Inspirational Quotations

Inspirational Quotes by Dale Carnegie (American Self-Help Author)

Dale Harbison Carnegie (1888–1955,) originally Dale Carnegey, was an American lecturer, author, and innovator in the field of public speaking and the psychology of the successful personality. He is the author of the perennial self-help bestseller How to Win Friends and Influence People (1936.) Carnegie benefited from the American desire for success by peddling advice that helped readers feel and become successful.

Carnegie was born in Maryville, Missouri. His family lived poorly on a small farm during his childhood. He worked as a salesperson and an actor before moving to New York City to teach public speaking at the Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA.) When his courses got popular, he standardized his teaching methods by publishing pamphlets. He collected these into book form as Public Speaking: A Practical Course for Business Men (1926.) He also compiled Little Known Facts About Well Known People (1934.)

In 1936, Carnegie published How to Win Friends and Influence People, which offered anecdotes, advice, homespun wisdom, and an unfaltering belief in the public and private benefits of positive thinking. At the back of the book’s enormous popularity, he established hundreds of branches of the Dale Carnegie Institute for effective speaking and human relations, which registered 50,000 people a year at the time of his death.

Dale Carnegie was not related to the Scottish-American steel magnate and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie, but changed the spelling of his last name from “Carnagey” at a time when Andrew Carnegie was a widely recognized name.

Carnegie also wrote How to Stop Worrying and Start Living (1948,) Lincoln the Unknown (1932,) and several other books.

More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Dale Carnegie

We all have possibilities we don’t know about. We can do things we don’t even dream we can do.
—Dale Carnegie
Topics: Potential, Possibilities

There are four ways, and only four ways, in which we have contact with the world. We are evaluated and classified by these four contacts: what we do, how we look, what we say, and how we say it.
—Dale Carnegie
Topics: Communication

Only the prepared speaker deserves to be confident.
—Dale Carnegie
Topics: Speakers, Speaking

For better or worse, you must play your own little instrument in the orchestra of life.
—Dale Carnegie

You have it easily in your power to increase the sum total of this world’s happiness now. How? By giving a few words of sincere appreciation to someone who is lonely or discouraged. Perhaps you will forget tomorrow the kind words you say today, but the recipient may cherish them over a lifetime.
—Dale Carnegie
Topics: Words

Do you remember the things you were worrying about a year ago? How did they work out? Didn’t you waste a lot of fruitless energy on account of most of them? Didn’t most of them turn out all right after all?
—Dale Carnegie
Topics: Worry

If you want to gather honey, don’t kick over the beehive.
—Dale Carnegie
Topics: Results

Remember, happiness doesn’t depend upon who you are or what you have, it depends solely upon what you think.
—Dale Carnegie
Topics: Feelings, Happiness

I’ve found that worry and irritation vanish into thin air the moment I open my mind to the many blessings I possess.
—Dale Carnegie
Topics: Mind

Most of the important things in the world have been accomplished by people who have kept on trying when there seemed to be no help at all.
—Dale Carnegie

Don’t be afraid to give your best to what seemingly are small jobs. Every time you conquer one it makes you that much stronger. If you do the little jobs well, the big ones tend to take care of themselves.
—Dale Carnegie
Topics: Action, Perseverance, Excellence, Kindness, Virtue, Things, Being True to Yourself, Goodness, Little Things

When fate hands us a lemon, make lemonade.
—Dale Carnegie
Topics: Fate

If you believe in what you are doing, then let nothing hold you up in your work. Much of the best work of the world has been done against seeming impossibilities. The thing is to get the work done.
—Dale Carnegie
Topics: Work, Art, Critics, Doing Your Best, Criticism

Are you bored with life? Then throw yourself into some work you believe in with all your heart, live for it, die for it, and you will find happiness that you had thought could never be yours.
—Dale Carnegie

All the king’s horses and all the king’s men can’t put the past together again. So let’s remember: Don’t try to saw sawdust.
—Dale Carnegie
Topics: The Past, Past

Did you ever see an unhappy horse? Did you ever see bird that had the blues? One reason why birds and horses are not unhappy is because they are not trying to impress other birds and horses.
—Dale Carnegie

Cash can buy, but it takes enthusiasm to sell.
—Dale Carnegie
Topics: Enthusiasm

When we hate our enemies, we are giving them power over us: power over our sleep, our appetites, our blood pressure, our health and our happiness. Our enemies would dance with joy if only they knew how they were worrying us, lacerating us, and getting even with us! Our hate is not hurting them at al, but our hate is turning our days and nights into a hellish turmoil.
—Dale Carnegie
Topics: Forgiveness

Inaction breeds doubt and fear. Action breeds confidence and courage. If you want to conquer fear, do not sit home and think about it. Go out and get busy.
—Dale Carnegie
Topics: Confidence, Anxiety, Procrastination, Busy, Doing, Fear, Accomplishment

Flaming enthusiasm, backed up by horse sense and persistence, is the quality that most frequently makes for success.
—Dale Carnegie
Topics: Resolve, Success, Passion, Enthusiasm, Endurance, Perseverance

You can make more friends in two months by becoming genuinely interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get other people interested in you.
—Dale Carnegie
Topics: Friends and Friendship, Business, Charm, Friendship, Courage, People

Act as if you were already happy, and that will tend to make you happy.
—Dale Carnegie

Flattery is from the teeth out. Sincere appreciation is from the heart out.
—Dale Carnegie
Topics: Flattery

If you can’t sleep, then get up and do something instead of lying there and worrying. It’s the worry that gets you, not the loss of sleep.
—Dale Carnegie
Topics: Worry

Don’t be afraid of enemies who attack you. Be afraid of the friends who flatter you.
—Dale Carnegie

George Bernard Shaw was right. He summed it all up when he said: “The secret of being miserable is to have the leisure to bother about whether you are happy or not”. So don’t bother to think about it! Spit on your hands and get busy. Your blood will start circulating; your mind will start ticking—and pretty soon this whole positive upsurge of life in your body will drive worry from your mind. Get busy. Keep busy. It’s the cheapest kind of medicine there is on this earth—and one of the best.
—Dale Carnegie

The ideas I stand for are not mine. I borrowed them from Socrates. I swiped them from Chesterfield. I stole them from Jesus. And I put them in a book. If you don’t like their rules, whose would you use?
—Dale Carnegie
Topics: Ideas

So, to prevent fatigue and worry, the first rule is: Rest often. Rest before you get tired.
—Dale Carnegie

The royal road to a man’s heart is to talk to him about the things he treasures most.
—Dale Carnegie
Topics: Communication

Our fatigue is often caused not by work, but by worry, frustration and resentment.
—Dale Carnegie
Topics: Work, Worry

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