It was always assumed I would be a professor. I grew up thinking it.

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.

Human beings cannot comprehend very large or very small numbers. It would be useful for us to acknowledge that fact.

Courage is willingness to take the risk once you know the odds. Optimistic overconfidence means you are taking the risk because you don't know the odds. It's a big difference.

Money does not buy you happiness, but lack of money certainly buys you misery.

Through some combination of culture and biology, our minds are intuitively receptive to religion.

You know, the standard state for people is 'mildly pleasant.' Negative emotions are quite rare, and extremely positive emotions are rare. But people are mildly pleased most of the time, they're mildly tired a lot of the time, and they wish they were somewhere else a substantial part of the time - but mostly they're mildly pleased.