183 Quotes by Dan Ariely

We need to believe that we’re good people, and we’ll do just about anything to maintain that perception.

Honesty is a complex and tricky thing, and we don’t want to be honest all the time.

What you should do is wait until the end of each month, and then say, “OK, how much money do I have? How much do I need? Let me send the rest to retirement.”

The major thing that holds you back when you’re trying to change a bad habit like eating, smoking, or drinking too much is your belief you are out of control.

The first dishonest act is the most important one to prevent.

I don’t want to say that the poor are inherently cognitively diminished, but at the end of the day of making difficult, tough decisions, it’s very hard to have the energy to think about things with the right mindset.

We have very strong intuitions about all kinds of things – our own ability, how the economy works, how we should pay school teachers. But unless we start testing those intuitions, we’re not going to do better.

Locks won’t protect you from the thieves, who can get in your house if they really want to. They will only protect you from the mostly honest people who might be tempted to try your door if it had no lock.

In the scientific world, the Not-Invented-Here bias is fondly called the “toothbrush theory.” The idea is that everyone wants a toothbrush, everyone needs one, everyone has one, but no one wants to use anyone else’s.