An investment said to have an 80% chance of success sounds far more attractive than one with a 20% chance of failure. The mind can't easily recognize that they are the same.

Most of the time, we think fast. And most of the time we're really expert at what we're doing, and most of the time, what we do is right.

It's not a case of: 'Read this book and then you'll think differently. I've written this book, and I don't think differently.

However, optimism is highly valued, socially and in the market; people and firms reward the providers of dangerously misleading information more than they reward truth tellers. One of the lessons of the financial crisis that led to the Great Recession is that there are periods in which competition, among experts and among organizations, creates powerful forces that favor a collective blindness to risk and uncertainty.

Mind is a machine for jumping to conclusions

The extra daily social time of 1.7 hours in weekends raises average happiness by about 2%.

The psychologist, Paul Rozin, an expert on disgust, observed that a single cockroach will completely wreck the appeal of a bowl of cherries, but a cherry will do nothing at all for a bowl of cockroaches.