Amos Tversky

"Preferences are not always consistent."

"Values are not stable; they shift with context."

"Choices construct preferences; preferences do not determine choices."

"We make decisions in a web of constraints and possibilities."

"The quality of a decision can be separated from its outcome."

"Good luck and good judgment are often confused."

"We are pattern-seeking creatures."

"The human mind is a machine for jumping to conclusions."

"Intuition is not reliable, but it can be educated."

"The human mind appears to be programmed to ask questions that it cannot answer and to want things that it cannot have."

"We are likely to be more influenced by dramatic news stories than by statistical facts."

"The most important thing about a decision is not whether it turns out well or poorly, but whether the process was sound."

"People tend to assess the probability of an event by the ease with which instances come to mind."

"An optimist sees an opportunity in every calamity; a pessimist sees a calamity in every opportunity."

"The confidence people have in their beliefs is not a reliable guide to the truth of those beliefs."

"We fear the unknown more than we fear the known danger."

"Luck is when preparation meets opportunity, but we rarely account for the role of chance."

"The memory we have of our past is not accurate; it is constructed and reconstructed every time we recall it."

"In life, as in chess, forethought wins."

"Our intuitions are often our best guide, yet our intuitions are often wrong."

"The illusion of understanding is real; we think we understand the world better than we actually do."

"Success is not final, failure is not fatal—what counts is the courage to continue."

"We are creatures of habit and comfort; change requires effort we are often unwilling to expend."

"The more you know, the more you realize how much you don't know."

"People overestimate their ability to control what happens to them."

"What we choose to measure becomes what we value most."

"The future is uncertain, yet we plan as though it were certain."

"Money matters, but not as much as we think it matters."

"Every decision you make is an opportunity to learn something about yourself."

"We tend to see patterns where none exist and miss patterns that are right before us."