How to Win Friends and Influence People Read Online Free PDF

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.
     “Don’t complain about the snow on your neighbor’s
    roof,” said Confucius, “when your own doorstep is unclean.”

    When I was still young and trying hard to impress
    people, I wrote a foolish letter to Richard Harding
    Davis, an author who once loomed large on the literary
    horizon of America. I was preparing a magazine article
    about authors, and I asked Davis to tell me about his
    method of work. A few weeks earlier, I had received a
    letter from someone with this notation at the bottom:
    “Dictated but not read.” I was quite impressed. I felt
    that the writer must be very big and busy and important.
    I wasn’t the slightest bit busy, but I was eager to make
    an impression on Richard Harding Davis, so I ended my
    short note with the words: “Dictated but not read.”

    He never troubled to answer the letter. He simply
    returned it to me with this scribbled across the bottom:
    “Your bad manners are exceeded only by your bad manners.”
    True, I had blundered, and perhaps I deserved
    this rebuke. But, being human, I resented it. I resented
    it so sharply that when I read of the death of Richard
    Harding Davis ten years later, the one thought that still
    persisted in my mind - I am ashamed to admit - was the
    hurt he had given me.

    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-
    no matter how certain we are that it is justified.

    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,
    one of the finest novelists ever to enrich English literature,
    to give up forever the writing of fiction. Criticism
    drove Thomas Chatterton, the English poet, to suicide.

    Benjamin Franklin, tactless in his youth, became so
    diplomatic, so adroit at handling people, that he was
    made American Ambassador to France. The secret of his
    success? “I will speak ill of no man,” he said, " . . and
    speak all the good I know of everybody.”

    Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain - and
    most fools do.

    But it takes character and self-control to be under-standing
    and forgiving.

    “A great man shows his greatness,” said Carlyle, “by
    the way he treats little men.”

    Bob Hoover, a famous test pilot and frequent per-former
    at air shows, was returning to his home in Los
    Angeles from an air show in San Diego. As described in
    the magazine Flight Operations, at three hundred feet
    in the air, both engines suddenly stopped. By deft maneuvering
    he managed to land the plane, but it was
    badly damaged although nobody was hurt.

    Hoover’s first act after the emergency landing was to
    inspect the airplane’s fuel. Just as he suspected, the
    World War II propeller plane he had been flying had
    been fueled 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 the 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 criticize 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.”

    Often parents are tempted to criticize their children.
    You would expect me to say “don’t.” But I will not, I