Alchemy: The Surprising Power of Ideas That Don't Make Sense

What they are is determined by the laws of physics, but what they mean is determined by the laws of psychology.

If you propose any solution where the gain in perceived value outweighs the attendant expenditure in money, time, effort or resources, people either don’t believe you, or worse, they think you are somehow cheating them.

the problem is that when ‘the rules are the same for everyone’ the same boring bastards win every time.

Understanding the unconscious obstacle to a new behaviour and then removing it, or else creating a new context for a decision, will generally work much more effectively.

One of the most important ideas in this book is that it is only by deviating from a narrow, short-term self-interest that we can generate anything more than cheap talk.

As a result, like any social species, we need to engage in ostensibly ‘nonsensical’ behaviour if we wish to reliably convey meaning to other members of our species.

What people do with their own money (their ‘revealed preferences’) is generally a better guide to what they really want than their own reported wants and needs.fn3 Had

We notice and attach significance and meaning to those things that deviate from narrow, economic common sense, precisely because they deviate from it.

Evolution does not care about objectivity – it only cares about fitness.

Create a name, and you’ve created a norm.