Edward de Bono and lateral thinking

I loved Edward de Bono and his teaching on lateral thinking.  I read many of his books and creativity has been a life long interest of mine.

Some favourite quotes

• A discussion should be a genuine attempt to explore a subject rather than a battle between competing egos.”
• A good listener is very nearly as attractive as a good talker. You cannot have a beautiful mind if you do not know how to listen.”
• An idea that is developed and put into action is more important than an idea that exists only as an idea.”
• being right all the time acquires a huge importance in education, and there is this terror of being wrong. The ego is so tied to being right that later on in life you are reluctant to accept that you are ever wrong, because you are defending not the idea but your self-esteem. (...) this terror of being wrong means that people have enormous difficulties in changing ideas.”
• Creativity involves provocation, exploration and risk taking. Creativity involves "thought experiments." You cannot tell in advance how the experiment is going to turn out. But you want to be able to carry out the experiment.”
• If you never change your mind, why have one?”
• 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.”
• Many highly intelligent people are poor thinkers. Many people of average intelligence are skilled thinkers. The power of the car is separate from the way the car is driven.”
• No way of looking at things is too sacred to be reconsidered. No way of doing things is beyond improvement.”
• The need to be right all the time is the biggest bar to new ideas. 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. ”
• There is no doubt that creativity is the most important human resource of all. Without creativity, there would be no progress, and we would be forever repeating the same patterns.”
• Thinking is the ultimate human resource.”
• We may have a perfectly adequate way of doing something, but that does not mean there cannot be a better way. So we set out to find an alternative way. This is the basis of any improvement that is not fault correction or problem solving.”
• We need creativity in order to break free from the temporary structures that have been set up by a particular sequence of experience.
• Creative thinking quotes on Wisdom Trove