Chapter 2

The only way I can get you to do anything is by giving you what you want.

John Dewey said that the deepest urge in human nature is "the desire to be important."

It is this desire that lures (引誘) many boys and girls into joining gangs and engaging in criminal activities.

When a study was made a few years ago on runaway wives, what do you think was discovered to be the main reason wives run away? It was "lack of appreciation." And I'd bet that a similar study made of runaway husbands would come out the same way. We often take our spouses so much for granted that we never let them know we appreciated them.

Of course flattery (阿諛奉承) seldom works with discerning (眼光敏銳的) people. It is shallow, selfish and insincere. It ought to fail and and it usually does. True, some people are so hungry, so thirsty, for appreciation that they will swallow anything, just as starving man will eat grass and fishworms.

In the long run, flattery will do you more harm than good. Flattery is counterfeit (偽造的), and like counterfeit money, it will eventually get you into trouble if you pass it to someone else.

The difference between appreciation and flattery is simple. One is sincere and the other insincere. One comes from the heart out; the other from the teeth out. One is unselfish; the other selfish. One is universally admired (讚賞); the other universally condemned.

General Obregon's philosophy: "Don't be afraid of enemies who attack you. Be afraid of the friends who flatter you."

Flattery is telling the other person precisely (恰好) what he thinks about himself.

One of the most neglected virtues (美德) of our daily existence is appreciation. Somehow, we neglect to praise our son or daughter when he or she brings home a good report card, and we fail to encourage our children when they first succeed in baking a cake or building a birdhouse. Nothing pleases (使高興) children more than this kind of parental interest and approval.


Carnegie, D.D. (1981). How to Win Friends & Influence People (Revised Ed.) New York, NY: Pocket Books.