Quotes from Steven D. Levitt

Most people are too busy to rethink the way they think—or to even spend much time thinking at all.

Figure out what people really care about, not what they say they care about.

When moral posturing is replaced by an honest assessment of the data, the result is often a new, surprising insight.

People who buy annuities, it turns out, live longer than people who don't, and not because the people who buy annuities are healthier to start with. The evidence suggests that an annuity's steady payout provides a little extra incentive to keep chugging along.

Deliberate practice has three key components: setting specific goals; obtaining immediate feedback; and concentrating as much on technique as on outcome.

Since the science of economics is primarily a set of tools, as opposed to a subject matter, then no subject, however offbeat, need be beyond its reach.

But in both instances, the dissemination of the information diluted its power. As Supreme Court Justice Louis D. Brandeis once wrote, Sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants.

The data don't lie: a Chicago street prostitute is more likely to have sex with a cop than to be arrested by one.

In a complex world where people can be atypical in an infinite number of ways, there is great value in discovering the baseline. And knowing what happens on average is a good place to start. By so doing, we insulate ourselves from the tendency to build our thinking - our daily decisions, our laws, our governance - on exceptions and anomalies rather than on reality.

The more social science we learn, the more we realize that people, while treasuring their independence, are in fact drawn to herd behavior in almost every aspect of daily life.

There are three basic flavours of incentive: economic, social and moral.

Trying to keep a public men's room clean? Sure, go ahead and put up signs urging people to pee neatly—or, better, paint a housefly on the urinal and watch the male instinct for target practice take over.

Resources are not infinite: you cannot solve tomorrow's problem if you aren't willing to abandon today's dud.

With any problem, it's important to figure out which incentives will actually work, not just what your moral compass tells you should work.

I don't expect perfection, I expect excellence." I expect 100 percent effort in all you do.

Journalists need experts as badly as experts need journalists.

That is in part because the very words "education reform" indicate that the question is "What's wrong with our schools?" when in reality, the question might be better phrased as "Why do American kids know less than kids from Estonia and Poland?" When you ask the question differently, you look for answers in different places.

The non-profit industry itself, "the most dysfunctional $300 billion industry in the world," as he saw it. Mullaney had come to believe that too many philanthropists engage in what Peter Buffett, a son of the über-billionaire Warren Buffett, calls "conscience laundering"—doing charity to make themselves feel better rather than fighting to figure out the best ways to alleviate suffering.

Just as a warm and moist environment is conducive to the spread of deadly bacteria, the worlds of politics and business especially—with their long time frames, complex outcomes, and murky cause and effect—are conducive to the spread of half-cocked guesses posing as fact.

What Do Schoolteachers and Sumo Wrestlers Have in Common?

Just because you're at the office is no reason to stop thinking.

Consider the kind of questions that kids ask. Sure, they may be silly or simplistic or out of bounds. But kids are also relentlessly curious and relatively unbiased. Because they know so little, they don't carry around the preconceptions that often stop people from seeing things as they are. When it comes to solving problems, this is a big advantage.

Conventional wisdom in Galbraith's view must be simple, convenient, comfortable and comforting - though not necessarily true.

Reducir la diferencia de resultados escolares entre blancos y negros —declararon los autores de un estudio— haría más para promover la igualdad racial que cualquier otra estrategia que cuente con un amplio apoyo político.»