Irrationally yours Quotes

“There are basically two ways to help people get sufficient money to fund their entire retirement. The first is to get people to save more money, and to start saving at a younger age. The second approach is to get people to die at a younger age. The easier approach, by far, is getting people to die younger. And how might we achieve this? By allowing citizens to smoke. By subsidizing sugary and fatty foods. By limiting access to preventive health care etc. When we think about retirement savings in these terms, it seems that we’re already doing the most we can on this front.”
― Dan Ariely, Irrationally yours : on missing socks, pick-up lines and other existential puzzles

“inform the waiter that you have allocated a total of fifty dollars for the tip and wine combined—so the more you spend on wine, the less you will leave as a tip. Now let’s see what they recommend.”
― Dan Ariely, Irrationally yours : on missing socks, pick-up lines and other existential puzzles

“we don’t want to seem cheap, which means that almost no one orders the cheapest wine on the menu.”
― Dan Ariely, Irrationally yours : on missing socks, pick-up lines and other existential puzzles

“If we’re going to be friends with benefits, I want private health and dental.” Dear”
― Dan Ariely, Behavioural Economics Saved My Dog: Life Advice For The Imperfect Human

“virtually no correlation between the cost of the wine and how good we think it is (experts have a positive correlation even in blind tasting, but there are very few of these real experts, and even for them the correlation is very small).”
― Dan Ariely, Irrationally yours : on missing socks, pick-up lines and other existential puzzles

“they are also strengthening an undesirable social norm (more evidence for the popularity of this behavior), and therefore making it more likely that others will follow. The social norm perspective also means that you should work extra hard to establish a better social norm because once a more desirable social norm is set, the behavior can maintain itself.”
― Dan Ariely, Irrationally yours : on missing socks, pick-up lines and other existential puzzles

“vacations are not just about the two weeks you are away from work; they’re also about the time you spend anticipating and imagining your trip, as well as the time after the trip when you get to replay special moments from your vacation in your mind.”
― Dan Ariely, Irrationally yours : on missing socks, pick-up lines and other existential puzzles

“Could it be that the potential to make something perfect increases our motivation? And could it be that when we are limited to just fixing something, our motivation is weakened? I suspect that this is the case, which means that maybe we should all start picking projects that are smaller, and more self-contained.”
― Dan Ariely, Irrationally yours : on missing socks, pick-up lines and other existential puzzles

“Dear Dan, I recently attended one of your lectures, and I was wondering why an Israeli guy telling Jewish jokes is wearing an Indian shirt?
D.A.: In general I am not someone who should be asked for fashion advice, but this particular case might be the one exception........My solution? I figured that as long as I am wearing clothes from a different culture, no one is politically correct (and this includes almost everyone in the United States ) could complain that I'm underdressed. After all, any such critic could be offending a whole subcontinent.”
― Dan Ariely, Irrationally yours : On Missing Socks, Pick-up Lines and Other Existential Puzzles

“Dear Dan, Why is the divorce rate so high?
D.A.: It is hard to imagine we can be happy with any decision we make even one year down the road, much less when we look back at our decisions five, ten, twenty, or even fifty years later. Frankly, I am amazed by how low the divorce rate is.”
― Dan Ariely, Irrationally yours : On Missing Socks, Pick-up Lines and Other Existential Puzzles

“Dear Dan,
Do you have general advice for how to approach diffıcult decisions?
D.A.: Luckily the technology you need to solve this problem is already at your disposal. All you need is a coin. Assign each car to a side of the coin, flip it high in the air. At this point, you can wait until the coin lands, and use this random device to make your choice - but my guess is that when the coin is in the air, you will realize which car is the one you really want.”
― Dan Ariely, Irrationally yours : On Missing Socks, Pick-up Lines and Other Existential Puzzles

“Here’s a game I sometimes play in my class: I ask a few students to think about a song, not to tell anyone what song they picked, and tap the beat of that song on a table. Next I ask the students to predict how many of the students in the room will correctly guess the song’s name. They usually think that about half will get it. Then I ask the students who were listening to the beat to name the song that they think was being played, and almost no one gets it right. The point is that when we know something and know it well (for example, the song that we have picked), it is hard for us to appreciate the gaps in other people’s understanding—a bias that is called “the curse of knowledge.” We all suffer from this affliction, but it’s particularly severe for academics. Why? Because academics study the same topic for years in all its details and intricacies, and by the time we become one of the world’s experts on that particular topic, the whole domain seems simpler and more intuitive. And with this curse of knowledge it is easy to assume that everyone else also finds the topic simple and easy to understand.”
― Dan Ariely, Irrationally yours : on missing socks, pick-up lines and other existential puzzles

“I once heard an air force commander tell his pilots that every second, they are making a decision to change course or to stay their course, and that they should always think about their actions as active choices. The problem is that very few of us think about our decisions this way. We think that moving, getting married, changing jobs, etc., as decisions, but we don’t think about staying in the same place, staying single, keeping the same job etc., as decisions. Or at least we don’t think of them as decisions to the same degree.”
― Dan Ariely, Irrationally yours : on missing socks, pick-up lines and other existential puzzles

“«That's where our free will resides -in our ability to design our environments in a way that is more compatible with our strengths and, even more important, helps us overcome our weaknesses»”
― Dan Ariely, Irrationally yours : On Missing Socks, Pick-up Lines and Other Existential Puzzles

“I set a goal, I met it, I proved that I could meet it, and now the hell with it.” Dear”
― Dan Ariely, Behavioural Economics Saved My Dog: Life Advice For The Imperfect Human

“Facebook’s “Like” button is much more than a way for us to react to other people. It is a social-coordination mechanism that tells us how we can, and should respond. It subtly gives us instructions on what is OK (and not OK) to post and it gently tells us how we can and can’t behave on Facebook. Adding buttons such as “Dislike” or “Hate” would change our mindset when we read different posts; it would prompt us to have more negative reactions and I suspect that very quickly it would destroy this social network’s positive atmosphere.”
― Dan Ariely, Irrationally yours : on missing socks, pick-up lines and other existential puzzles

“violators are not only leaving an unacceptable mess behind them,”
― Dan Ariely, Irrationally yours : on missing socks, pick-up lines and other existential puzzles

“if dog owners observe a lot of droppings around the condo area, they will find it perfectly acceptable to further contribute to this behavior.”
― Dan Ariely, Irrationally yours : on missing socks, pick-up lines and other existential puzzles

“Knowing this, the restaurant places a wine with a relatively high margin in this attractive location on the wine list.”
― Dan Ariely, Irrationally yours : on missing socks, pick-up lines and other existential puzzles

“the wine of choice for cheapskates is the second-cheapest wine on the list.”
― Dan Ariely, Irrationally yours : on missing socks, pick-up lines and other existential puzzles

“in a blind taste, balsamic vinegar actually makes it taste better).”
― Dan Ariely, Irrationally yours : on missing socks, pick-up lines and other existential puzzles

“a glass of wine will taste better after reading a positive review of it,”
― Dan Ariely, Irrationally yours : on missing socks, pick-up lines and other existential puzzles

“CEOs hired from the outside get paid more than those hired from the inside and that they don’t perform as well. I suspect that the reason for this is the same heightened expectations that come with lack of knowledge—when someone is relatively unknown we tend to fill in the gaps in overoptimistic ways,”
― Dan Ariely, Irrationally yours : on missing socks, pick-up lines and other existential puzzles

“Often as I creep along in a traffic jam, someone inevitably tries to enter my lane from the side. Now here is the issue: If I let the car in, I feel good about it. But when I see others in front of me let someone in, I feel cheated, because I’ve been waiting longer than the car entering the lane, and I am upset with the driver who acted kindly at my expense.”
― Dan Ariely, Irrationally yours : on missing socks, pick-up lines and other existential puzzles