How This Book Was Written—And Why By Dale Carnegie 本书的形成，为什么是由戴尔·卡耐基写成的

HOW TO WIN FRIENDS AND INFLUENCE PEOPLE

During the first thirty-five years of the twentieth century, the publishing houses of America printed more than a fifth of a million different books. Most of them were deadly dull, and many were financial failures.“Many,” did I say? The president of one of the largest publishing houses in the world confessed to me that his company, after seventy-five years of publishing experience, still lost money on seven out of every eight books it published.

Why, then, did I have the temerity to write another book? And, after I had written it, why should you bother to read it?

Fair questions, both; and I'll try to answer them.

I have, since 1912, been conducting educational courses for business and professional men and women in New York. At first, I conducted courses in public speaking only—courses designed to train adults, by actual experience, to think on their feet and express their ideas with more clarity, more effectiveness and more poise, both in business interviews and before groups.

But gradually, as the seasons passed, I realized that as sorely as these adults needed training in effective speaking, they needed still more training in the fine art of getting along with people in everyday business and social contacts.

I also gradually realized that I was sorely in need of such training myself. As I look back across the years, I am appalled at my own frequent lack of finesse and understanding. How I wish a book such as this had been placed in my hands twenty years ago! What a priceless boon it would have been.

Dealing with people is probably the biggest problem you face, especially if you are in business. Yes, and that is also true if you are a housewife, architect or engineer. Research done a few years ago under the auspices of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching uncovered a most important and significant fact—a fact later confirmed by additional studies made at the Carnegie Institute of Technology. These investigations revealed that even in such technical lines as engineering, about 15 percent of one's financial success is due to one's technical knowledge and about 85 percent is due to skill in human engineering—to personality and the ability to lead people.

For many years, I conducted courses each season at the Engineers' Club of Philadelphia, and also courses for the New York Chapter of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers. A total of probably more than fifteen hundred engineers have passed through my classes. They came to me because they had finally realized, after years of observation and experience, that the highest-paid personnel in engineering are frequently not those who know the most about engineering. One can for example, hire mere technical ability in engineering, accountancy, architecture or any other profession at nominal salaries. But the person who has technical knowledge plus the ability to express ideas, to assume leadership, and to arouse enthusiasm among people—that person is headed for higher earning power.

In the heyday of his activity, John D. Rockefeller said that“the ability to deal with people is as purchasable a commodity as sugar or coffee. And I will pay more for that ability,” said John D., “than for any other under the sun.”

Wouldn't you suppose that every college in the land would conduct courses to develop the highest-priced ability under the sun? But if there is just one practical, common-sense course of that kind given for adults in even one college in the land, it has escaped my attention up to the present writing.

The University of Chicago and the United Y.M.C.A.Schools conducted a survey to determine what adults want to study.

That survey cost $25,000 and took two years. The last part of the survey was made in Meriden, Connecticut. It had been chosen as a typical American town. Every adult in Meriden was interviewed and requested to answer 156 questions—questions such as“What is your business or profession? Your education? How do you spend your spare time? What is your income? Your hobbies? Your ambitions? Your problems? What subjects are you most interested in studying?” And so on. That survey revealed that health is the prime interest of adults—and that their second interest is people; how to understand and get along with people; how to make people like you; and how to win others to your way of thinking.

So the committee conducting this survey resolved to conduct such a course for adults in Meriden. They searched diligently for a practical textbook on the subject and found—not one. Finally they approached one of the world's outstanding authorities on adult education and asked him if he knew of any book that met the needs of this group.“No,” he replied, “I know what those adults want. But the book they need has never been written.”

I knew from experience that this statement was true, for I myself had been searching for years to discover a practical, working handbook on human relations.

Since no such book existed, I have tried to write one for use in my own courses. And here it is. I hope you like it.

In preparation for this book, I read everything that I could find on the subject—everything from newspaper columns, magazine articles, records of the family courts, the writings of the old philosophers and the new psychologists. In addition, I hired a trained researcher to spend one and a half years in various libraries reading everything I had missed, plowing through erudite tomes on psychology, poring over hundreds of magazine articles, searching through countless biographies, trying to ascertain how the great leaders of all ages had dealt with people. We read their biographies, we read the life stories of all great leaders from Julius Caesar to Thomas Edison. I recall that we read over one hundred biographies of Theodore Roosevelt alone. We were determined to spare no time, no expense, to discover every practical idea that anyone had ever used throughout the ages for winning friends and influencing people.

I personally interviewed scores of successful people, some of them world-famous—inventors like Marconi and Edison; political leaders like Franklin D.Roosevelt and James Farley; business leaders like Owen D.Young; movie stars like Clark Gable and Mary Pickford; and explorers like Martin Johnson—and tried to discover the techniques they used in human relations.

From all this material, I prepared a short talk. I called it“How to Win Friends and Influence People.”I say“short.”It was short in the beginning, but it soon expanded to a lecture that consumed one hour and thirty minutes. For years, I gave this talk each season to the adults in the Carnegie Institute courses in New York.

I gave the talk and urged the listeners to go out and test it in their business and social contacts, and then come back to class and speak about their experiences and the results they had achieved. What an interesting assignment! These men and women, hungry for self-improvement, were fascinated by the idea of working in a new kind of laboratory—the first and only laboratory of human relationships for adults that had ever existed.

This book wasn't written in the usual sense of the word. It grew as a child grows. It grew and developed out of that laboratory, out of the experiences of thousands of adults.

Years ago, we started with a set of rules printed on a card no larger than a postcard. The next season we printed a larger card, then a leaflet, then a series of booklets, each one expanding in size and scope. After fifteen years of experiment and research came this book.

The rules we have set down here are not mere theories or guesswork. They work like magic. Incredible as it sounds, I have seen the application of these principles literally revolutionize the lives of many people.

To illustrate: A man with 314 employees joined one of these courses. For years, he had driven and criticized and condemned his employees without stint or discretion. Kindness, words of appreciation and encouragement were alien to his lips. After studying the principles discussed in this book, this employer sharply altered his philosophy of life. His organization is now inspired with a new loyalty, a new enthusiasm, a new spirit of teamwork. Three hundred and fourteen enemies have been turned into 314 friends. As he proudly said in a speech before the class, “When I used to walk through my establishment, no one greeted me. My employees actually looked the other way when they saw me approaching. But now they are all my friends and even the janitor calls me by my first name.”

This employer gained more profit, more leisure and—what is infinitely more important—he found far more happiness in his business and in his home.

Countless numbers of salespeople have sharply increased their sales by the use of these principles. Many have opened up new accounts—accounts that they had formerly solicited in vain. Executives have been given increased authority, increased pay. One executive reported a large increase in salary because he applied these truths. Another, an executive in the Philadelphia Gas Works Company, was slated for demotion when he was sixty-five because of his belligerence, because of his inability to lead people skillfully. This training not only saved him from the demotion but brought him a promotion with increased pay.

On innumerable occasions, spouses attending the banquet given at the end of the course have told me that their homes have been much happier since their husbands or wives started this training.

People are frequently astonished at the new results they achieve. It all seems like magic. In some cases, in their enthusiasm, they have telephoned me at my home on Sundays because they couldn't wait forty-eight hours to report their achievements at the regular session of the course.

One man was so stirred by a talk on these principles that he sat far into the night discussing them with other members of the class. At three o'clock in the morning, the others went home. But he was so shaken by a realization of his own mistakes, so inspired by the vista of a new and richer world opening before him, that he was unable to sleep. He didn't sleep that night or the next day or the next night.

Who was he? A naïve, untrained individual ready to gush over any new theory that came along? No. Far from it. He was a sophisticated, blasé dealer in art, very much the man about town, who spoke three languages fluently and was a graduate of two European universities.

While writing this chapter, I received a letter from a German of the old school, an aristocrat whose forebears had served for generations as professional army officers under the Hohenzollerns. His letter, written from a transatlantic steamer, telling about the application of these principles, rose almost to a religious fervor.

Another man, an old New Yorker, a Harvard graduate, a wealthy man, the owner of a large carpet factory, declared he had learned more in fourteen weeks through this system of training about the fine art of influencing people than he had learned about the same subject during his four years in college. Absurd? Laughable? Fantastic? Of course, you are privileged to dismiss this statement with whatever adjective you wish. I am merely reporting, without comment, a declaration made by a conservative and eminently successful Harvard graduate in a public address to approximately six hundred people at the Yale Club in New York on the evening of Thursday, February 23,1933.

“Compared to what we ought to be,” said the famous Professor William James of Harvard,“compared to what we ought to be, we are only half awake. We are making use of only a small part of our physical and mental resources. Stating the thing broadly, the human individual thus lives far within his limits. He possesses powers of various sorts which he habitually fails to use.”

Those powers which you“habitually fail to use”! The sole purpose of this book is to help you discover, develop and profit by those dormant and unused assets.

“Education,” said Dr. John G. Hibben, former president of Princeton University, “is the ability to meet life's situations.”

If by the time you have finished reading the first three chapters of this book—if you aren't then a little better equipped to meet life's situations, then I shall consider this book to be a total failure so far as you are concerned. For“the great aim of education,” said Herbert Spencer, “is not knowledge but action.”

And this is an action book.

DALE CARNEGIE（1936）

人性的弱点

在20世纪前35年当中，美国的出版商曾出版过20多万种图书，但这些书大多数都乏味至极，许多都是赔本买卖。“许多。”是我说的吗？世界上最大之一的一家书店的老板就对我说，虽然他的公司拥有75年的出版经验，但还是每出版8本书就有7本亏本。

既然如此，那我为什么还敢冒险来再写一本书呢？而且在我写完之后，你又何必去读它呢？

这两个问题都很有道理，就让我来一一回答！

从1912年开始，我就在纽约为那些商业和专业男士及女士开教育讲座。最初我只开了演讲的课程，用实际经验来训练成年人，使他们在商业洽谈及公共场合中沉着自若，更清楚、更有效、更镇定地发表他们的意见。

经过一段时间，我逐渐发现这些人虽然需要高效演讲的训练，但是他们更需要在日常事务和社会交往中与人相处的技巧训练。

我也逐渐发现我自己也非常需要这种训练。当我回忆起那时的情形时，就会对自己贫乏的知识感到惶恐不安。我真希望在20年前手中就有这么一本书！这将是一件珍宝！

你所面临的最大困难可能是如何与人打交道，尤其当你是一位商人时更是如此。当然，如果你是一位家庭主妇、建筑师或工程师，同样也是如此。几年前由卡内基基金会赞助的一项调查研究，显示了一个最为重要的事实——后来被卡内基技术研究院所做的其他研究证实的事实。这些调查表明，即使在工程技术工作方面，一个人所获得的高额薪水中，大概只有15%是因为他的技术知识，而大约85%则是因为他的为人处世技巧，也就是他的个人品质和领导才能。

许多年来，我每个季度都要在费城的工程师俱乐部开设讲座，同时还在美国电机工程学会纽约分会开设讲座。大约有1500多人听过我的讲座。他们之所以到我这里来，是因为他们经过多年的观察发现，工程师得到的报酬最高的，通常不是那些工程学知识最多的人。例如，我们可以以正常的薪水雇用工程、会计、建筑或其他专业方面的技术人才。但是既有技术知识，又善于表达自己内心思想，同时又具备领导才能和激发他人热情的人，他们就会获得更高的收入。

洛克菲勒在事业达到巅峰的时候，曾这样说： “与人打交道的能力也是一种可以购买的商品，这正如同糖和咖啡一样。我愿意付出比世界上其他任何东西都要高的代价来购买这种能力。”

难道你不认为每个大学都应该开设这种实用课程，来开发我们这个世界上最宝贵的能力吗？但是直到我写这本书为止，我还没有发现哪个大学开设了这种既实用又需求迫切的课程。

芝加哥大学和青年会联合学校曾经做过一项调查，以考察成年人关心哪些事情。

这项调查耗资25000美元，花了两年时间。调查的最后部分是在康涅狄格州的米利顿进行的。这是一个典型的美国城镇。镇上的每个成年人都被调查过，他们被要求回答156个问题，例如“你的职业和专业是什么？”“你接受过什么教育？”“你如何打发闲暇时间？”“你的收入是多少？”“你有什么爱好？”“你的志向是什么？”“你有什么问题？”“你最喜欢什么学科？”……调查表明，成年人最关心的问题是健康——接下来的问题就是人，包括如何了解人、如何与人相处、如何让别人喜欢你、如何使别人赞同你的意见。

于是，这个调查委员会决定在米利顿为成年人开设这样一门课程。他们努力寻找这方面的实用教材，但一本都没有找到。最后他们找到一位世界著名的成人教育权威，问他是否知道有什么书符合成年人的这些需求。“没有，”他说，“我知道这些成年人需要什么，但是他们所需要的书至今都没人写。”

据我所知，他的话是对的，因为我自己也花了许多年的时间来寻找这种人际关系方面的实效书。既然这种书至今还没有，于是我就尝试着写了一本，用于我自己的课程。这就是你眼前的这本书。希望你们喜欢它。

为了写好这本书，我读了能找到的所有材料，包括报纸专栏、杂志文章、家庭法庭记录，以及旧哲学家和新心理学家的著作。而且我还雇了一位训练有素的研究员，花了一年半的工夫，在图书馆阅读我所遗漏的东西，研究各种心理学专著，翻阅了成百上千篇杂志文章，还抄录了许许多多的传记，以了解各个时代的伟大人物是如何与他人打交道的。我们读过从凯撒到爱迪生的各个时代的伟人传记。我还记得，仅西奥多·罗斯福的传记我们就看了100多本。我们决定不惜花费时间和金钱，一定要找到各个时代都曾用过的有关赢得朋友和影响他人的高效实用的方法。

我自己还拜访过几十位成功人士，其中一些人还是世界著名人物——例如发明家马可尼和爱迪生；政治领袖富兰克林·罗斯福和詹姆斯·弗雷；商业领袖欧文·扬；电影明星克拉克·盖博和玛丽亚·毕克馥；探险家马丁·约翰逊——尽力了解他们的为人处世之道。

我在这些材料的基础上准备了一篇简短的演讲稿，题目就叫《如何赢得朋友以及影响他人》。我说它短，因为它最初确实很短，但不久就扩充成一篇一个半小时的演讲稿。多年来我每个季度都在纽约的卡内基研究所为成年人做这篇演讲。

我为听众演讲，鼓励他们走出去，在工作、社会交往中试验，然后回到班上讲述他们的经验和取得的成果。这是一项多么有趣的工作啊！这些渴望成功的男男女女完全被这种新型的实验室迷住了——这也是有史以来为成年人创设的最早的、也是唯一的人际关系实验室。

这本书并不是像普通的书那样写成的，它像个孩子一样逐渐成长。它在实践中成长发育，并吸收了成百上千人的经验及智慧。

许多年以前，我刚开始只是把这些规则写在和明信片差不多大小的卡片上；在下一个季度，又将它们印在较大的卡片上；然后是印在一本小册子中；再往后就成了一小套书。它的篇幅和内容每次都有所扩充。经过15年的实验和研究之后，终于成了现在这本书。

这本书所说的不仅仅是理论或猜测，它们就像魔法一样有效。这听起来似乎难以置信，但我确确实实看见这些规则改变了许多人的生活。

例如，有一个人参加了这些课程，他手下有314名员工。长期以来，他总是不停地批评和责难他的员工，对他们从来没有赞扬和鼓励。当他学了这本书所讨论的各项规则以后，这位雇主的人生观得到了很大的改变。现在，他的公司充满了新的精诚合作的精神，314个敌人变成了314个朋友。他在一次班级演讲中得意地说道： “以前我在我的公司中走动的时候，没有人跟我打招呼。我的员工看到我走近时，会立即转过脸去。但现在他们都成了我的朋友，甚至连看门员都直接叫我的名字。”

这位老板现在获得了更多的利润，也有了更多的闲暇时间——而且更加重要的是，他在工作和家庭中得到了更多的幸福。

还有数不清的推销员因为采用了这些规则，从而迅速增加了他们的销售额。例如许多人找到了新的客户，而这些客户他们以前是根本找不到的。那些公司高级职员也因此得到了晋升，获得了更多的薪水。例如有一位高级职员就说，因为采用了这些规则，他的薪水大大增加。还有费城煤气公司的一位高级职员，因为喜欢争强好胜，又加上领导无方，65岁时被公司决定降职。接受这项训练之后，他不仅没有被降职，而且还晋升了职务，增加了薪水。

还有许多次，那些参加毕业聚会的妻子或丈夫对我说，自从她们的丈夫（或他们的妻子）开始这种训练之后，他们的家庭变得更加快乐了。

人们常常对自己所获得的新成就感到惊异。这一切就像魔术一样！有时他们甚至会在星期天激动万分地打电话到我家来，迫不及待地报告他们所取得的成就。

有一名学员就这些规则和班上的学员激动地一直谈到深夜。凌晨3点钟，其他人都回家了，他这才发现了自己的失误。但经过这次谈话，他发现自己面前有一条美好的前程，这使得他好几天都无法入睡。

这个人是谁呢？难道是一个没有经过什么训练、遇到任何新的东西就会兴奋难耐的人吗？不，当然不是！他是一个拥有高学历的、历尽沧桑的艺术商，社会交际很广，可以流利地说三种外语，还获得了两所欧洲大学的学位。

在写这章的时候，我收到了以前班上一名德国学员的来信。这是一位德国贵族，他的祖先曾在德国贵族霍亨佐勒恩的帐下世代担任终身军官。他这封信是在一艘横渡大西洋的轮船上写的，讲了他运用这些规则的情况，怀着一种近乎宗教的热情。

还有一位学员，他是一位老纽约人，哈佛大学毕业，而且非常富有，有一个地毯公司。他说他在14个星期中通过这种方法学到的关于影响他人的艺术，比大学四年中所学到的还要多。很荒唐吗？可笑吗？难以置信吗？你当然可以不相信这种说法，但我只是如实地告诉你一位守旧的、成就卓著的哈佛毕业生1933年2月23日（星期四）晚上在纽约的雅尔俱乐部面对大约600人的公开演讲中所说的内容。

“和我们所应该取得的成就相比，”哈佛大学著名教授威廉·詹姆斯曾这样说道，“我们不过是半醒着。现在我们只利用了我们身心资源的一小部分。从广义上来说，人类生活在自身潜能远远没有开发的狭小天地中。人类具有各种潜能，但却不曾开发和利用。”

开发你所拥有的“但却不曾利用的”的潜能！本书唯一的目的就是帮助你发现、发展、利用自身潜在的却又未曾利用的资源。

普林斯顿大学前任校长希本博士也说道： “教育才是应对生活中各种问题的有效手段。”

如果你读了这本书的前三章之后，还感到难以应对生活中的各种情况，那么我认为，这本书至少对你来说是完全失败的，因为斯宾塞曾说： “教育的伟大目的，不是知识，而是行动。”

这是一本教人如何行动的书。

戴尔·卡耐基（1936）