How to Win Friends and Influence People

As a young man, the author loved public speaking and enjoyed debating. At a banquet honoring a famous aviator, a nearby guest uttered a famous saying: “There’s a divinity that shapes our ends, rough-hew them how we will” (109). He cited the Bible as the source. Knowing the quote was from Shakespeare, the author got into a vigorous argument with the other guest.

Seated next to the author was a friend who happened to be a Shakespeare expert. He ruled that the quote was, indeed, from the Bible. On the way home, the author asked why he had lied; his friend replied that there was no point in humiliating a stranger over nothing. The author realized that “I not only had made the storyteller uncomfortable but had put my friend in an embarrassing situation” (110).

Winning an argument is a futile task: Invariably, it fails to convince opponents but succeeds in alienating them. Arguing over small matters is petty: “Remember, you can measure the size of a person by what makes him or her angry” (114).

Patrick O’Haire sold cars but loved to argue. He won a lot of arguments on the car lot but few sales.