There is a group of people who know very well where the weapons of automatic influence lie and employ them regularly and expertly to get what they want. They go from social encounter to social encounter requesting others to comply with their wishes; their frequency of success is dazzling.

The obligation to receive reduces our ability to choose whom we wish to be indebted to and puts that power in the hands of others.

The factor that frequently determines whether people are going to make a particular choice is not the factor that counsels wisely or the one that leads to the greatest economic benefit. It's the one that's top of the consciousness in the moment.

The joy is not in experiencing a scarce commodity but in possessing it.

Pre-suasion is the practice of getting people sympathetic to your message before they experience it.

There's a difference between a mystery and a question. Questions demand answers, but a mystery demands something more valuable-explanation.

By concentrating our attention on the effect rather than the causes, we can avoid the laborious, nearly impossible task of trying to detect and deflect the many psychological influences on liking.