How to Win Friends & Influence People, Dale Carnegie

1. If you want to gather honey, don't kick over the beehive

principle 1. Don't criticise, condemn or complain

May 7, 1931 'Two Gun' Crowley the cop killer was brought into custody. He was a brutal killer but he believed himself to always be doing what was right. He didn't think himself to be a bad person. 'He will kill, at the drop of a feather.' said the police commissioner. Writing a letter before he died Cowley wrote 'under my coat is a weary heart, but a kind one - one that would do nobody any harm.'

I have spent the best years of my life giving people the lighter pleasures, helping them have a good time, and all I get is abuse, the existence of a hunted man.
Al Capone

Carnegie:

Ninety nine times out of a hundred, people don't criticise themselves for anything, no matter how wrong it may be.

As Lincoln lay dying Secretary of War Stanton said: there lies the most perfect ruler of men that the world has ever seen.

After studying Lincoln for ten years and devoting three years to writing a book on Lincoln Carnegie believes that his inability/unwillingness to criticise anybody else is a major part of why he was so successful and respected as a leader.

One of Lincoln's favourite quotes was 'judge not, that ye be not judged.'

When Mrs Lincoln criticised others and spoke harshly of the southern people, Lincoln replied: 'Don't criticise them; they are just what we would be under similar circumstances.'

Carnegie:

Do you know someone you would like to change and regulate and improve? Good! That is fine. I am all in favour of it, but why not begin on yourself? From a purely selfish standpoint, that is a lot more profitable than trying to improve others- yes, and a lot less dangerous.

Remembering a time someone rebuked him but he didn't let it go until after the man died:

If you and I want to stir up a resentment tomorrow that may rankle across the decades and endure until death, just let us indulge in a little stinging criticism.

When dealing with people let us remember we are not dealing with creatures of logic. We are dealing with creatures of emotion, creatures bristling with prejudices and motivated by pride and vanity.

Bitter criticism caused the sensitive Thomas Hardy to give up forever writing fiction. Thomas Chatterton (English poet) was driven to suicide by it.

Benjamin Franklin:

I will speak ill of no man, and speak all the good I know of everybody. 

 Carnegie:

Any fool can criticise, condemn and complain - and most fools do. But it takes character and self-control to be understanding and forgiving.

Carlyle:

A great man shows his greatness, by the way he treats little men.

Bob Hoover a famous test pilot was returning to LA from San Diego. At 300 ft in the air both engines suddenly cut out. Deft at manoeuvring he managed to land the plane safely. Hoover inspected the engine's fuel. Just as he suspected it had been filled with jet fuel rather than gasoline:

Upon returning to the airport he asked to see the mechanic who had serviced his airplane. The young man was sick with agony of his mistake. Tears streamed down his face as Hoover approached. He had just caused the loss of a very expensive plane and could have caused the loss of three lives as well.

You can imagine Hoover's anger. One could anticipate the tongue-;lashing that this proud and precise pilot would unleash for that carelessness. But Hoover didn't scold the mechanic; he didn't even criticise him. Instead, he put his big arm around the man's shoulder and said, 'to show you I'm sure that you'll never do this again, I want you to service my F-51 tomorrow.'

W. Livingston Larned. FATHER FORGETS

Listen, son: I am saying this as you lie asleep, one little paw crumpled under your cheek and the blond curls stickily wet on your damp forehead. I have stolen into your room alone. Just a few minutes ago, as I sat reading my paper in the library, a stifling wave of remorse swept over me. Guiltily I came to your bedside. 

There are the things I was thinking, son: I had been cross to you. I scolded you as you were dressing for school because you gave your face merely a dab with a towel. I took you to task for not cleaning your shoes. I called out angrily when you threw some of your things on the floor.

At breakfast I found fault, too. You spilled things. You gulped down your food. You put your elbows on the table. You spread butter too thick on your bread. And as you started off to play and I made for my train, you turned and waved a hand and called, “Goodbye, Daddy!” and I frowned, and said in reply, “Hold your shoulders back!” Then it began all over again in the late afternoon. As I came up the road I spied you, down on your knees, playing marbles. There were holes in your stockings. I humiliated you before your boyfriends by marching you ahead of me to the house. Stockings were expensive‐and if you had to buy them you would be more careful! Imagine that, son, from a father! Do you remember, later, when I was reading in the library, how you came in timidly, with a sort of hurt look in your eyes? When I glanced up over my paper, impatient at the interruption, you hesitated at the door. “What is it you want?” I snapped. You said nothing, but ran across in one tempestuous plunge, and threw your arms around my neck and kissed me, and your small arms tightened with an affection that God had set blooming in your heart and which even neglect could not wither. And then you were gone, pattering up the stairs. Well, son, it was shortly afterwards that my paper slipped from my hands and a terrible sickening fear came over me. What has habit been doing to me? The habit of finding fault, of reprimanding‐this was my reward to you for being a boy. It was not that I did not love you; it was that I expected too much of youth. I was measuring you by the yardstick of my own years. And there was so much that was good and fine and true in your character. The little heart of you was as big as the dawn itself over the wide hills. This was shown by your spontaneous impulse to rush in and kiss me good night. Nothing else matters tonight, son. I have come to your bedside in the darkness, and I have knelt there, ashamed! It is feeble atonement; I know you would not understand these things if I told them to you during your waking hours. But tomorrow I will be a real daddy! I will chum with you, and suffer when you suffer, and laugh when you laugh. I will bite my tongue when impatient words come. I will keep saying as if it were a ritual: “He is nothing but a boy‐a little boy!” I am afraid I have visualized you as a man. Yet as I see you now, son, crumpled and weary in your cot, I see that you are still a baby. Yesterday you were in your mother’s arms, your head on her shoulder. I have asked too much, too much.  

Dr Johnson: God himself, sir, does not propose to judge man until the end of his days. Why should you and I?