When parents have college savings accounts for their kids, their kids show higher social and cognitive performance.

Ownership is not limited to material things. It can also apply to points of view. Once we take ownership of an idea - whether it’s about politics or sports - what do we do? We love it perhaps more than we should. We prize it more than it is worth. And most frequently, we have trouble letting go of it because we can’t stand the idea of its loss. What are we left with then? An ideology - rigid and unyielding.

The real issue is, how much goodwill do you invest in the work? And goodwill is not something that we can buy with money. It's very hard to buy goodwill with money.

Big Data is like teenage sex: everyone talks about it, nobody really knows how to do it, everyone thinks everyone else is doing it, so everyone claims they are doing it.

What people do is they pay the small loans first. Why? Because they enjoy making the number of loans smaller. But of course it is a very ineffective way to pay debt down.

The things that motivate us are to help other people, to feel that we're useful, to feel that we're getting better, to feel that we are kind of living to our potential, to get a sense of meaning. All of those things are positive.

Because cheating is easier when we can justify our behavior, people often cheat in small amounts: We can come up with an excuse for stealing Post-It notes, but it is much more difficult to come up with an excuse for taking $10,000 from petty cash.