Error ... is less an intellectual problem than an existential one - a crisis not in what we know, but in who we are. We hear something of that identity crisis in the questions we ask ourselves in the aftemath of error: What was I thinking? How could I have done that?

If it is sweet to be right, then - let's not deny it - it is downright savory to point out that someone else is wrong.

I had drunk our great cultural Kool-Aid about regret, which is that lamenting things that occurred in the past is an absolute waste of time, that we should always look forward and not backward, and that one of the noblest and best things we can do is strive to live a life free of regrets.

doubt is a skill. credulity ,by contrast, appears to be something very like an instinct

The miracle of your mind isn't that you can see the world as it is. It's that you can see the world as it isn't.

Take away the ability of an intelligent, principled, hard-working mind to get it wrong, and you take away the whole thing.

A whole lot of us go through life assuming that we are basically right, basically all the time, about basically everything: about our political and intellectual convictions, our religious and moral beliefs, our assessments of other people, our memories, our grasp of facts. As absurd as it sounds when we stop to think about it, our steady state seems to be one of unconsciously assuming that we are very close to omniscient.