I’m not a big supporter of Carnegie. IMHO, he takes good ideas and uses them to be manipulative.
It’s interesting that anyone even remembers him, let alone uses him as a MB cite. What is your thread about?
From “How To Win Friends and Influence People”, 1937 edition.
(I understand, according to earlier posts in this thread, that the book is frequently revised, so you may want to double-check that it is still in the book. Capitalizations are Carnegie’s)
"Chapter Six
How To Make People Like You Instantly
I was waiting in line to register a letter in the Post Office at Thirty-Third Street and Eighth Avenue in New York. I noticed that the registry clerk was bored with his job–weighing envelopes, handing out the stamps, making change, issuing receipts–the same monotonous grind year after year. So I said to myself: "I am going to try to make that chap like me. Obviously, to make him like me, I must say something nice, not about myself, but about him. So I asked myself, ‘What is there about him that I can honestly admire?’ That is sometimes a hard question to answer, especially with strangers; but, in this case, it happened to be very simple, for he had a magnificent head of hair.
So, while he was weighing my envelope, I remarked: “I certainly wish I had your head of hair.”
He looked up, half-startled, his face beaming with smiles. “Well, it isn’t as good as it used to be,” he said modestly. I assured him that although it might have lost some of its pristine glory, nevertheless it was still magnificent. He was immensely pleased. We carried on a pleasant little conversation and the last thing he said to me was: “Many people have admired my hair.”
I’ll bet that chap went out to lunch that day walking on air. I’ll bet he went home that night and told his wife about it. I’ll bet he looked in the mirror and said: “It is a beautiful head of hair.”
I told this story once in public; and a man in the audience inquired: “What did you want to get out of him?”
What was I trying to get out of him!!! Great God Almighty!!!
If we are so contempibly selfish that we can’t radiate a little happiness and pass on a bit of honest appreciation without trying to screw something out of the other person in return–if our souls are no bigger than sour crab apples, we shall meet with the failure we so richly deserve.
Oh yes, I did want something out of that chap. I wanted something priceless. And I got it. I got the feeling that I had done something for him without him being able to do anything whatever in return for me. That is a feeling that glows and sings in your memory long after the incident is passed. A homeless, penniless philosopher teaching in the hills of Judea nineteen hundred years ago said one day to his ragged followers: ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.’"