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484 Economist Quotes

You're surprised by something, but you don't really know what surprised you; you recognize someone, but you don't really know what cues cause you to recognize that person.

Cause Know Person Really
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We don't see very far in the future, we are very focused on one idea at a time, one problem at a time, and all these are incompatible with rationality as economic theory assumes it.

Assumes Economic Future Idea
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If there is time to reflect, slowing down is likely to be a good idea.

Down Good Idea Reflect
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The effort invested in 'getting it right' should be commensurate with the importance of the decision.

Decision Effort Getting Importance
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Experienced happiness refers to your feelings, to how happy you are as you live your life. In contrast, the satisfaction of the remembering self refers to your feelings when you think about your life.

Life About Think Feelings
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Slow thinking has the feeling of something you do. It's deliberate.

Deliberate Feeling Slow Something
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We're generally overconfident in our opinions and our impressions and judgments.

Generally Impressions Judgments Opinions
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When you analyze happiness, it turns out that the way you spend your time is extremely important.

Analyze Extremely Happiness Important
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It's not a case of: 'Read this book and then you'll think differently. I've written this book, and I don't think differently.

Book Case Differently Read
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The idea that you can ask one question and it makes the point - well, that wasn't how psychology was done at the time.

Time Done Point Idea
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My interest in well-being evolved from my interest in decision making - from raising the question of whether people know what they will want in the future and whether the things that people want for themselves will make them happy.

Decision Evolved Future Happy
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Nothing in life is quite as important as you think it is while you're thinking about it.

About Important Life Nothing
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So your emotional state really has a lot to do with what you're thinking about and what you're paying attention to.

Paying Attention About Thinking
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I used to hold a unitary view, in which I proposed that only experienced happiness matters, and that life satisfaction is a fallible estimate of true happiness.

Estimate Fallible Satisfaction Experienced
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We are very influenced by completely automatic things that we have no control over, and we don't know we're doing it.

Automatic Control Doing Know
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Friends are sometimes a big help when they share your feelings. In the context of decisions, the friends who will serve you best are those who understand your feelings but are not overly impressed by them.

Overly Feelings Best Serve
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If individuals are rational, there is no need to protect them against their own choices.

Choices Own Against Protect
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Clearly, the decision-making that we rely on in society is fallible. It's highly fallible, and we should know that.

Know Fallible Highly Society
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It is the consistency of the information that matters for a good story, not its completeness. Indeed, you will often find that knowing little makes it easier to fit everything you know into a coherent pattern.

Pattern Coherent Easier Little
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Alternative descriptions of the same reality evoke different emotions and different associations.

Associations Different Emotions Evoke
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When you look at the books about well-being, you see one word - it's happiness. People do not distinguish.

Distinguish People Happiness Word
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One thing we have lost, that we had in the past, is a sense of progress, that things are getting better. There is a sense of volatility, but not of progress.

Progress Sense Better Things
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When people talk of the economy being strong, they don't seem to feel that they, too, are better off.

Better Feel Seem Strong
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People talk of the new economy and of reinventing themselves in the workplace, and in that sense most of us are less secure.

Secure Less Sense New
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The concept of happiness has to be reorganised.
Concept Happiness
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Most people are highly optimistic most of the time.
Highly Most Optimistic People
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All of us would be better investors if we just made fewer decisions.

Better Decisions Fewer Investors
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I would not advise people to buy a car or house without making a list. You will probably improve your intuitions by making a list and then sleeping on it.

List Improve Making House
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It's very difficult to distinguish between what a person believes and what they say they believe.

Believe Person Between Distinguish
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Through some combination of culture and biology, our minds are intuitively receptive to religion.

Religion Receptive Intuitively Minds
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If you're going to be unreligious, it's likely going to be due to reflecting on it and finding some things that are hard to believe.

Believe Due Hard Going
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All of us roughly know what memory is. I mean, memory is sort of the storage of the past. It's the storage of our personal experiences. It's a very big deal.

Big Storage Past Mean
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We don't only tell stories when we set out to tell stories, our memory tells us stories. That is, what we get to keep from our experiences is a story.

Story Keep Get Set
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Nothing in life is as important as you think it is while you are thinking about it.
About Important Life Nothing
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There is a huge wave of interest in happiness among researchers. There is a lot of happiness coaching. Everybody would like to make people happier.

Happier People Coaching Among
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The experiencing self lives its life continuously. It has moments of experience, one after the other.

Other After Moments Life
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We think of our future as anticipated memories.
Memories Anticipated Future Our
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Most of the time, we think fast. And most of the time we're really expert at what we're doing, and most of the time, what we do is right.

Right Time Most Expert
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Economists think about what people ought to do. Psychologists watch what they actually do.

About Think Actually Ought
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Happiness is determined by factors like your health, your family relationships and friendships, and above all by feeling that you are in control of how you spend your time.

Time Spend Control Feeling
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It's nonsense to say money doesn't buy happiness, but people exaggerate the extent to which more money can buy more happiness.

Happiness Money Extent People
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Poverty is clearly one source of emotional suffering, but there are others, like loneliness. A policy to reduce the loneliness of the elderly would certainly reduce suffering.

Suffering Reduce Certainly Elderly
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People should be conscious of the large contribution made by anything that gets people together easily in the reduction of loneliness and emotional well-being.

Emotional Reduction Easily Large
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Many ideas happen to us. We have intuition, we have feeling, we have emotion, all of that happens, we don't decide to do it. We don't control it.

Control Decide Happen Emotion
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It doesn't take many observations to think you've spotted a trend, and it's probably not a trend at all.

Trend Probably Spotted Think
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We're beautiful devices. The devices work well; we're all experts in what we do. But when the mechanism fails, those failures can tell you a lot about how the mind works.

Works Mind Failures Experts
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It's a wonderful thing to be optimistic. It keeps you healthy and it keeps you resilient.

Resilient Keeps Healthy Optimistic
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Adaptation seems to be, to a substantial extent, a process of reallocating your attention.

Attention Process Extent Seems
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There's a lot of randomness in the decisions that people make.

Make People Decisions Lot
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Although professionals are able to extract a considerable amount of wealth from amateurs, few stock pickers, if any, have the skill needed to beat the market consistently, year after year.

Market Beat Skill Stock
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