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We have a two-tier class system when it comes to personality style. To devalue introversion is a waste of talent, energy and happiness.

A reliable way to make people believe in falsehoods is frequent repetition, because familiarity is not easily distinguished from truth.

Many unfortunate human situations unfold [...] where people who face very bad options take desperate gambles, accepting a high probability of making things worse in exchange for a small hope of avoiding a large loss. Risk taking of this kind often turns manageable failures into disasters.

Intelligence is not only the ability to reason; it is also the ability to find relevant material in memory and to deploy attention when needed.

We (introverts) are not anti-social; we’re differently social.

Nothing in life is as important as you think it is when you are thinking about it.

Experienced well-being is on average unaffected by marriage, not because marriage makes no difference to happiness, but because it changes some aspects of life for the better and others for the worse.

Shyness is the fear of negative judgment, while introversion is simply the preference for less stimulation. Shyness is inherently uncomfortable; introversion is not. The traits do overlap, though psychologists debate to what degree.

We moved from what cultural historians call a culture of character to a culture of personality. During the culture of character, what was important was the good deeds that you performed when nobody was looking. … But at the turn of the (20th) century, when we moved into this culture of personality, suddenly what was admired was to be magnetic and charismatic.

A recurrent theme of this book is that luck plays a large role in every story of success; it is almost always easy to identify a small change in the story that would have turned a remarkable achievement into a mediocre outcome.

Although humans are not irrational, they often need help to make more accurate judgements and better decisions. [...] [They] also need protection from others who deliberately exploit their weaknesses [...].

The lesson is clear: estimates of causes of death are warped by media coverage. [...] The world in our heads is not a precise replica of reality; our expectations about the frequency of events are distorted by the prevalence and emotional intensity of the messages to which we are exposed.