How to win friends and influence people#

Dale Carnegie

Nine suggestions on how to get the most of this book#

  1. Develop a deep, driving desire to master the principles of human relations.

  2. Read each chapter twice before going on to the next one.

  3. As you read, stop frequently to ask yourself how you can apply each suggestion.

  4. Underscore each important idea.

  5. Review this book each month.

  6. Apply these principles at every opportunity. Use this volume as a working handbook to help you solve your daily problems.

  7. Make a lively game out of your learning by offering some friend a dime or a dollar every time he or she catches you violating one of these principles.

  8. Check up each week on the progress you are making. Ask yourself what mistakes you have made, what improvement, what lessons you have learned for the future.

  9. Keep notes in the back of this book showing how and when you have applied these principles.

Part One: Fundamental techniques in handling people#

Principle 1: Don’t criticize, condemn or complain#

Principle 2: Give honest and sincere appreciation#

Principle 3: Arouse in the other person an eager want#

Part Two: Six ways to make people like you#

Principle 1: Become genuinely interested in other people#

Principle 2: Smile#

Principle 3: Remember that a person’s name is to that person the sweetest and most important sound in any language#

Principle 4: Be a good lister. Encolurage others to talk about themselves#

Principle 5: Talk in terms of the other person’s interest#

Principle 6: Make the other person feel important - and do it sincerely#

Part Three: How to win people your way of thinking#

Principle 1: The only way to get the best of an argument is to avoid it#

Principle 2: Show respect for the other person’s opinions. Never say, “You’re wrong.”#

Principle 3: If you are wrong, admit it quickly and emphatically#

Principle 4: Begin in a friendly way#

Principle 5: Get the other person saying “yes, yes” immediately#

Principle 6: Let the other person do a great deal of the talking#

Principle 7: Let the other person feel that the idea is his or hers#

Principle 8: Try honestly to see things from the other person’s point of view#

Principle 9: Be sympathetic with the other person’s ideas and desires#

Principle 10: Appeal to be nobler motives#

Principle 11: Dramatize your ideas#

Principle 12: Throw down a challenge#

Part Four: Be a leader: how to change people without giving offense or arousing resentment#

Principle 1: Begin with praise and honest appreciation#

Principle 2: Call atention to people’s mistakes indirectly#

Principle 3: Talk about your own mistakes before criticizing the other person#

Principle 4: Ask questions instead of giving direct orders#

Principle 5: Let the other person save face#

Principle 6: Praise the slightest improvement and praise every improvement. Be “hearty in your approbation and lavish in your praise”#

Principle 7: Give the other person a fine reputation to live up to#

Principle 8: Use encouragement. Make the fault seem easy to correct#

Principle 9: Make the other person happy about doing the thing you suggest#