130 Quotes by Steven D. Levitt

If morality represents how people would like the world to work, then economics shows how it actually does work.

Morning robberies yield far more than afternoon robberies . . .' - When to Rob a Bank: A Rouge Economist's Guide to the World by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner

Just Like Canada, with Better Bacon.

Don’t trust, just verify.

When was the last time you sat for an hour of pure, unadulterated thinking?

Thinking like a Freak may sometimes sound like an exercise in using clever means to get exactly what you want, and there’s nothing wrong with that. But if there is one thing we’ve learned from a lifetime of designing and analyzing incentives, the best way to get what you want is to treat other people with decency. Decency can push almost any interaction into the cooperative frame.

The key to learning is feedback. It is nearly impossible to learn anything without it.

An incentive is a bullet, a key: an often tiny object with astonishing power to change a situation.

As long as you can tell the difference between a good idea and a bad one, generating a boatload of ideas, even outlandish ones, can only be a good thing.