If you are wrong, admit it quickly and emphatically

If You’re Wrong, Admit it

1. If we know we are going to be rebuked anyhow, isn’t it far better to beat the other person to it and do it ourselves? Isn’t much easier to listen to self-criticism than to bear condemnation from alien lips?
2. Say about yourself all the derogatory things you know the other person is thinking or wants to say or intends to say – and say them before that person has a chance to say them.
3. The chances are a hundred to one that a generous, forgiving attitude will be taken and your mistakes will be minimized.
4. You can have a grand time criticizing yourself and not letting the other person get a word in otherwise. You may actually find that person defending you.
5. My eagerness to criticize myself took all the fight out of him.
6. There is a certain degree of satisfaction in having the courage to admit one’s errors. It not only clears the air of guilt and defensiveness, but often helps solve the problem created by the error.
7. Admitting your mistakes creates respect.
8. Any fool can try to defend his or her mistakes – and most fools do – but it raises one above the herd and gives one a feeling of nobility and exultation to admit ones’ mistakes.
9. It takes a noble man to blame himself
10. The benefit of applying a principle may be more advantageous than maintaining an old tradition
11. When we are right, let’s try to win people over gently and tactfully to our way of thinking, and when we are wrong – and that will be surprisingly often, if we are honest with ourselves – let’s admit our mistakes quickly and with enthusiasm.
12. Believe it or not, it’s a lot more fun, under the circumstance, than trying to defend oneself.
13. “By fighting you never get enough, but by yielding you get more than you expected.” An Old Proverb