Mcraney Quotes

#1. Do you vote? If not, is it because you think it doesn't matter because things never change, or politicians are evil on both sides, or one vote in several million doesn't count? Yeah, that's learned helplessness.

David McRaney

#2. When the third person effect leads you to condone censorship, take a step back and imagine the sort of messages people on the other side might think are brainwashing you, and then ask yourself if those messages should be censored too.

David McRaney

#3. I had to think ahead. How much would I really enjoy committing five or seven years to working on this? When you're an unemployed actor offered a TV pilot, no matter who you are you're tempted by the good hunk of change to be made. It keeps you out of the unemployment line.

Gerald McRaney

#4. Expensive wine is like anything else that is expensive: The expectation it will taste better actually makes it taste better.

David McRaney

#5. THE MISCONCEPTION: You know when you are lying to yourself. THE TRUTH: You are often ignorant of your motivations and create fictional narratives to explain your decisions, emotions, and history without realizing it.

David McRaney

#6. What I know about Mike Tyson, I see in the boxing ring. As far as all of the gossip stuff that I hear about him, I know first hand to take that with a grain of salt.

Gerald McRaney

#7. Failing often is the only way to ever get the things you want out of life.

David McRaney

#8. It isn't you don't want to help; you just don't want to help a cheater or do more than a slacker - even if your not helping leads to ruining the game for you and everyone else

David McRaney

#9. The stated mission at the time was simply to use the influence of the entertainment industry to do an accurate portrayal of drug and alcohol abuse. We all admit that we're not trying to censor anybody.

Gerald McRaney

#10. If you see lots of shark attacks in the news, you think, 'Gosh, sharks are out of control.' What you should think is 'Gosh, the news loves to cover shark attacks.

David McRaney

#11. You are unaware of the constant nudging you receive from ideas formed in your unconscious mind.

David McRaney

#12. The more info you get about a statement, the more likely you are to believe that statement.

David McRaney

#13. You want to believe that those who work hard and sacrifice get ahead and those who are lazy and cheat do not. This, of course, is not always true. Success is often greatly influenced by when you were born, where you grew up, the socioeconomic status of your family, and random chance

David McRaney

#14. Behaviors create attitudes.

David McRaney

#15. You are aware only of a small amount of the total information your eyes take in, and even less is processed by your conscious mind and remembered.

David McRaney

#16. THE MISCONCEPTION: You rationally analyze all factors before making a choice or determining value. THE TRUTH: Your first perception lingers in your mind, affecting later perceptions and decisions.

David McRaney

#17. If your group includes a person who can hire or fire, groupthink comes into play.

David McRaney

#18. Thanks to a plethora of cognitive biases, faulty heuristics, and common fallacies of thought, you are probably deluding yourself minute by minute just to cope with reality.

David McRaney

#19. You might be a great judge of character, but you need to be a great judge of evidence to avoid delusion.

David McRaney

#20. This sense of alarm about the impact of speech not on yourself but on others is called the third person effect.

David McRaney

#21. The future is the result of actions, and actions are the result of behavior, and behavior is the result of prediction.

David McRaney

#22. The tendency to believe vague statements designed to appeal to just about anyone is called the Forer effect, and psychologists point to this phenomenon to explain why people fall for pseudoscience like biorhythms, iridology, and phrenology, or mysticism like astrology, numerology, and tarot cards.

David McRaney

#23. I think everybody ought to be allowed to be engaged in athletics at whatever level the audience will accept.

Gerald McRaney

#24. Many treatments have turned out over the years to be no better than placebos, and placebos, we have learned, are now known to be one of the strongest anomalies of the mind.

David McRaney

#25. Wine tasters will mention all sorts of things they can taste in a fine wine, as if they were a human spectrograph with the ability to sense the molecular makeup of their beverage. Research shows, however, this perception can be hijacked, fooled, and might just be completely wrong.

David McRaney

#26. You are a story you tell yourself.

David McRaney

#27. If you look to the downtrodden and wonder why they can't pull themselves out of poverty and get a nice job like you, you are committing the just-world fallacy. You are ignoring the unearned blessings of your station.

David McRaney

#28. THE MISCONCEPTION: Men who have sex with RealDolls are insane, and women who marry eighty-year-old billionaires are gold diggers. THE TRUTH: The RealDoll and rich old sugar daddies are both supernormal releasers.

David McRaney

#29. Education is as much about learning what you don't know as it is about adding to what you do.

David McRaney

#30. Research shows people believe others see their contributions to conversation as being memorable, but they aren't. You think everyone noticed when you stumbled in your speech, but they didn't. Well, unless you drew attention to it by over-apologizing.

David McRaney

#31. The more pessimistic your explanatory style, the easier it is to slip into learned helplessness.

David McRaney

#32. the very act of looking down on others made people more confident.

David McRaney

#33. While driving and talking on a cell phone, how much of your world do you miss? The research findings suggest you could have your eyes wide open, but fail to see the car, the bike, or the deer about to cross your path.

David McRaney

#34. It is the result of thinking, not the process if thinking, that occurs spontaneously in consciousness.

David McRaney

#35. To be less dumb is to see the danger in believing in forces that do not exist and trusting them when you would do better to trust yourself.

David McRaney

#36. [ ... ] if you notice a rise in reports about shark attacks on the news, you start to believe sharks are out of control, when the only thing you know for sure is the news is delivering more stories about sharks than usual.

David McRaney

#37. Brand loyalty - that nebulous emotional connection people have with certain companies, which turns them into defenders and advocates for corporations who don't give a shit.

David McRaney

#38. Self-esteem is mostly self-delusion, but it serves a purpose. You are biologically driven to think highly of yourself in order to avoid stagnation. If you were to stop and truly examine your faults and failures, you would become paralyzed by fear and doubt.

David McRaney

#39. Any extended period of negative emotions can lead to you giving in to despair and accepting your fate. If you remain alone for a long time, you will decide loneliness is a fact of life and pass up opportunities to hang out with people. The loss of control in any situation can lead to this state.

David McRaney

#40. The research shows that groups of friends who allow members to disagree and still be friends are more likely to come to better decisions. So the next time you are in a group of people trying to reach consensus, be the asshole. Every group needs one, and it might as well be you.

David McRaney

#41. People who use the number of friends they have on Facebook as a metric of their social standing are fooling themselves. You can share videos of fainting goats with hundreds of acquaintances and thousands of followers, but you can trust a secret only with a handful of true friends.

David McRaney

#42. You see people who speak slowly as being less intelligent - slow.

David McRaney

#43. THE MISCONCEPTION: You choose to accept or refuse an offer based on logic. THE TRUTH: When it comes to making a deal, you base your decision on your status.

David McRaney

#44. Again, like I said, we're not trying to censor anyone. If you think drugs are cool, fine. Make that movie. We are not going to stop you, or try to stop you, but we would encourage other people to be a bit more responsible about their portrayal of drug usage.

Gerald McRaney

#45. Belief is a pretty fragile thing, which is probably why most people guard it so carefully.

David McRaney

#46. THE MISCONCEPTION: Your opinions of people and events are based on objective evaluation. THE TRUTH: You translate your physical world into words, and then believe those words.

David McRaney

#47. THE MISCONCEPTION: You procrastinate because you are lazy and can't manage your time well. THE TRUTH: Procrastination is fueled by weakness in the face of impulse and a failure to think about thinking.

David McRaney

#48. THE MISCONCEPTION: You are more concerned with the validity of information than the person delivering it. THE TRUTH: The status and credentials of an individual greatly influence your perception of that individual's message.

David McRaney

#49. In the end, Alter and Forgas concluded the happier you are, the more likely you will be to seek out ways to delude yourself into maintaining your rosy outlook on life and your own abilities. Sad people, it seems, are more honest with themselves.

David McRaney

#50. In the background, while you crochet and golf and browse cat videos, science is fighting against your stupidity. No other human enterprise is fighting as hard, or at least not fighting and winning.

David McRaney

#51. THE MISCONCEPTION: After you learn something new, you remember how you were once ignorant or wrong. THE TRUTH: You often look back on the things you've just learned and assume you knew them or believed them all along.

David McRaney

#52. We reach for the same brand not because we trust its quality but because we want to reassure ourselves that we made a smart choice the last time we bought it.

David McRaney

#53. THE MISCONCEPTION: Your opinions are the result of years of rational, objective analysis. THE TRUTH: Your opinions are the result of years of paying attention to information that confirmed what you believed, while ignoring information that challenged your preconceived notions.

David McRaney

#54. THE MISCONCEPTION: Memories are played back like recordings. THE TRUTH: Memories are constructed anew each time from whatever information is currently available, which makes them highly permeable to influences from the present.

David McRaney

#55. It turns out, for any plan to work, every team needs at least one asshole who doesn't give a shit if he or she gets fired or exiled or excommunicated.

David McRaney

#56. If you fail to believe you will procrastinate or become idealustic about how awesome you are at working hard and managing your time, you never develop a strategy for outmaneuvering your own weakness.

David McRaney

#57. THE MISCONCEPTION: You know why you like the things you like and feel the way you feel. THE TRUTH: The origin of certain emotional states is unavailable to you, and when pressed to explain them, you will just make something up.

David McRaney

#58. You are a liar by default, and you lie most to yourself. If you fail, you forget it. If you win, you tell everyone.

David McRaney

#59. THE MISCONCEPTION: Both consumerism and capitalism are sustained by corporations and advertising. THE TRUTH: Both consumerism and capitalism are driven by competition among consumers for status.

David McRaney

#60. Even though I smoke, just because I'm a dumbass doesn't mean anyone else has to be.

Gerald McRaney

#61. You have a deep desire to be right all of the time and a deeper desire to see yourself in a positive light both morally and behaviorally. You can stretch your mind pretty far to achieve these goals.

David McRaney

#62. In Hollywood you can't even smoke in a bar anymore and yet in the movies they're always showing people smoking. I don't get it.

Gerald McRaney

#63. A lot of what you presume to be evidence of your intelligence is just part of a vast cultural inheritance.

David McRaney

#64. If you would be just as content winning a local Golden Gloves fight as you would making a pile of money as a professional, then fine, go become a boxer. But if the whole idea is for you to get rich, my God, stay in school and learn a profession.

Gerald McRaney

#65. THE MISCONCEPTION: If you can't trust someone, you should ignore that person's claims. THE TRUTH: What someone says and why they say it should be judged separately.

David McRaney

#66. Catharsis THE MISCONCEPTION: Venting your anger is an effective way to reduce stress and prevent lashing out at friends and family. THE TRUTH: Venting increases aggressive behavior over time.

David McRaney

#67. Visiting friends just to shoot the shit is the human equivalent of picking ticks off of one another's backs.

David McRaney

#68. THE MISCONCEPTION: If you are in a bad situation, you will do whatever you can do to escape it. THE TRUTH: If you feel like you aren't in control of your destiny, you will give up and accept whatever situation you are in.

David McRaney

#69. When you are making plans, your better angels point to the nourishing choices, but in the moment you go for what tastes good.

David McRaney

#70. THE MISCONCEPTION: In all you do, you strive for success. THE TRUTH: You often create conditions for failure ahead of time to protect your ego.

David McRaney

#71. We're one of the forces that causes actors to fasten seat belts before they take off chasing the bad guy in the car ... or removes some of the cigarette smoking on television.

Gerald McRaney

#72. Narrative bias - a bias in that when given the option, you prefer to give and receive information in narrative format.

David McRaney

#73. [If you hear a] story about how eating sausage leads to anal cancer, you will be skeptical, because it has never happened to anyone you know, and sausage, after all, is delicious.

David McRaney

#74. THE MISCONCEPTION: When you can't explain something, you focus on what you can prove. THE TRUTH: When you are unsure of something, you are more likely to accept strange explanations.

David McRaney

#75. You are as deluded as the rest of us, but that's OK, it keeps you sane.

David McRaney

#76. All brains are bards, all selves audiences to the tales of who they are.

David McRaney

#77. THE MISCONCEPTION: You calculate what is risky or rewarding and always choose to maximize gains while minimizing losses. THE TRUTH: You depend on emotions to tell you if something is good or bad, greatly overestimate rewards, and tend to stick to your first impressions.

David McRaney

#78. If you think catharsis is good, you are more likely to seek it out when you get pissed.

David McRaney

#79. God created for Himself a people that would ultimately share His involvement with them to others through evangelism.

Will McRaney

#80. You can't rage against the machine through rebllious consumption.

David McRaney

#81. For the last four or five years, I had been in the position where I didn't have to take a pilot. I took this one because the script and the people were terrific. It never frightened me. As we were doing the pilot, I could tell that it was working.

Gerald McRaney

#82. THE MISCONCEPTION: Your fight-or-flight instincts kick in and you panic when disaster strikes. THE TRUTH: You often become abnormally calm and pretend everything is normal in a crisis.

David McRaney

#83. To be less dumb, remember your propensity for post hoc postulation and the power positive permutations of the placebo effect have to pollute your perspicacity.

David McRaney

#84. Dad built houses and when they were sold, he moved on to a new town, so I know a lot about my native state.

Gerald McRaney

#85. Women will buy products in an attempt to become the impossible goal. Men will buy products in an attempt to mate with the impossible goal.

David McRaney