Daniel Kahneman
Nobel laureate for prospect theory and cognitive biases
Most quoted
"A general 'law of least effort' applies to cognitive as well as physical exertion. The law states that if there are several ways of achieving the same goal, people will eventually gravitate to the least demanding course of action."
— from Thinking, Fast and Slow, 2011
"The confidence we experience as we make a judgment is not a reasoned evaluation of the probability that it is right. Confidence is a feeling, which reflects the coherence of the information and the cognitive ease of processing it."
— from Thinking, Fast and Slow, 2011
"The sunk-cost fallacy is the idea that people are reluctant to abandon a strategy or course of action because they have invested heavily in it, even when it is clear that abandonment would be more beneficial."
— from Interview/Lecture
All quotes by Daniel Kahneman (309)
The greatest illusion is that we have control.
Life is a journey, not a destination.
The only thing we can truly control is our response to life.
The beauty of the world is in the eye of the beholder.
The human mind is a complex and beautiful mystery.
The search for truth is a lifelong endeavor.
The greatest gift we can give ourselves is to be present.
The most important skill in life is to know when to trust your intuition and when to distrust it.
People are not thinking machines that feel; rather, they are feeling machines that think.
The idea that the future is unpredictable is something that people don't like to hear.
The human mind is a story generator, not a logic machine.
We are not rational agents, but rather, we are predictably irrational.
The main reason for the persistence of bad decisions is that people are not aware of their biases.
The only way to improve your decisions is to slow down and think.
System 1 is the hero of the story, but it's also the villain.
The experience of flow is intrinsically rewarding, but it is not necessarily happy.
People are more willing to take risks to avoid a loss than to achieve a gain.
The most important lesson of prospect theory is that people do not evaluate outcomes in absolute terms, but in terms of gains and losses relative to a reference point.
The idea that people are rational is a convenient fiction.
We are not good at predicting what will make us happy.
Contemporaries of Daniel Kahneman
Other Psychologys born within 50 years of Daniel Kahneman (1934–2024).