It is only a slight exaggeration to say that happiness is the experience of spending time with people you love and who love you.

An executive might have a very strong intuition that a given product has promise, without considering the probability that a rival is already ahead in developing the same product.

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.

We are prone to overestimate how much we understand about the world and to underestimate the role of chance in events.

I don't try to be clever at all. The idea that I could see what no one else can is an illusion.

One of the problems with expertise is that people have it in some domains and not in others.

Finally, the illusions of validity and skill are supported by a powerful professional culture. We know that people can maintain an unshakeable faith in any proposition, however absurd, when they are sustained by a community of like-minded believers. Given the professional culture of the financial community, it is not surprising that large numbers of individuals in that world believe themselves to be among the chosen few who can do what they believe others cannot.