Daniel Kahneman
repetition falsehood familiarity truth
“A reliable way to make people believe in falsehoods is frequent repetition, because familiarity is not easily distinguished from truth. Authoritarian institutions and marketers have always known this fact.”
—Daniel Kahneman (1934-2024)
important life think
“Nothing in life is as important as you think it is, while you are thinking about it”
—Daniel Kahneman (1934-2024)
conviction world sense ignore ignorance
“Our comforting conviction that the world makes sense rests on a secure foundation: our almost unlimited ability to ignore our ignorance.”
—Daniel Kahneman (1934-2024)
money happiness misery
“Money does not buy you happiness, but lack of money certainly buys you misery.”
—Daniel Kahneman (1934-2024)
idea future unpredictable undermine past explain
“The idea that the future is unpredictable is undermined every day by the ease with which the past is explained.”
—Daniel Kahneman (1934-2024)
research optimism success importance significance
“I have always believed that scientific research is another domain where a form of optimism is essential to success: I have yet to meet a successful scientist who lacks the ability to exaggerate the importance of what he or she is doing, and I believe that someone who lacks a delusional sense of significance will wilt in the face of repeated experiences of multiple small failures and rare successes, the fate of most researchers.”
—Daniel Kahneman (1934-2024)
credible intelligent language complex simple
“If you care about being thought credible and intelligent, do not use complex language where simpler language will do.”
—Daniel Kahneman (1934-2024)
heuristics question answer easier substitution
“This is the essence of intuitive heuristics: when faced with a difficult question, we often answer an easier one instead, usually without noticing the substitution.”
—Daniel Kahneman (1934-2024)
confidence belief story see
“The confidence that individuals have in their beliefs depends mostly on the quality of the story they can tell about what they see, even if they see little.”
—Daniel Kahneman (1934-2024)
overestimate understand world underestimate chance
“We are prone to overestimate how much we understand about the world and to underestimate the role of chance in events.”
—Daniel Kahneman (1934-2024)
learn surprise behavior facts people
“You are more likely to learn something by finding surprises in your own behavior than by hearing surprising facts about people in general.”
—Daniel Kahneman (1934-2024)
blind obvious blindness
“we can be blind to the obvious, and we are also blind to our blindness.”
—Daniel Kahneman (1934-2024)
illusion understand past overconfidence predict future
“The illusion that we understand the past fosters overconfidence in our ability to predict the future.”
—Daniel Kahneman (1934-2024)
skill environment opportunity practice feedback thought action
“acquisition of skills requires a regular environment, an adequate opportunity to practice, and rapid and unequivocal feedback about the correctness of thoughts and actions.”
—Daniel Kahneman (1934-2024)
world sense coherence mind work
“The world makes much less sense than you think. The coherence comes mostly from the way your mind works.”
—Daniel Kahneman (1934-2024)
information useful sources independent
“To derive the most useful information from multiple sources of evidence, you should always try to make these sources independent of each other.”
—Daniel Kahneman (1934-2024)
belief constrain logic probability
“To be useful, your beliefs should be constrained by the logic of probability.”
—Daniel Kahneman (1934-2024)
consequence worse hindsight bias
“The worse the consequence, the greater the hindsight bias.”
—Daniel Kahneman (1934-2024)
happiness time enjoy
“The easiest way to increase happiness is to control your use of time. Can you find more time to do the things you enjoy doing?”
—Daniel Kahneman (1934-2024)
intuition trust stable environment
“Remember this rule: intuition cannot be trusted in the absence of stable regularities in the environment.”
—Daniel Kahneman (1934-2024)
multitasking easy task
“You can do several things at once, but only if they are easy and undemanding.”
—Daniel Kahneman (1934-2024)
thinking automatic intuitive reason emotion bias
"I think it is true that a lot of thinking is automatic and intuitive and not founded on logical reasoning and yet completely convincing and compelling. I think that most of the things we believe, we believe for reasons that have very little to do with logic or reasoning."
—Daniel Kahneman (1934-2024)
confidence coherence information cognitive ease
“Confidence is a feeling, which reflects the coherence of the information and the cognitive ease of processing it. It is wise to take admissions of uncertainty seriously, but declarations of high confidence mainly tell you that an individual has constructed a coherent story in his mind, not necessarily that the story is true.”
—Daniel Kahneman (1934-2024)