How to Win Friends and Influence People
Dale Carnegie's 1936 manual on charm and persuasion — the original American self-help bestseller, and still the template for the genre.
Origin
Dale Carnegie taught adult-education courses in public speaking in New York from 1912 onward. His students wanted notes; the notes became a book; the book (1936) sold 30 million copies and never really went out of print. The advice is famously simple and famously hard: don't criticize, condemn, or complain; give honest and sincere appreciation; arouse in the other person an eager want; remember names; smile; talk in terms of the other person's interests; make them feel important. Carnegie illustrates each principle with anecdotes about Lincoln, Rockefeller, Edison, and ordinary salesmen.
Modern usage
Quoted constantly in sales training, dating advice, management books, and pickup forums. Frequently mocked for its surface manipulativeness ('just smile and say their name!'), and just as frequently re-validated by anyone who actually tries it. Sits at the head of the lineage that runs through [[think-and-grow-rich]], [[7-habits-of-highly-effective-people]], and [[atomic-habits]] — every modern self-help book is in conversation with this one.
In the wild
A person's name is to that person the sweetest and most important sound in any language.— Carnegie, 1936
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