Abe Lincoln said, “If a man’s heart is rankling with discord and ill feeling toward you, you can’t win him to your way of thinking with all the logic in Christendom. Scolding parents and domineering bosses and husbands and nagging wives ought to realize that people don’t want to change their minds. They can’t be forced or driven to agree with you or me. But they may possibly be led to, if we are gentle and friendly, ever so gentle and ever so friendly.”
Human Relations Principle #13: Begin in a friendly way.
(“A drop of honey.”)
(This is the thirteenth in a series of articles where I will encapsulate each of Dale Carnegie’s timeless, life-changing principles for dealing with people. (Adapted from How to Win Friends and Influence People.))*
The use of gentleness and friendliness is demonstrated day after day by people who have learned the old maxim that a drop of honey catches more flies than a gallon of gall.
So with men [and women], if you would win a person to your cause, first convince him/her that you are his/her sincere friend. Therein is a drop of honey that catches his/her heart; which, say what you will, is the great high road to his/her reason. Read more

“By fighting you never get enough, but by yielding you get more than you expected.”
“You cannot teach a man anything; you can only help him to find it within himself.”
“If you argue and rankle and contradict, you may achieve a victory sometimes;
“Every man I meet is my superior in some way.
Make yourself agreeable to earn the interest of others.
Successful business interaction is not a mystery. Nothing is so praiseworthy and important as paying exclusive attention to the person who is speaking to you.
“Good manners are made up of petty sacrifices.”
“Most folks are about as happy as they make up their minds to be.”
“You can make more friends in two months by becoming genuinely interested in other people that you can in two years by trying to get other people interested in you.”