For many people, commuting is the worst part of the day, and policies that can make commuting shorter and more convenient would be a straightforward way to reduce minor but widespread suffering.

There's a lot of randomness in the decisions that people make.

We're generally overconfident in our opinions and our impressions and judgments.

Courage is willingness to take the risk once you know the odds. Optimistic overconfidence means you are taking the risk because you don't know the odds. It's a big difference.

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

People like leaders who look like they are dominant, optimistic, friendly to their friends, and quick on the trigger when it comes to enemies. They like boldness and despise the appearance of timidity and protracted doubt.

Slow thinking has the feeling of something you do. It's deliberate.

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.

If people are failing, they look inept. If people are succeeding, they look strong and good and competent. That's the 'halo effect.' Your first impression of a thing sets up your subsequent beliefs. If the company looks inept to you, you may assume everything else they do is inept.

If owning stocks is a long-term project for you, following their changes constantly is a very, very bad idea. It's the worst possible thing you can do, because people are so sensitive to short-term losses. If you count your money every day, you'll be miserable.

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

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

Mental effort, I would argue, is relatively rare. Most of the time we coast.

Hindsight bias makes surprises vanish.

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

The brains of humans contain a mechanism that is designed to give priority to bad news.

Economists think about what people ought to do. Psychologists watch what they actually do.

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.

Optimistic people play a disproportionate role in shaping our lives. Their decisions make a difference; they are inventors, entrepreneurs, political and military leaders - not average people. They got to where they are by seeking challenges and taking risks.

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

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

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

The planning fallacy is that you make a plan, which is usually a best-case scenario. Then you assume that the outcome will follow your plan, even when you should know better.

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.