Alchemy Quotes

8,429 ratings, 4.21 average rating, 868 reviews
Alchemy Quotes
Showing 121-150 of 209
“The quandary is that you can either create a fairer, more equitable society, with opportunities for all but where luck plays a significant role, or you can create a society which maintains the illusion of complete and non-random fairness, yet where opportunities are open to only a few – the problem is that when ‘the rules are the same for everyone’ the same boring bastards win every time.”
― Alchemy: The Surprising Power of Ideas That Don't Make Sense
― Alchemy: The Surprising Power of Ideas That Don't Make Sense
“Why do people hate waiting for an engineer’s appointment?’ ‘Why do people not like it when their flight is delayed?’ ‘Why do people hate standing on trains?’ All of these questions seem facile – and because of this, our rationalising brains find it dangerously easy to come up with a plausible answer. But just because there is a rational answer to something, it doesn’t mean that there isn’t a more interesting, irrational answer to be found in the unconscious.”
― Alchemy: The Surprising Power of Ideas That Don't Make Sense
― Alchemy: The Surprising Power of Ideas That Don't Make Sense
“I had the idea of turning up at an apartment with five smoke detectors; the fire officer was to casually carry in all five, before saying, ‘I think we can make do with three here … How many would you like, three or four?’ We are highly social creatures and just as we find it very difficult to answer the question ‘still or sparkling?’ with ‘tap’, it is also difficult to answer the question about ‘three or four’ smoke detectors with ‘one’.”
― Alchemy: The Surprising Power of Ideas That Don't Make Sense
― Alchemy: The Surprising Power of Ideas That Don't Make Sense
“The inherent flaws of mathematical models are well understood by good mathematicians, physicists and statisticians, but very badly understood by those who are merely competent.fn2”
― Alchemy: The Surprising Power of Ideas That Don't Make Sense
― Alchemy: The Surprising Power of Ideas That Don't Make Sense
“However, the problem will never go away, because the number of people who think they understand statistics dangerously dwarfs those who actually do, and maths can cause fundamental problems when badly used.”
― Alchemy: The Surprising Power of Ideas That Don't Make Sense
― Alchemy: The Surprising Power of Ideas That Don't Make Sense
“In maths, 10 x 1 is always the same as 1 x 10, but in real life, it rarely is. You can trick ten people once, but it’s much harder to trick one person ten times.fn2 But how many other things are predicated on such assumptions?”
― Alchemy: The Surprising Power of Ideas That Don't Make Sense
― Alchemy: The Surprising Power of Ideas That Don't Make Sense
“We can see this diversity mechanism clearly in house hunting. If I were to give you a budget to choose your perfect house, you would have a clear idea of what to buy, but it would typically be a bit boring. That’s because when you have one house, it cannot be too weak in any one dimension: it cannot be too small, too far from work, too noisy or too weird, so you’ll opt for a conventional house. On the other hand, if I were to double your budget and tell you to buy two houses, your pattern of decision-making would change. You would now be looking to buy two significantly different properties with complementary strengths – perhaps a flat in the city and a house in the countryside.”
― Alchemy: The Surprising Power of Ideas That Don't Make Sense
― Alchemy: The Surprising Power of Ideas That Don't Make Sense
“Experimentation is the only reliable way of testing, so we measure the effect of engineers’ texts on customer satisfaction against a control group who receive no such early warning.”
― Alchemy: The Surprising Power of Ideas That Don't Make Sense
― Alchemy: The Surprising Power of Ideas That Don't Make Sense
“The theory is that if all our unconscious motivations were to impinge on our consciousness, subtle cues in our behaviour might reveal our true motivation, which would limit our social and reproductive prospects.”
― Alchemy: The Surprising Power of Ideas That Don't Make Sense
― Alchemy: The Surprising Power of Ideas That Don't Make Sense
“we do not have full access to the reasons behind our decision-making because, in evolutionary terms, we are better off not knowing; we have evolved to deceive ourselves, in order that we are better at deceiving others. Just as there are words that are best left unspoken, so there are feelings that are best left unthought.fn5”
― Alchemy: The Surprising Power of Ideas That Don't Make Sense
― Alchemy: The Surprising Power of Ideas That Don't Make Sense
“the reason we don’t always obey our GPS is not because we are wrong: it is because there are important factors in our journey-planning that the GPS is completely ignorant of.”
― Alchemy: The Surprising Power of Ideas That Don't Make Sense
― Alchemy: The Surprising Power of Ideas That Don't Make Sense
“In his book Skin in the Game (2018), Taleb includes what might be the most interesting quotation on an individual’s politics I have ever read. Someonefn3 explains how, depending on context, he has entirely different political preferences: ‘At the federal level I am a Libertarian. At the state level, I am a Republican. At the town level, I am a Democrat. In my family I am a socialist. And with my dog I am a Marxist – from each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs.”
― Alchemy: The Surprising Power of Ideas That Don't Make Sense
― Alchemy: The Surprising Power of Ideas That Don't Make Sense
“The existing letter, which had grown to a disproportionate length, was in danger of creating confusionfn3 – if this product was as simple and sensible as it really seemed, why were they selling it so hard? We tested a two-paragraph letter. Fortunately, I was right. What had emerged was that there were two ways to sell this product: with a very long letter – which was reassuring because it was long, and with a very short letter – which was reassuring because it was very short.”
― Alchemy: The Surprising Power of Ideas That Don't Make Sense
― Alchemy: The Surprising Power of Ideas That Don't Make Sense
“And in reality ‘context’ is often the most important thing in determining how people think, behave and act: this simple fact dooms many universal models from the start.fn11 Because in order to form universal laws, naïve rationalists have to pretend that context doesn’t matter.”
― Alchemy: The Surprising Power of Ideas That Don't Make Sense
― Alchemy: The Surprising Power of Ideas That Don't Make Sense
“the study of economics has long been detached from how people behave in the real world, preferring to concern itself with a parallel universe in which people behave as economists think they should.”
― Alchemy: The Surprising Power of Ideas That Don't Make Sense
― Alchemy: The Surprising Power of Ideas That Don't Make Sense
“The nature of our attention affects the nature of our experience.”
― Alchemy: The Surprising Power of Ideas That Don't Make Sense
― Alchemy: The Surprising Power of Ideas That Don't Make Sense
“People with approval ratings below 97 per cent can barely sell equivalent goods for half the price of sellers with a track record of 100 per cent satisfaction.”
― Alchemy: The Surprising Power of Ideas That Don't Make Sense
― Alchemy: The Surprising Power of Ideas That Don't Make Sense
“We will pay a disproportionately high premium for the elimination of a small degree of uncertainty – why this matters so much is that it finally explains the brand premium that consumers pay.”
― Alchemy: The Surprising Power of Ideas That Don't Make Sense
― Alchemy: The Surprising Power of Ideas That Don't Make Sense
“without these rogue bees, the hive would get stuck in what complexity theorists call ‘a local maximum’; they would be so efficient at collecting food from known sources that, once these existing sources of food dried up, they wouldn’t know where to go next and the hive would starve to death. So the rogue bees are, in a sense, the hive’s research and development function, and their inefficiency pays off handsomely when they discover a fresh source of food. It is precisely because they do not concentrate exclusively on short-term efficiency that bees have survived so many million”
― Alchemy: The Surprising Power of Ideas That Don't Make Sense
― Alchemy: The Surprising Power of Ideas That Don't Make Sense
“A company pursuing only profit but not considering the impact of its profit-seeking upon customer satisfaction, trust or long-term resilience, could do very well in the short term, but its long-term future may be rather perilous.fn2”
― Alchemy: The Surprising Power of Ideas That Don't Make Sense
― Alchemy: The Surprising Power of Ideas That Don't Make Sense
“The main value of having a swimming pool at home is not that you swim in it, but that it allows you to walk around your garden in a bathing costume without feeling like an idiot.”
― Alchemy: The Surprising Power of Ideas That Don't Make Sense
― Alchemy: The Surprising Power of Ideas That Don't Make Sense
“Branding isn’t just something to add to great products – it’s essential to their existence.”
― Alchemy: The Surprising Power of Ideas That Don't Make Sense
― Alchemy: The Surprising Power of Ideas That Don't Make Sense
“Without the feedback loop made possible by distinctive and distinguishable petals or brands, nothing can improve.”
― Alchemy: The Surprising Power of Ideas That Don't Make Sense
― Alchemy: The Surprising Power of Ideas That Don't Make Sense
“What this product needs is a brand. Without a distinctive brand identity, there is no incentive to improve your product – and no way for customers to choose well, or to reward the best manufacturer.”
― Alchemy: The Surprising Power of Ideas That Don't Make Sense
― Alchemy: The Surprising Power of Ideas That Don't Make Sense
“So said Alan Kay, one of the pioneers of computer graphics. It is, perhaps, the best defence of creativity in ten words or fewer. I suspect, too, that the opposite is also true: that an inability to change perspective is equivalent to a loss of intelligence.fn1”
― Alchemy: The Surprising Power of Ideas That Don't Make Sense
― Alchemy: The Surprising Power of Ideas That Don't Make Sense
“There are many spheres of human action in which reason plays a very small part. Understanding the unconscious obstacle to a new behaviour and then removing it, or else creating a new context for a decision, will generally work much more effectively.”
― Alchemy: The Surprising Power of Ideas That Don't Make Sense
― Alchemy: The Surprising Power of Ideas That Don't Make Sense
“The job of a designer is hence that of a translator. To play with the source material of objective reality in order to create the right perceptual and emotional outcome.”
― Alchemy: The Dark Art and Curious Science of Creating Magic in Brands, Business, and Life
― Alchemy: The Dark Art and Curious Science of Creating Magic in Brands, Business, and Life
“In institutional settings, we need to be alert to the wide divergence between what is good for the company and what is good for the individual. Ironically, the kind of incentives we put in place to encourage people to perform may lead to them to be unwilling to take any risks that have a potential personal downside – even when this would be the best approach for the company overall. For example, preferring a definite 5 per cent gain in sales to a 50 per cent chance of a 20 per cent gain. Why else do you think Management Consultancies are so rich?”
― Alchemy: The Dark Art and Curious Science of Creating Magic in Brands, Business, and Life
― Alchemy: The Dark Art and Curious Science of Creating Magic in Brands, Business, and Life
“In his book Risk Savvy (2014), the German psychologist Gerd Gigerenzer refers to this mental process as ‘Defensive Decision-Making’ – making a decision which is unconsciously designed not to maximise welfare overall but to minimise the damage to the decision maker in the event of a negative outcome. Much human behaviour that is derided as ‘irrational’ is actually evidence of a clever satisficing instinct – repeating a past behaviour or copying what most other people do may not be optimal, but is unlikely to be disastrous. We are all descended from people who managed to reproduce before making a fatal mistake, so it is hardly surprising that our brains are wired this way.”
― Alchemy: The Dark Art and Curious Science of Creating Magic in Brands, Business, and Life
― Alchemy: The Dark Art and Curious Science of Creating Magic in Brands, Business, and Life
“Tennis scoring isn’t quite socialist – one player can demolish another – but, in such uneven cases, the contest is over in a mercifully short time. There is, however, a kind of social security system in the sport’s scoring system, which means that for the duration of any match, the losing player feels he might still be in with a chance. It’s frankly genius.”
― Alchemy: The Dark Art and Curious Science of Creating Magic in Brands, Business, and Life
― Alchemy: The Dark Art and Curious Science of Creating Magic in Brands, Business, and Life