How To Win Friends and Influence People

by Dale Carnegie

If you want others to like you, if you want to develop real friendships, if you want to help others at the same time as you help yourself, keep this principle in mind:

Become genuinely interested in other people.

Charles Schwab told me his smile had been worth a million dollars. And he was probably understating the truth. For Schwab’s personality, his charm, his ability to make people like him, were almost wholly responsible for his extraordinary success; and one of the most delightful factors in his personality was his captivating smile.

“People who smile,” he said, “tend to manage, teach and sell more effectively, and to raise happier children. There’s far more information in a smile than a frown. That’s why encouragement is a much more effective teaching device than punishment.”

“I have also eliminated criticism from my system. I give appreciation and praise now instead of condemnation. I have stopped talking about what I want. I am now trying to see the other person’s viewpoint.

“Action seems to follow feeling, but really action and feeling go together; and by regulating the action, which is under the more direct control of the will, we can indirectly regulate the feeling, which is not.

“There is nothing either good or bad,” said Shakespeare, “but thinking makes it so.”

Abe Lincoln once remarked that “most folks are about as happy as they make up their minds to be.”

Thought is supreme. Preserve a right mental attitude—the attitude of courage, frankness, and good cheer. To think rightly is to create. All things come through desire and every sincere prayer is answered. We become like that on which our hearts are fixed.

Carry your chin in and the crown of your head high. We are gods in the chrysalis.

“A man without a smiling face must not open a shop.”

The Value of a Smile at Christmas It costs nothing, but creates much. It enriches those who receive, without impoverishing those who give. It happens in a flash and the memory of it sometimes lasts forever.

None are so rich they can get along without it, and none so poor but are richer for its benefits. It creates happiness in the home, fosters good will in a business, and is the countersign of friends. It is rest to the weary, daylight to the discouraged, sunshine to the sad, and Nature’s best antidote for trouble. Yet it cannot be bought, begged, borrowed, or stolen, for it is something that is no earthly good to anybody till it is given away. And if in the last-minute rush of Christmas buying some of our salespeople

should be too tired to give you a smile, may we ask you to leave one of yours? For nobody needs a smile so much as ...

Smile. 3 If You Don’t Do This, You Are Headed for Trouble Back in 1898, a tragic thing happened in Rockland County, New York.

Jim Farley discovered early in life that the average person is more interested in his or her own name than in all the other names on earth put together.

One of the first lessons a politician learns is this: “To recall a voter’s name is statesmanship. To forget it is oblivion.”

That kind of listening is one of the highest compliments we can pay anyone.

He had wanted merely a friendly, sympathetic listener to whom he could unburden himself. That’s what we all want when we are in trouble. That is frequently all the irritated customer wants, and the dissatisfied employee or the hurt friend.

So if you aspire to be a good conversationalist, be an attentive listener.

To be interesting, be interested. Ask questions that other persons will enjoy answering. Encourage them to talk about themselves and their accomplishments.

a good listener. Encourage others to talk about themselves.

For Roosevelt knew, as all leaders know, that the royal road to a person’s heart is to talk about the things he or she treasures most.

Talking in terms of the other person’s interests pays off for both parties.

Remember that other people may be totally wrong. But they don’t think so. Don’t condemn them. Any fool can do that. Try to understand them. Only wise, tolerant, exceptional people even try to do that.

that success in dealing with people depends on a sympathetic

grasp of the other person’s viewpoint.”

Cooperativeness in conversation is achieved when you show that you consider the other person’s ideas and feelings as important as your own. Starting your conversation by giving the other person the purpose or direction of your conversation, governing what you say by what you would want to hear if you were the listener, and accepting his or her viewpoint will encourage the

listener to have an open mind to your ideas.”

I would rather walk the sidewalk in front of a person’s office for two hours before an interview than step into that office without a perfectly clear idea of what I was going to say and what that person—from my knowledge of his or her interests and motives—was likely to answer.

Try honestly to see things from the other person’s point of view.

don’t blame you one iota for feeling as you do. If I were you I would undoubtedly feel just as you do.”

“There, but for the grace of God, go I.”

wanted to be above fools. So I resolved to try to turn her hostility into friendliness. It would be a challenge, a sort of game I could play. I said to myself, “After all, if I were she, I would probably feel just as she does.” So,

Be sympathetic with the other person’s ideas and desires.

that a person usually has two reasons for doing a thing: one that sounds good and a real one.

“The way to get things done,” says Schwab, “is to stimulate competition. I do not mean in a sordid, money-getting way, but in the desire to excel.”

“All men have fears, but the brave put down their fears and go forward, sometimes to death, but always to victory”

Lawes liked the idea of attempting a job that called for someone “big.”

The one major factor that motivated people was the work itself. If the work was exciting and interesting, the worker looked forward to doing it and was motivated to do a good job.

have placed you at the head of the Army of the Potomac. Of course, I have done this upon what appears to me to be

sufficient reasons, and yet I think it best for you to know that there are some things in regard to which I am not quite satisfied with you. I believe you to be a brave and skillful soldier, which, of course, I like. I also believe you do not mix politics with your profession, in which you are right. You have confidence in yourself, which is a valuable if not an indispensable quality. You are ambitious, which, within reasonable bounds, does good rather than harm. But I think that during General Burnside’s command of the army you have taken counsel of your ambition and thwarted him as much as you could, in which you did a great wrong to the country and to

most meritorious and honorable brother officer. I have heard, in such a way as to believe it, of your recently saying that both the army and the Government needed a dictator. Of course, it was not for this, but in spite of it, that I have given you command. Only those generals who gain successes can set up as dictators. What I now ask of you is military success and I will risk the dictatorship. The Government will support you to the utmost of its ability, which is neither more nor less than it has done and will do for all commanders. I much fe...

turn upon you. I shall assist you, as far as I can, to put it down. Neither you nor Napoleon, if he were alive again, could get any good out of an army while such spirit prevails in it, and now beware of rashness. Beware of rashness, but with...

Begin with praise and honest appreciation.

Call attention to people’s mistakes indirectly.

susceptible to improvement.