Top 100 Edward De Bono Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “Humor is by far the most significant activity of the human brain.”

— Edward De Bono

Featured in: Funny Quotes, Creativity Quotes, Humor Quotes

2. “Perception is real even when it is not reality.”

— Edward De Bono

3. “Creativity involves breaking out of established patterns in order to look at things in a different way.”

— Edward De Bono

Featured in: Creativity Quotes

4. “The analysis of data will not by itself produce new ideas...”

— Edward De Bono

5. “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.”

— Edward De Bono

Featured in: Creativity Quotes, Creative Quotes

6. “Creativity and lateral thinking have exactly the same basis as humour.”

— Edward De Bono

7. “You cannot look in a new direction by looking harder in the same direction.”

— Edward De Bono

8. “Complexity means distracted effort. Simplicity means focused effort.”

— Edward De Bono

9. “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.”

— Edward De Bono

10. “Companies that solely focus on competition will ultimately die. Those that focus on value creation will thrive.”

— Edward De Bono

11. “If you never change your mind, why have one?”

— Edward De Bono

12. “The quality of our thinking will determine the quality of our future.”

— Edward De Bono

13. “America is not just a country, it’s an idea.”

— Edward De Bono

14. “Complexity creates confusion, simplicity focus.”

— Edward De Bono

15. “Creative thinking is not a talent, it is a skill that can be learned. It empowers people by adding strength to their natural abilities which improves teamwork, productivity and, where appropriate, profits.”

— Edward De Bono

16. “The winner is the chef who takes the same ingredients as everyone else and produces the best results.”

— Edward De Bono

17. “You can analyse the past, but you need to design the future. That is the difference between suffering the future and enjoying it.”

— Edward De Bono

18. “A discussion should be a genuine attempt to explore a subject rather than a battle between competing egos.”

— Edward De Bono

19. “We may need to solve problems not by removing the cause but by designing the way forward even if the cause remains in place.”

— Edward De Bono

20. “Effectiveness without values is a tool without a purpose.”

— Edward De Bono

21. “Creativity makes life more fun and more interesting.”

— Edward De Bono

Featured in: Fun Quotes

22. “You can’t dig a different hole by digging the same one deeper.”

— Edward De Bono

23. “Intelligence is something we are born with. Thinking is a skill that must be learned.”

— Edward De Bono

24. “Creativity gives the possibility of some sort of achievement to everyone.”

— Edward De Bono

25. “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.”

— Edward De Bono

26. “The vertical thinker says: ‘I know what I am looking for.’ The lateral thinker says: ‘I am looking but I won’t know what I am looking for until I have found it.’”

— Edward De Bono

27. “If you do not design the future, someone or something else will design it for you.”

— Edward De Bono

28. “Mock the devil, and he will flee from thee.”

— Edward De Bono

29. “Many highly intelligent people are poor thinkers. Many people of average intelligence are skilled thinkers. The power of a car is separate from the way the car is driven.”

— Edward De Bono

30. “It is well known that “problem avoidance” is an important part of problem solving. Instead of solving the problem you go upstream and alter the system so that the problem does not occur in the first place.”

— Edward De Bono

Featured in: Firsts Quotes

31. “The concept of logical thinking is selection and this is brought about by the processes of acceptance and rejection. Rejection is the basis of logical thinking.”

— Edward De Bono

32. “Simplicity before understanding is simplistic; simplicity after understanding is simple.”

— Edward De Bono

33. “What is urgent will always take precedence over what is important.”

— Edward De Bono

34. “Thinking is the ultimate human resource. Yet we can never be satisfied with our most important skill. No matter how good we become, we should always want to be better.”

— Edward De Bono

35. “A myth is a fixed way of looking at the world which cannot be destroyed because, looked at through the myth, all evidence supports the myth.”

— Edward De Bono

36. “Every valuable creative idea must always be logical in hindsight. If it were not, we would never be able to see its value.”

— Edward De Bono

37. “The mind can only see what it is prepared to see.”

— Edward De Bono

38. “A characteristic of intuitive solutions and new ideas is that of being obvious once they are discovered.”

— Edward De Bono

39. “Don’t criticise a hypothesis, come up with a better one.”

— Edward De Bono

40. “Language is the biggest barrier to human progress because language is an encyclopedia of ignorance. Old perceptions are frozen into language and force us to look at the world in an old fashioned way.”

— Edward De Bono

41. “The power of a car is separate from the way the car is driven.”

— Edward De Bono

42. “We need creativity in order to break free from the temporary structures that have been set up by a particular sequence of experience.”

— Edward De Bono

43. “The image that concerns most people is the reflection they see in other people’s minds.”

— Edward De Bono

44. “Being right is not too difficult. Your choose your perception. You select your information. You leave out what does not suit you. You drag in some general-purpose value words. You throw in a sneer or two about the opposition, and you are a fine fellow who made a fine speech.”

— Edward De Bono

45. “The weapons of the positive revolution are not bullets and bombs but simple human perceptions. Bullets and bombs may offer physical power but eventually will only work if they change perceptions and values. Why not go the direct route and work with perceptions and values?”

— Edward De Bono

46. “We still seek to solve conflicts with ‘judgement’ instead of designing the way forwards.”

— Edward De Bono

47. “Possibilities play a much bigger role in thinking than most people believe. Without possibilities you cannot make progress.”

— Edward De Bono

48. “To develop thinking as a skill, it should be deliberate, focused, confident, and enjoyable.”

— Edward De Bono

49. “Man owes his success to his creativity. No one doubts the need for it. It is most useful in good times and essential in bad.”

— Edward De Bono

50. “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.”

— Edward De Bono