see the point of surrender is the climax of insight; to see the point that you are not separate from existence is the highest that intelligence can give to you." (Osho [Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh], "From I to Q", 1984)

"Thinking goes on in your head. It is not really deep into the roots of your being; it is not your totality." (Osho [Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh], "From R to Z", 1984)

"When you really laugh, for those few moments you are in a deep meditative state. Thinking stops. It is impossible to laugh and think together... If you are still thinking. laughter will be just so-so... It will be a crippled laughter." (Osho [Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh], "From I to Q", 1984)

"Meditation is the awareness that I am not the mind." (Osho)

"Meditation is nothing but an effort to look at reality without the thinking mind - because that is the only way to see reality. If thinking is there it distorts, it corrupts. Drop the thinking mind and see reality - direct, immediate, face to face. And then there is no problem." (Osho)

"Sadness gives depth. Happiness gives height. Sadness gives roots. Happiness gives branches. Happiness is like a tree going into the sky, and sadness is like the roots going down into the womb of the earth. Both are needed, and the higher a tree goes, the deeper it goes, simultaneously. The bigger the tree, the bigger will be its roots. In fact, it is always in proportion. That's its balance." (Osho)

"Suffering is a challenge; when you suffer you are challenged, when there is a problem you are challenged. When you encounter the problem, only then do you grow. More insecurity, more growth; more security, less growth. If everything is secure around you, you are already in your grave, you are no longer alive. Life exists in danger, life always exists in the possibility of going astray. But one who goes astray can come back, one who fails can succeed." (Osho)

"When mind knows, we call it knowledge. When heart knows, we call it love. And when being knows, we call it meditation." (Osho)

Week 2021-51: Anthony de Mello - Collected Quotes

"A good teacher offers practice, a bad one offers theories." (Anthony de Mello, "One Minute Wisdom", 1988)

"All suffering comes from a person's inability to sit still and be alone." (Anthony de Mello, "One Minute Wisdom", 1988)

"People who deliberate fully before they take a step will spend their lives on one leg." (Anthony de Mello, "One Minute Wisdom", 1988)

"Thought can organize the world so well that you are no longer able to see it." (Anthony de Mello, "One Minute Wisdom", 1988)

"Wisdom tends to grow in proportion to one's awareness of one's ignorance." (Anthony de Mello, "One Minute Wisdom", 1988)

"Spirituality practiced in the state of activity is incomparably superior to that practiced in a state of withdrawal." (Anthony de Mello, "One Minute Wisdom", 1988)

"You can read books without ever stepping into a library; and practice spirituality without ever going to a temple." (Anthony de Mello, " One Minute Wisdom", 1988)

"Drop your false ideas. See through people. If you see through yourself, you will see through everyone. Then you will love them. Otherwise you spend the whole time grappling with your wrong notions of them, with your illusions that are constantly crashing against reality." (Anthony de Mello, "Awareness: Conversations with the Masters", 1990)

"Happiness is our natural state. Happiness is the natural state of little children, to whom the kingdom belongs until they have been polluted and contaminated by the stupidity of society and culture." (Anthony de Mello, "Awareness: Conversations with the Masters", 1990)

"Nobody is afraid of the unknown, what you really fear is the loss of the known." (Anthony de Mello, "Awareness: Conversations with the Masters", 1990)

"Ordinarily, everything we do is in our self-interest. Everything." (Anthony de Mello, "Awareness: Conversations with the Masters", 1990)

"Pleasant experiences make life delightful. Painful experiences lead to growth." (Anthony de Mello, "Awareness: Conversations with the Masters", 1990)

"The three most difficult things for a human being are not physical feats or intellectual achievements. They are, first, returning love for hate; second, including the excluded; third, admitting that you are wrong." (Anthony de Mello, "Awareness: Conversations with the Masters", 1990)

"There's only one reason why you're not experiencing bliss at this present moment, and it's because you're thinking or focusing on what you don't have. [...] But, right now you have everything you need to be in bliss." (Anthony de Mello, "Awareness: Conversations with the Masters", 1990)

"Understand the obstructions you are putting in the way of love, freedom, and happiness and they will drop. Turn on the light of awareness and the darkness will disappear. Happiness is not something you acquire; love is not something you produce; love is not something you have; love is something that has you." (Anthony de Mello, "Awareness: Conversations with the Masters", 1990)

"What is a loving heart? A loving heart is sensitive to the whole of life, to all persons; a loving heart doesn't harden itself to any persons or things." (Anthony de Mello, "Awareness: Conversations with the Masters", 1990)

"You are never in love with anyone. You're only in love with your prejudiced and hopeful idea of that person." (Anthony de Mello, "Awareness: Conversations with the Masters", 1990)

"Mostly the discontent that you feel comes from not having enough of something - you are dissatisfied because you think you do not have enough money or power or success or fame or virtue or love or holiness. This is not the discontent that leads to the joy of the kingdom. Its source is greed and ambition and its fruit is restlessness and frustration. The day you are discontented not because you want more of something but without knowing what it is you want; when you are sick at heart of everything you are pursuing so far and you are sick of the pursuing itself, then your heart will attain a great clarity, an insight that will cause you mysteriously to delight in everything and in nothing." (Anthony de Mello, "The Way to Love", 1995)

"The tragedy of an attachment is that if its object is not attained it causes unhappiness. But if it is attained, it does not cause happiness – it merely causes a flash of pleasure followed by weariness, and it is always accompanied, of course, by the anxiety that you may lose the object of your attachment." (Anthony de Mello, "The Way to Love", 1995)

"Understand your darkness and it will vanish; then you will know what light is. Understand your nightmare for what it is and it will stop; then you will wake up to reality. Understand your false beliefs and they will drop; then you will know the taste of happiness." (Anthony de Mello, "The Way to Love", 1995)

"To relate is to react. To react is to understand oneself. To understand oneself is to be enlightened. Relationships are schools for enlightenment." (Anthony de Mello, "Heart of the Enlightened: A Book of Story Meditations", 1997)

"A nice definition of an awakened person: a person who no longer marches to the drums of society, a person who dances to the tune of the music that springs up from within." (Anthony de Mello, "Anthony De Mello: Writings", 1999) 

"Most people don't live aware lives. They live mechanical lives, mechanical thoughts - generally somebody else's - mechanical emotions, mechanical actions, mechanical reactions." (Anthony de Mello, "Anthony De Mello: Writings", 1999) 

"The only way someone can be of help to you is in challenging your ideas. If you're ready to listen and if you're ready to be challenged, there's one thing that you can do, but no one can help you. What is this most important thing of all? It's called self-observation." (Anthony de Mello, "Anthony De Mello: Writings", 1999) 

"This is what is ultimate in our human knowledge of God, to know that we do not know." (Anthony de Mello, "Anthony De Mello: Writings", 1999)

"No one is exempt from talking nonsense. The great misfortune is to do it solemnly." (Anthony de Mello, "One Minute Nonsense", 2003)

"To those who seek to protect their ego true Peace brings only disturbance." (Anthony de Mello, "One Minute Nonsense", 2003)

"Sin is a refusal to grow, a refusal to love, a refusal to get committed, to be concerned, and to take risks." (Anthony de Mello, "Seek God Everywhere: Reflections on the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius", 2010)

Week 2021-50: Jack Kornfield - Collected Quotes

"Anger shows us precisely where we are stuck, where our limits are, where we cling to beliefs and fears." (Jack Kornfield & Joseph Goldstein, "Seeking the Heart of Wisdom: The Path of Insight Meditation", 1987)

"Compassion for ourselves gives rise to the power to transform resentment into forgiveness, hatred into friendliness, and fear into respect for all beings." (Jack Kornfield & Joseph Goldstein, "Seeking the Heart of Wisdom: The Path of Insight Meditation", 1987)

"The first level of practice is illuminated by the qualities of courage and renunciation." (Jack Kornfield & Joseph Goldstein, "Seeking the Heart of Wisdom: The Path of Insight Meditation", 1987)

"Meditation is a vehicle for opening to the truth of this impermanence on deeper and deeper levels." (Jack Kornfield & Joseph Goldstein, "Seeking the Heart of Wisdom: The Path of Insight Meditation", 1987)

"No amount of meditation, yoga, diet, and reflection will make all of our problems go away, but we can transform our difficulties into our practice until little by little they guide us on our way." (Jack Kornfield & Joseph Goldstein, "Seeking the Heart of Wisdom: The Path of Insight Meditation", 1987)

"The near enemy of love is attachment. Attachment masquerades as love. It says, I will love this person because I need them. Or, I'll love you if you'll love me back. I'll love you, but only if you will be the way I want. This isn't love at all - it is attachment - and attachment is rigid, it is very different from love." (Jack Kornfield & Joseph Goldstein, "Seeking the Heart of Wisdom: The Path of Insight Meditation", 1987)

"The path of awakening begins with a step the Buddha called right understanding." (Jack Kornfield & Joseph Goldstein, "Seeking the Heart of Wisdom: The Path of Insight Meditation", 1987)

"The willingness to empty ourselves and then seek our true nature is an expression of great and courageous love." (Jack Kornfield & Joseph Goldstein, "Seeking the Heart of Wisdom: The Path of Insight Meditation", 1987)

"To live fully is to let go and die with each passing moment, and to be reborn in each new one."  (Jack Kornfield & Joseph Goldstein, "Seeking the Heart of Wisdom: The Path of Insight Meditation", 1987)

"To understand ourselves and our life is the point of insight meditation: to understand and to be free." (Jack Kornfield & Joseph Goldstein, "Seeking the Heart of Wisdom: The Path of Insight Meditation", 1987)

"Two qualities are at the root of all meditation development: right effort and right aim—arousing effort to aim the mind toward the object." (Jack Kornfield, "Seeking the Heart of Wisdom: The Path of Insight Meditation", 1987)

"We need a warrior's heart that lets us face our lives directly, our pains and limitations, our joys and possibilities." (Jack Kornfield, "Seeking the Heart of Wisdom: The Path of Insight Meditation", 1987)

"Breathing meditation can quiet the mind, open the body, and develop a great power of concentration." (Jack Kornfield, "A Path with Heart: A Guide Through the Perils and Promises of Spiritual Life", 1993)

"Compassion for ourselves gives rise to the power to transform resentment into forgiveness, hatred into friendliness, and fear into respect for all beings." (Jack Kornfield, "A Path with Heart: A Guide Through the Perils and Promises of Spiritual Life", 1993)

"Even the most exalted states and the most exceptional spiritual accomplishments are unimportant if we cannot be happy in the most basic and ordinary ways, if we cannot touch one another and the life we have been given with our hearts." (Jack Kornfield, "A Path with Heart: A Guide Through the Perils and Promises of Spiritual Life", 1993)

"For most of us, generosity is a quality that must be developed. We have to respect that it will grow gradually; otherwise our spirituality can become idealistic and imitative, acting out the image of generosity before it has become genuine." (Jack Kornfield, "A Path with Heart: A Guide Through the Perils and Promises of Spiritual Life", 1993)

"It is possible to speak with our heart directly. Most ancient cultures know this. We can actually converse with our heart as if it were a good friend. In modern life we have become so busy with our daily affairs and thoughts that we have lost this essential art of taking time to converse with our heart." (Jack Kornfield, "A Path with Heart: A Guide Through the Perils and Promises of Spiritual Life", 1993)

"Most of us have spent our lives caught up in plans, expectations, ambitions for the future; in regrets, guilt or shame about the past. To come into the present is to stop the war." (Jack Kornfield, "A Path with Heart: A Guide Through the Perils and Promises of Spiritual Life", 1993)

"Only in the reality of the present can we love, can we awaken, can we find peace and understanding and connection with ourselves and the world." (Jack Kornfield, "A Path with Heart: A Guide Through the Perils and Promises of Spiritual Life", 1993)

"Religion and philosophy have their value, but in the end all we can do is open to mystery and live a path with heart." (Jack Kornfield, "A Path with Heart: A Guide Through the Perils and Promises of Spiritual Life", 1993)

"The basic principle of spiritual life is that our problems become the very place to discover wisdom and love." (Jack Kornfield, "A Path with Heart: A Guide Through the Perils and Promises of Spiritual Life", 1993)

"To learn to concentrate we must choose a prayer or meditation and follow this path with commitment and steadiness, a willingness to work with our practice day after day, no matter what arises." (Jack Kornfield, "A Path with Heart: A Guide Through the Perils and Promises of Spiritual Life", 1993)

"To live life is to make a succession of errors. Understanding this can bring us great ease and forgiveness for ourselves and others." (Jack Kornfield, "A Path with Heart: A Guide Through the Perils and Promises of Spiritual Life", 1993)

"We are awakened to the profound realization that the true path to liberation is to let go of everything." (Jack Kornfield, "A Path with Heart: A Guide Through the Perils and Promises of Spiritual Life", 1993)

"We must look at ourselves over and over again in order to learn to love, to discover what has kept our hearts closed, and what it means to allow our hearts to open." (Jack Kornfield, "A Path with Heart: A Guide Through the Perils and Promises of Spiritual Life", 1993)

"When we struggle to change ourselves we, in fact, only continue the patterns of self-judgement and aggression. We keep the war against ourselves alive." (Jack Kornfield, "A Path with Heart: A Guide Through the Perils and Promises of Spiritual Life", 1993)

"There are many good forms of meditation practice. A good meditation practice is any one that develops awareness or mindfulness of our body and our sense, of our mind and heart." (Jack Kornfield, "Meditation for Beginners", 1998)

"To meditate is to discover new possibilities, to awaken the capacities of us has to live more wisely, more lovingly, more compassionately, and more fully." (Jack Kornfield, "Meditation for Beginners", 1998)

"When we take time to quiet ourselves, we can all sense that our life could be lived with greater compassion and greater weakness." (Jack Kornfield, "Meditation for Beginners", 1998)

"An honorable spiritual practice recognizes the losses we have suffered, tells our story, and sheds our tears to free us from the past." (Jack Kornfield, "After the Ecstasy, The Laundry", 2000)

"In all practices and traditions of freedom, we find the heart's task to be quite simple. Life offers us just what it offers, and our task is to bow to it, to meet it with understanding and compassion." (Jack Kornfield, "After the Ecstasy, The Laundry", 2000)

"When our identity expands to include everything, we find a peace with the dance of the world. The ocean of life rises and falls within us - birth and death, joy and pain, it is all ours, and our heart is full and empty, large enough to embrace it all." (Jack Kornfield, "After the Ecstasy, The Laundry", 2000)

"Do not doubt your own basic goodness. In spite of all confusion and fear, you are born with a heart that knows what is just, loving, and beautiful." (Jack Kornfield, "The Art of Forgiveness, Lovingkindness, and Peace", 2002)

"Indifference pretends to create peace, but it is based on not caring, a silent resignation. It is a movement away, a separation fed by a subtle fear of the heart. We pull back, believing that what happens to others is not our concern. Our courage leaves us. Indifference is a misguided way of defending ourselves." (Jack Kornfield, "The Art of Forgiveness, Lovingkindness, and Peace", 2002)

"Letting go is not the same as aversion, struggling to get rid of something. We cannot genuinely let go of what we resist. What we resist and fear secretly follows us even as we push it away. To let go of fear or trauma, we need to acknowledge just how it is. We need to feel it fully and accept that it is so. It is as it is. Letting go begins with letting be." (Jack Kornfield, "The Art of Forgiveness, Lovingkindness, and Peace", 2002)

"Love creates a communion with life. Love expands us, connects us, sweetens us, ennobles us. Love springs up in tender concern, it blossoms into caring action. It makes beauty out of all we touch. In any moment we can step beyond our small self and embrace each other as beloved parts of a whole." (Jack Kornfield, "The Art of Forgiveness, Lovingkindness, and Peace", 2002)

"Love is based on our capacity to trust in a reality beyond fear, to trust a timeless truth bigger than all our difficulties." (Jack Kornfield, "The Art of Forgiveness, Lovingkindness, and Peace", 2002)

"The knowledge of the past stays with us. To let go is to release the images and emotions, the grudges and fears, the clingings and disappointments of the past that bind our spirit." (Jack Kornfield, "The Art of Forgiveness, Lovingkindness, and Peace", 2002)

"Most people discover that when hate is gone, they will be forced to deal with their own pain." (Jack Kornfield, "The Wise Heart: A Guide to the Universal Teachings of Buddhist Psychology", 2008)

"What is truly a part of our spiritual path is that which brings us alive. If gardening brings us alive, that is part of our path, if it is music, if it is conversation [...] we must follow what brings us alive." (Jack Kornfield, "The Wise Heart: A Guide to the Universal Teachings of Buddhist Psychology", 2008)

"Forgiveness does not mean that we have to continue to relate to those who have done us harm. In some cases the best practice may be to end our connection, to never speak to or be with a harmful person again. Sometimes in the process of forgiveness a person who hurts or betrayed us may wish to make amends, but even this does not require us to put ourselves in the way of further harm." (Jack Kornfield, "Bringing Home the Dharma: Awakening Right Where You Are", 2011)

Week 2021-49: Leo Buscaglia - Collected Quotes

"Change is the end result of all true learning. Change involves three things: First, a dissatisfaction with self - a felt void or need; second, a decision to change to fill the void or need; and third, a conscious dedication to the process of growth and change - the willful act of making the change, doing something." (Leo Buscaglia, "Love", 1972)

"Education should be the process of helping everyone to discover his uniqueness." (Leo Buscaglia, "Love", 1972)

"If one wishes to know love, one must live love, in action. Thoughts, readings and discourse on love are of value only as they present questions to be acted upon." (Leo Buscaglia, "Love", 1972)

"If you want to learn to love, then you must start the process of finding out what it is, what qualities make up a loving person and how these are developed. Each person has the potential for love. But potential is never realized without work." (Leo Buscaglia, "Love", 1972)

"Knowing that one is always capable of change, the second step lies in making the decision to change. Change does not occur by merely willing it anymore than behavior changes simply through insight." (Leo Buscaglia, "Love", 1972)

"Love and the self are one and the discovery of either is the realization of both." (Leo Buscaglia, "Love", 1972)

"Love is a dynamic interaction, lived every second of our lives, all of our lives." (Leo Buscaglia, "Love", 1972)

"Love is like a mirror. When you love another you become his mirror and he becomes yours. [...] And reflecting each other's love you see infinity." (Leo Buscaglia, "Love", 1972)

"Love revels in and grows in the moment and the joy of the moment." (Leo Buscaglia, "Love", 1972)

"Man seldom questions the fact that ugliness and evil are to be found in the world. But he's never as ready to accept that life also offers unlimited beauty and potential for joy as well as endless opportunities for pleasure." (Leo Buscaglia, "Love", 1972)

"One cannot give what he does not possess. To give love you must possess love. To love others you must love yourself." (Leo Buscaglia, "Love", 1972)

"To live in love is life's greatest challenge. It requires more subtlety, flexibility, sensitivity, understanding, acceptance, tolerance, knowledge and strength than any other human endeavor." (Leo Buscaglia, "Love", 1972)

"To love oneself is to struggle to rediscover and maintain your uniqueness. It is understanding and appreciating the idea that you will be the only you to ever live upon this earth, that when you die so will all of your fantastic possibilities. It is the realization that even you are not totally aware of the wonders which lie dormant within yourself." (Leo Buscaglia, "Love", 1972)

"To the extent to which you know yourself, and we are all more alike than different, you can know others. When you love yourself, you will love others. And to the depth and extent to which you can love yourself, only to that depth and extent will you be able to love others." (Leo Buscaglia, "Love", 1972)

"We need not be afraid to touch, to feel, to show emotion. The easiest thing in the world is to be what you are, what you feel. The hardest thing to be is what other people want you to be. Don't let them put you in that position." (Leo Buscaglia, "Love", 1972)

"Happiness comes only when we push our brains and hearts to the farthest reaches of which we are capable. The purpose of life is to matter-to count, to stand for something, to have it make so difference that we lived at all." (Leo Buscaglia, "Living Loving and Learning", 1982)

"The essence of education is not to stuff you with facts but to help you discover your uniqueness, to teach you how to develop it, and then to show you how to give it away." (Leo Buscaglia, "Living Loving and Learning", 1982)

"The most important thing in the world is that you make yourself a loving person, because this is what you will be giving away [...]" (Leo Buscaglia, "Living Loving and Learning", 1982)

"The person who risks nothing, does nothing, has nothing, is nothing, and becomes nothing. He may avoid suffering and sorrow, but he simply cannot learn and feel and change and grow and love and live." (Leo Buscaglia, "Living Loving and Learning", 1982)

"To love is to risk not being loved in return. To hope is to risk pain. To try is to risk failure, but risks must be taken, because the greatest hazard in life is to risk nothing." (Leo Buscaglia, "Living Loving and Learning", 1982)

"Never idealize others. They will never live up to your expectations. Don't over-analyze your relationships. Stop playing games. A growing relationship can only be nurtured by genuineness." (Leo Buscaglia, "Loving Each Other: The Challenge of Human Relationships", 1984)

"Life is our greatest possession and love its greatest affirmation." (Leo Buscaglia, "Born for Love: Reflections on Loving", 1992)

"We are born for love, but it will die if not nurtured." (Leo Buscaglia, [interview] 1998)

"We can ask ourselves daily what we have done to make the world a better place, to make someone smile, to help someone to feel more secure, etc. It's the simple things which have the greatest effect. We must never underestimate the strength of a smile or act of kindness." (Leo Buscaglia, [interview] 1998)

Week 2021-48: Edward de Bono - Collected Quotes

"Once a new idea springs into existence, it cannot be unthought. There is a sense of immortality in a new idea." (Edward de Bono, "New Think: The Use of Lateral Thinking in the Generation of New Ideas", 1967)

"Pouncing on an idea as soon as it appears kills the idea. Too early and too enthusiastic logical attention either freezes the idea or forces it into the old moulds. Concentration on an idea isolates it from its surroundings and arrests its growth. The glare of attention inhibits the fertile semi-conscious processes that go to develop an idea." (Edward de Bono, "New Think: The Use of Lateral Thinking in the Generation of New Ideas", 1967)

"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 use of lateral thinking", 1967)

"Design is really a special case of problem solving. One wants to bring about a desired state of affairs. Occasionally one wants to remedy some fault but more usually one wants to bring about something new. For that reason design is more open ended than problem solving. It requires more creativity. It is not so much a matter of linking up a clearly defined objective with a clearly defined starting position (as in problem solving) but more a matter of starting out from a general position in the direction of a general objective." (Edward de Bono, "Lateral Thinking: Creativity Step by Step", 1970)

"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." (Edward de Bono, "Lateral Thinking: Creativity Step by Step", 1970)

"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, "Lateral Thinking: Creativity Step by Step", 1970)

"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." (Edward de Bono, "Lateral Thinking: Creativity Step by Step", 1970)

"Rightness is what matters in vertical thinking. Richness is what matters in lateral thinking. Vertical thinking selects a pathway by excluding other pathways. Lateral thinking does not select but seeks to open up other pathways. With vertical thinking one selects the most promising approach to a problem, the best way of looking at a situation. With lateral thinking one generates as many alternative approaches as one can." (Edward de Bono, "Lateral Thinking: Creativity Step by Step", 1970)

"Vertical thinking is selection by exclusion. One works within a frame of reference and throws out what is not relevant. With lateral thinking one realizes that a pattern cannot be restructured from within itself but only as the result of some outside influence. So one welcomes outside influences for their provocative action. The more irrelevant such influences are the more chance there is of altering the established pattern. To look only for things that are relevant means perpetuating the current pattern." (Edward de Bono, "Lateral Thinking: Creativity Step by Step", 1970)

"With vertical thinking one may look for different approaches until one finds a promising one. With lateral thinking one goes on generating as many approaches as one can even after one has found a promising one. With vertical thinking one is trying to select the best approach but with lateral thinking one is generating different approaches for the sake of generating them." (Edward de Bono, "Lateral Thinking: Creativity Step by Step", 1970)

"Creativity involves breaking out of established patterns in order to look at things in a different way." (Edward de Bono, "Lateral Thinking for Management: A handbook", 1971)

"A myth is a fixed way of looking at the world which cannot be destroyed because, looked at through the myth, all evidence supports the myth." (Edward de Bono, "Po: A device for successful thinking", 1972)

"Every valuable creative idea must always be logical in hindsight. If it were not, we would never be able to see its value." (Edward de Bono, "I Am Right, You are Wrong", 1990)

"Maybe the social value of truth is as a destination - so long as we do not assume we have arrived there." (Edward de Bono, "I Am Right, You are Wrong", 1990)

"Analysis is simplifying, breaking down things into parts, picking out strands and elements. Analysis is comparing unknown things with things that are known. Analysis also involves picking out relationships and putting them back together as a whole." (Edward de Bono, "Sur/Petition: Creating Value Monopolies When Everyone Else Is Merely Competing", 1992)

"A discussion should be a genuine attempt to explore a subject rather than a battle between competing egos." (Edward de Bono, "How To Have A Beautiful Mind", 2004)