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