In this post, we’ll read Dale Carnegie quotes who was an American writer, lecturer, and course builder.
Dale Carnegie (1888-1955) is best known for his best-selling book “How to Win Friends and Influence People,” which has remained popular since its first publication in 1936. He had also developed famous courses in self-improvement, salesmanship, corporate training, public speaking, and interpersonal skills.
He worked as a salesperson and an actor before becoming a lecturer on public speaking and personal development. His major works includes “How to Win Friends and Influence People”, “How to Stop Worrying and Start Living” (1948) and “The Quick and Easy Way to Effective Speaking” (1962).
Carnegie founded the Dale Carnegie Institute in 1912, which offered courses in public speaking and interpersonal skills and his training programs expanded globally which helped millions of people to improve their communication and leadership skills.
Let’s read some of the best Dale Carnegie quotes on communication, success, relationship building and more.
Best Dale Carnegie Quotes
1. “Knowledge isn’t power until it is applied.”
2. “Every man I meet is my superior in some way. In that, I learn of him.”
3. “Only knowledge that is used sticks in your mind.”
4. “Our thoughts make us what we are.”
5. “If you tell me how you get your feeling of importance, I’ll tell you what you are.”
6. “A man convinced against his will is of the same opinion still.”
7. “Do the hard jobs first. The easy jobs will take care of themselves.”
8. “Even god doesn’t propose to judge a man till his last days, why should you and I?”
9. “Today is our most precious possession. It is our only sure possession.”
10. “Ask questions instead of giving orders.”
11. “You can measure the size of a person by what makes him or her angry.”
12. “Our thoughts make us what we are.”
13. “Our fatigue is often caused not by work, but by worry, frustration and resentment.”
14. “If you want to keep happiness, you have to share it!”
Dale Carnegie Quotes on Friendship & Relationships
1. “Winning friends begins with friendliness.”
2. “Don’t be afraid of enemies who attack you. Be afraid of the friends who flatter you.”
3. “You can make more friends in two months by becoming interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get other people interested in you.”
4. “If you want to gather honey, don’t kick over the beehive.”
5. “Why talk about what we want? That is childish. Absurd. Of course, you are interested in what you want. You are eternally interested in it. But no one else is. The rest of us are just like you: we are interested in what we want.”
6. “Let’s never try to get even with our enemies, because if we do we will hurt ourselves far more than we hurt them.”
7. “By fighting you never get enough, but by yielding you get more than you expected.”
8. “Once I did bad and that I heard ever. Twice I did good, but that I heard never.”
9. “Arouse in the other person an eager want. He who can do this has the whole world with him. He who cannot walk a lonely way.”
10. “If you argue and rankle and contradict, you may achieve a victory sometimes; but it will be an empty victory because you will never get your opponent’s good will.”
11. “We are interested in others when they are interested in us.”
Dale Carnegie Quotes on Communication
1. “Talk to someone about themselves and they’ll listen for hours.”
2. “Actions speak louder than words, and a smile says, ‘I like you. You make me happy. I am glad to see you.’ That is why dogs make such a hit. They are so glad to see us that they almost jump out of their skins. So, naturally, we are glad to see them.”
3. “You can’t win an argument. You can’t because if you lose it, you lose it; and if you win it, you lose it.”
4. “To be interesting, be interested.”
5. “I have come to the conclusion that there is only one way under high heaven to get the best of an argument— and that is to avoid it. Avoid it as you would avoid rattlesnakes and earthquakes.”
6. “Always have something to say. The man who has something to say and who is known never to speak unless he has, is sure to be listened to.”
7. “Criticism is dangerous, because it wounds a person’s precious pride, hurts his sense of importance, and arouses resentment.”
8. “The expression one wears on one’s face is far more important than the clothes one wears on one’s back.”
9. “Control your temper. Remember, you can measure the size of a person by what makes him or her angry.”
10. “Criticisms are like homing pigeons. They always return home.”
11. “Remember a name and call it easily and you have paid a subtle and very effective compliment.”
12. “Pay less attention to what men say. Just watch what they do.”
13. “The expression a woman wears on her face is far more important than the clothes she wears on her back.”
14. “Fear not those who argue but those who dodge.”
Dale Carnegie Quotes on Success
1. “You’ll never achieve real success unless you like what you’re doing.”
2. “Develop success from failures. Discouragement and failure are two of the surest stepping stones to success.”
3. “Men of age object too much, consult too long, adventure too little, repent too soon, and seldom drive business home to the full period, but content themselves with a mediocrity of success.”
4. “Every successful person loves the game. The chance to prove his worth, to excel, to win.”
5. “Success in dealing with people depends on a sympathetic grasp of the other person’s viewpoint.”
6. “The successful man will profit from his mistakes and try again in a different way.”
7. “Flaming enthusiasm, backed by horse sense and persistence, is the quality that most frequently makes for success.”
8. “People rarely succeed unless they have fun in what they are doing.”
Dale Carnegie Quotes on Happiness
1. “Happiness doesn’t depend on any external conditions, it is governed by our mental attitude.”
2. “It isn’t what you have or who you are or where you are or what you are doing that makes you happy or unhappy. It is what you think about it.”
3. “Everybody in the world is seeking happiness—and there is one sure way to find it. That is by controlling your thoughts. Happiness doesn’t depend on outward conditions. It depends on inner conditions.”
4. “When we hate our enemies, we are giving them power over us: power over our sleep, our appetites, our blood pressure, our health, and our happiness.”
5. “Are you bored with life? Then throw yourself into some work you believe in with all your heart, live for it, die for it, and you will find happiness that you had thought could never be yours.”
6. “The person who seeks all their applause from outside has their happiness in another’s keeping .”
7. “One reason why birds and horses are not unhappy is because they are not trying to impress other birds and horses.”
8. “Success is getting what you want.. Happiness is wanting what you get.”
Dale Carnegie Quotes on Worry
1. “Remember, today is the tomorrow you worried about yesterday.”
2. “If only the people who worry about their liabilities would think about the riches they do possess, they would stop worrying.”
3. “Instead of worrying about what people say of you, why not spend time trying to accomplish something they will admire.”
4. “If you can’t sleep, then get up and do something instead of lying there and worrying. It’s the worry that gets you, not the loss of sleep.”
5. “People who can put themselves in the place of other people, who can understand the workings of their minds, need never worry about what the future has in store for them.”
6. “Do you remember the things you were worrying about a year ago? How did they work out? Didn’t you waste a lot of fruitless energy on account of most of them? Didn’t most of them turn out all right after all?”
7. “What shall it profit a man if he gains the whole world—and loses his health?”
Dale Carnegie Quotes on Life
1. “Today is life — the only life you are sure of. Make the most of today. Get interested in something. Shake yourself awake. Develop a hobby. Let the winds of enthusiasm sweep through you. Live today with gusto.”
2. “The most important thing in life is not to capitalize on your gains. Any fool can do that. “The really important thing is to profit from your losses.”
3. “Take a chance! All life is a chance. The man who goes furthest is generally the one who is willing to do and dare.”
4. “Think of your life as an hourglass. You know there are thousands of grains of sand in the top of the hourglass; and they all pass slowly and evenly through the narrow neck in the middle. Nothing you or I could do would make more than one grain of sand pass through this narrow neck without impairing the hourglass. You and I and everyone else are like this hourglass…if we do not take [tasks] one at a time and let them pass…slowly and evenly, then we are bound to break our own…structure.”
5. “You can sing only what you are. You can paint only what you are. You must be what your experiences, your environment, and your heredity have made you. For better or for worse, you must play your own little instrument in the orchestra of life.”
6. “Let’s not allow ourselves to be upset by small things we should despise and forget. Remember “Life is too short to be little”.”
7. “The best possible way to prepare for tomorrow is to concentrate with all your intelligence, all your enthusiasm, on doing today’s work superbly today. That is the only possible way you can prepare for the future.”
8. “One of the tragic things I know about human nature is that all of us tend to put off living. We are all dreaming of some magical rose garden over the horizon – instead of enjoying the roses that are blooming outside our windows today.”
9. “I found it wasn’t so hard to live only one day at a time. I learned to forget the yesterdays and to not think of the tomorrows. Each morning I said to myself, ‘Today is a new life.”
Dale Carnegie Quotes on People
1. “Be wiser than other people if you can; but do not tell them so.”
2. “When dealing with people, remember you are not dealing with creatures of logic, but with creatures bristling with prejudice and motivated by pride and vanity.”
3. “Most of the important things in the world have been accomplished by people who have kept on trying when there seemed to be no hope at all.”
4. “Three-fourths of the people you will meet are hungering for sympathy. Give it to them and they will love you.”
5. “People are more likely to accept an order if they had a part in the decision that caused the order to be issued.”
6. “If you want to know how to make people shun you and laugh at you behind your back and even despise you, here is the recipe: Never listen to anyone for long. Talk incessantly about yourself. If you have an idea while the other person is talking, don’t wait for him or her to finish: bust right in and interrupt in the middle of a sentence.”
7. “If some people are so hungry for a feeling of importance that they actually go insane to get it, imagine what miracle you and I can achieve by giving people honest appreciation this side of insanity.”
8. “Instead of condemning people, let’s try to understand them. Let’s try to figure out why they do what they do. That’s a lot more profitable and intriguing than criticism; and it breeds sympathy, tolerance and kindness. “To know all is to forgive all.”
9. “Personally I am very fond of strawberries and cream, but I have found that for some strange reason, fish prefer worms. So when I went fishing, I didn’t think about what I wanted. I thought about what they wanted. I didn’t bait the hook with strawberries and cream. Rather, I dangled a worm or grasshopper in front of the fish and said: “Wouldn’t you like to have that?” Why not use the same common sense when fishing for people?”
Dale Carnegie Quotes on Self
1. “No matter what happens, always be yourself.”
2. “Any fool can criticize, complain, and condemn—and most fools do. But it takes character and self-control to be understanding and forgiving.”
3. “Nothing can bring you peace but yourself.”
4. “You cannot teach a man anything; you can only help him to find it within himself.”
5. “The rare individual who unselfishly tries to serve others has an enormous advantage.”
6. “Feeling sorry for yourself, and your present condition, is not only a waste of energy but the worst habit you could possibly have.”
7. “Flattery is telling the other person precisely what he thinks about himself.”
8. “First ask yourself: What is the worst that can happen? Then prepare to accept it. Then proceed to improve on the worst.”
9. “Be the best of whatever you are!”
10. “Be more concerned with your character than with your reputation, for your character is what you are, while your reputation is merely what others think you are.”
11. “If you are not in the process of becoming the person you want to be, you are automatically engaged in becoming the person you don’t want to be.”
12. “Nobody is so miserable as he who longs to be somebody and something other than the person he is in body and mind.”
13. “It raises one above the herd and gives one a feeling of nobility and exaltation to admit one’s mistakes.”
Dale Carnegie Quotes on Fear
1. “Inaction breeds doubt and fear. Action breeds confidence and courage. If you want to conquer fear, do not sit home and think about it. Go out and get busy.”
2. “When the fierce, burning winds blow over our lives-and we cannot prevent them-let us, too, accept the inevitable. And then get busy and pick up the pieces.”
3. “All men have fears, but the brave put down their fears and go forward, sometimes to death, but always to victory” was the motto of the King’s Guard in ancient Greece.”
4. “Don’t be afraid to give your best to what seemingly are small jobs. Every time you conquer one it makes you that much stronger. If you do the little jobs well, the big ones will tend to take care of themselves.”
5. “When fate hands you a lemon, make lemonade.”
6. “You are going to survive. And good things are going to start to happen again. And one day you are going to look back and this will not even be such a bad thing.”
7. “Two men looked out from prison bars, one saw the mud, the other saw stars.”
8. “The man who goes farthest is generally the one who is willing to do and dare. The sure-thing boat never gets far from shore.”
Dale Carnegie Quotes on Public Speaking
1. “Only the prepared speaker deserves to be confident.”
2. “Tell the audience what you’re going to say, say it; then tell them what you’ve said.”
3. “Each nation feels superior to other nations. That breeds patriotism – and wars.”
4. “There is only one way… to get anybody to do anything. And that is by making the other person want to do it.”
5. “There are four ways, and only four ways, in which we have contact with the world. We are evaluated and classified by these four contacts: what we do, how we look, what we say, and how we say it.”
6. “The only way I can get you to do anything is by giving you what you want.”
7. “The deepest principle in human nature is the craving to be appreciated.”
8. “The average person is more interested in her own name than in all the other names on earth put together.”
9. “Act enthusiastic and you will be enthusiastic.”
10. “The royal road to a man’s heart is to talk to him about the things he treasures most.”
11. “Speakers who talk about what life has taught them never fail to keep the attention of their listeners.”
These Dale Carnegie quotes reflects his wisdom and knowledge about self-help and interpersonal skills development as his principles are widely used in business, education, and personal development.
Carnegie married Dorothy Price Vanderpool in 1944. They had a daughter, Donna Dale Carnegie. He died on November 1, 1955, in Forest Hills, New York, from Hodgkin’s disease.
Which of these Dale Carnegie quotes left an impact on you?
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