Daniel Goleman > Quotes

“Self-absorption in all its forms kills empathy, let alone compassion. When we focus on ourselves, our world contracts as our problems and preoccupations loom large. But when we focus on others, our world expands. Our own problems drift to the periphery of the mind and so seem smaller, and we increase our capacity for connection - or compassionate action.”
― Daniel Goleman, Social Intelligence: The New Science of Human Relationships

“In a very real sense we have two minds, one that thinks and one that feels”
― Daniel Goleman, Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ

“Anyone can become angry —that is easy. But to be angry with the right person, to the right degree, at the right time, for the right purpose, and in the right way —this is not easy. ARISTOTLE, The Nicomachean Ethics”
― Daniel Goleman, Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ

“The range of what we think and do is limited by what we fail to notice. And because we fail to notice that we fail to notice there is little we can do to change until we notice how failing to notice shapes our thoughts and deeds.”
― Daniel Goleman

“A belligerent samurai, an old Japanese tale goes, once challenged a Zen master to explain the concept of heaven and hell. The monk replied with scorn, "You're nothing but a lout - I can't waste my time with the likes of you!"
His very honor attacked, the samurai flew into a rage and, pulling his sword from its scabbard, yelled "I could kill you for your impertinence."
"That," the monk calmly replied, "is hell."
Startled at seeing the truth in what the master pointed out about the fury that had him in its grip, the samurai calmed down, sheathed his sword, and bowed, thanking the monk for the insight.
"And that,"said the monk "is heaven."

The sudden awakening of the samurai to his own agitated state illustrates the crucial difference between being caught up in a feeling and becoming aware that you are being swept away by it. Socrates's injunction "Know thyself" speaks to the keystone of emotional intelligence: awareness of one's own feelings as they occur.”
― Daniel Goleman, Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ

“people's emotions are rarely put into words , far more often they are expressed through other cues.
the key to intuiting another's feelings is in the ability to read nonverbal channels , tone of voice , gesture , facial expression and the like”
― Daniel Goleman, Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ

“There is perhaps no psychological skill more fundamental than resisting impulse.”
― Daniel Goleman, Emotional Intelligence

“Leadership is not domination, but the art of persuading people to work toward a common goal.”
― Daniel Goleman, Emotional Intelligence

“Emotional self-control-- delaying gratification and stifling impulsiveness- underlies accomplishment of every sort”
― Daniel Goleman, Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ

“The argument has long been made that we humans are by nature compassionate and empathic despite the occasional streak of meanness, but torrents of bad news throughout history have contradicted that claim, and little sound science has backed it. But try this thought experiment. Imagine the number of opportunities people around the world today might have to commit an antisocial act, from rape or murder to simple rudeness and dishonesty. Make that number the bottom of a fraction. Now for the top value you put the number of such antisocial acts that will actually occur today.

That ratio of potential to enacted meanness holds at close to zero any day of the year. And if for the top value you put the number of benevolent acts performed in a given day, the ratio of kindness to cruelty will always be positive. (The news, however, comes to us as though that ratio was reversed.)

Harvard's Jerome Kagan proposes this mental exercise to make a simple point about human nature: the sum total of goodness vastly outweighs that of meanness. 'Although humans inherit a biological bias that permits them to feel anger, jealousy, selfishness and envy, and to be rude, aggressive or violent,' Kagan notes, 'they inherit an even stronger biological bias for kindness, compassion, cooperation, love and nurture – especially toward those in need.' This inbuilt ethical sense, he adds, 'is a biological feature of our species.”
― Daniel Goleman, Social Intelligence: The New Science of Human Relationships

“Life is a comedy for those who think and a tragedy for those who feel. HORACE WALPOLE”
― Daniel Goleman, Emotional Intelligence

“Benjamin Franklin put it well: “Anger is never without a reason, but seldom a good one.”
― Daniel Goleman, Emotional Intelligence

“emotional self-awareness is the building block of the next fundamental emotional intelligence: being able to shake off a bad mood”
― Daniel Goleman, Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ

“People’s beliefs about their abilities have a profound effect on those abilities. Ability is not a fixed property; there is a huge variability in how you perform. People who have a sense of self-efficacy bounce back from failures; they approach things in terms of how to handle them rather than worrying about what can go wrong.”
― Daniel Goleman, Emotional Intelligence

“Our emotional mind will harness the rational mind to its purposes, for our feelings and reactions-- rationalizations-- justifying them in terms of the present moment, without realizing the influence of our emotional memory.”
― Daniel Goleman, Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ

“People with well-developed emotional skills are also more likely to be content and effective in their lives, mastering the habits of mind that foster their own productivity; people who cannot marshal some control over their emotional life fight inner battles that sabotage their ability for focused work and clear thought.”
― Daniel Goleman, Emotional Intelligence

“But the rational mind usually doesn't decide what emotions we "should" have !”
― Daniel Goleman, Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ

“When the eyes of a woman that a man finds attractive look directly at him, his brain secretes the pleasure-inducing chemical dopamine - but not when she looks elsewhere.”
― Daniel Goleman, Social Intelligence: The New Science of Human Relationships

“Feelings are self-justifying, with a set of perceptions and "proofs" all their own.”
― Daniel Goleman, Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ

“out-of-control emotions can make smart people stupid.”
― Daniel Goleman, Working With Emotional Intelligence

“Helping people better manage their upsetting feelings—anger, anxiety, depression, pessimism, and loneliness—is a form of disease prevention. Since the data show that the toxicity of these emotions, when chronic, is on a par with smoking cigarettes, helping people handle them better could potentially have a medical payoff as great as getting heavy smokers to quit.”
― Daniel Goleman, Emotional Intelligence

“The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant,” Albert Einstein once said. “We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift.”
― Daniel Goleman, Focus: The Hidden Driver of Excellence

“For better or worse, intelligence can come to nothing when the emotions hold sway.”
― Daniel Goleman, Emotional Intelligence

“A child's readiness for school depends on the most basic of all knowledge, how to learn. The report lists the seven key ingredients of this crucial capacity—all related to emotional intelligence:6 1. Confidence. A sense of control and mastery of one's body, behavior, and world; the child's sense that he is more likely than not to succeed at what he undertakes, and that adults will be helpful. 2. Curiosity. The sense that finding out about things is positive and leads to pleasure. 3. Intentionality. The wish and capacity to have an impact, and to act upon that with persistence. This is related to a sense of competence, of being effective. 4. Self-control. The ability to modulate and control one's own actions in age-appropriate ways; a sense of inner control. 5. Relatedness. The ability to engage with others based on the sense of being understood by and understanding others. 6. Capacity to communicate. The wish and ability to verbally exchange ideas, feelings, and concepts with others. This is related to a sense of trust in others and of pleasure in engaging with others, including adults. 7. Cooperativeness. The ability to balance one's own needs with those of others in group activity. Whether or not a child arrives at school on the first day of kindergarten with these capabilities depends greatly on how much her parents—and preschool teachers—have given her the kind of care that amounts to a "Heart Start," the emotional equivalent of the Head Start programs.”
― Daniel Goleman, Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ

“From the vantage point of the brain, doing well in school and at work involves one and the same state, the brain’s sweet spot for performance. The biology of anxiety casts us out of that zone for excellence. “Banish fear” was a slogan of the late quality-control guru W. Edwards Deming. He saw that fear froze a workplace: workers were reluctant to speak up, to share new ideas, or to coordinate well, let alone to improve the quality of their output. The same slogan applies to the classroom—fear frazzles the mind, disrupting learning.”
― Daniel Goleman, Social Intelligence

“Martin Luther King Jr. observed that those who failed to offer their aid asked themselves the question: “If I stop to help this man, what will happen to me?” But the Good Samaritan reversed the question: “If I do not stop to help this man what will happen to him?”
― Daniel Goleman, Focus: The Hidden Driver of Excellence

“When we are in the grip of craving or fury, head-over-heals in love our recoiling in dread, it is the limbic system that has us in its grip.”
― Daniel Goleman, Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ

“Emotional intelligence does not mean merely "being nice". At strategic moment it may demand not "being nice", but rather, for example, bluntly confronting someone with an uncomfortable but consequential truth they've been avoiding.”
― Daniel Goleman, Working with Emotional Intelligence

“goal-directed self-imposed delay of gratification" is perhaps the essence of emotional self-regulation: the ability to deny impulse in the service of a goal, whether it be building a business, solving an algebraic equation, or pursuing the Stanley Cup. His finding underscores the role of emotional intelligence as a meta-ability, determining how well or how poorly people are able to use their other mental capacities.”
― Daniel Goleman, Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ

“It’s not the chatter of people around us that is the most powerful distractor, but rather the chatter of our own minds. Utter concentration demands these inner voices be stilled. Start to subtract sevens successively from 100 and, if you keep your focus on the task, your chatter zone goes quiet.”
― Daniel Goleman, Focus: The Hidden Driver of Excellence