Wouldn’t you like to have a magic phrase that would stop arguments, eliminate ill feelings, create good will, and make the other person listen attentively? All right. Here it is: “I don’t blame you for feeling as you do. If I were you I would undoubtedly feel just as you do.”
Three-fourth of the people you will ever meet are hungering and thirsting for sympathy: Give it to them, and they will love you.
Dr. Arthur I. Gates said in his splendid book Educational psychology: “Sympathy the human species universally craves. The child eagerly displays his injury: For the same purpose adults: . . . . show their bruises, relate their accidents, illness, especially details of surgical operations. ‘Self-pity’ for misfortunes real or imaginary is in some measure, practically a universal practice.”
So, if you want to win people to your way thinking, put in practice....
PRINCIPLE 18: Be sympathetic with the other person’s ideas and desires.
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