81 Quotes by Barry Schwartz

Now students are required to make choices about education that may affect them for the rest of their lives. And they are forced to make these choices at a point in their intellectual development when they may lack the resources to make them intelligently.

In general, human beings are remarkably bad at predicting how various experiences will make them feel.

We are free to be the authors of our own lives, but we don’t know what kind of lives we want to ’write.

We are surrounded by modern, time-saving devices, but we never seem to have enough time.

Freedom to choose has what might be called expressive value. Choice is what enables us to tell the world who we are and what we care about.

But clearly, the lesson is that incentives can be a dangerous weapon. A critic of this research might say that the problem is not incentives, but dumb incentives. No doubt, some incentives are dumber than others. But no incentives can ever be smart enough to substitute for people who do the right thing because it’s the right thing.

On the contrary, it’s a way to make sure that you can continue to experience pleasure. What’s the point of great meals, great wines, and great blouses if they don’t make you feel great?

If society asks more of us, and arranges its social institutions appropriately, it will get more.

Notice that the curve falls steeply at the beginning and then gradually levels off. This reflects what might be called the “decreasing marginal disutility of losses.