psychology

There are three things going on here: the misremembering of the past; selective reporting by journalists and activists; and the feeling that as long as things are bad it’s heartless to say they are getting better.

This is why a man should never give more attention to a woman who is withdrawing her attention.

We must never forget to factor in the habitual mindset. Every situation is a combination of habitual and in-the-moment goals and motivation—our attic’s structure and its current state, so to speak.

The main obstacle is that subjective confidence is determined by the coherence of the story one has constructed, not by the quality and amount of the information that supports it.

Even George Washington wanted to be called ‘His Mightiness, the President of the United States’; and Columbus pleaded for the title ‘Admiral of the Ocean and Viceroy of India’.

feeling stupid for not having understood something before just shows that you are now cleverer than you were then.

The frontier also tends to forge tribes that are more democratic and meritocratic (and less status-conscious), have fewer laws and policies, and bias toward empiricism over theory (because theory encodes facts about older environments). All of these cultural institutions help keep tribes more flexible, so they're more able to adapt when change

You will never get into trouble by admitting that you may be wrong. That will stop all argument and inspire your opponent to be just as fair and open and broadminded as you are. It will make him want to admit that he, too, may be wrong.

Excellence requires repetition. Even if you’ve got passion and purpose perfectly aligned and completely love what you do, what you do is often reduced to a daily checklist. This means a portion of peak performance is always sculpted out of Wallace’s hallmarks of adult life: boredom, routine, and petty frustration.