When people think of the outcomes of their decisions, they think much more short term than that. They think in terms of gains and losses.

There's a very good reason for why economics developed the way it did, and that is that in many situations, the assumption that people will exploit the opportunities available to them is very plausible, and it simplifies the analysis of how markets will behave.

Except for some effects that I attribute mostly to age, my intuitive thinking is just as prone to overconfidence, extreme predictions, and the planning fallacy as it was before I made a study of these issues.

Researchers who studied a thousand Dutch vacationers concluded that by far the greatest amount of happiness extracted from the vacation is derived from the anticipation period.

Nobody would say, 'I'm voting for this guy because he's got the stronger chin,' but that, in fact, is partly what happens.

Optimism is normal, but some fortunate people are more optimistic than the rest of us. If you are genetically endowed with an optimistic bias, you hardly need to be told that you are a lucky person - you already feel fortunate.

The most effortful forms of slow thinking are those that require you to think fast.