Quotes from Scott Adams

Happiness is the only useful goal in life. Unless you are a sociopath, your own happiness will depend on being good to others. And happiness tends to happen naturally whenever you have good health, resources, and a flexible schedule.

Never assume you understand the odds of things.

The thoughts you allow into your head are the code that programs your mind and body.

My worldview is that all success is luck if you track it back to its source.

Exposure to horrible and frightening thoughts can elevate your stress, which releases cortisol. The Mayo Clinic website explains that cortisol "curbs functions that would be nonessential or detrimental in a fight-or-flight situation. It alters immune system responses and suppresses the digestive system, the reproductive system and growth processes. This complex natural alarm system also communicates with regions of your brain that control mood, motivation and fear.

I don't trust the science behind the vegetarian movement because the believers have agendas beyond nutrition. Some vegetarians are in the lifestyle to protect animals, some want to address climate change, and all are partially blinded by the cognitive dissonance that comes automatically with any lifestyle choice. Complicating

Under this explanation of the power of affirmations, they act as a sort of message from your subconscious to your rational mind telling you that you have the right stuff, even if your common sense argues otherwise. This would be useful for people who have real talent but don't believe in it; surely there are a lot of people in that camp.

But for what it is worth, I don't think affirmations are sensitive to exactly how many times you write them, whether you use a keyboard or a pen, whether you throw away the paper you wrote on, how many weeks you do them for, or any other detail. I can't imagine the process of affirmations—if it works at all—is sensitive to the little details. I think a deep and consistent focus on what you want is all that is required. But that's just my gut feeling.

The start of the tweet generally contains contempt, mocking, or sarcasm. The second part of the tweet includes either an insult that seems too angry for the situation or a mischaracterization of your point as an absurd absolute.

Overcoming obstacles is normally an unavoidable part of the process. But you also need to know when to quit. Persistence is useful, but there's no point in being an idiot about it.

And sure enough, Trump's win set off a cluster bomb of cognitive dissonance the likes of which history rarely sees. To untrained observers—voters and pundits alike—the public reaction looked like a combination of anger, disappointment, fear, and shock. But to trained persuaders, it was a front-row seat to a show of cognitive dissonance so pure and so deep that it was, frankly, beautiful.

Put yourself in potentially embarrassing situations on a regular basis just to maintain practice. If you get embarrassed as planned, watch how one year later you are still alive.

Fitness is a simple thing made absurdly complicated by market forces.

I once wore a professional disguise and infiltrated a high-level business meeting just to get material for the Dilbert comic strip. On

Trump could have simply said he wanted better immigration control, but that would not have been good visual persuasion. Concepts without images are weak sauce. So instead, Trump sold us a mental image of a "big, beautiful wall." He said "wall" so many times that we all started to picture it. Before long, we started seeing artists' renderings of potential walls. Even the opposition media started running videos of existing walls and walls in other countries.

If you go to movies, choose the funny ones first and avoid anything you know will end on a sad note.

While Trump was talking about the wall, Senator Rand Paul—one of Trump's Republican primary challengers—had a number of smart ideas that got no traction whatsoever. Paul presented his ideas as concepts without visuals. They died on arrival.

I want to be clear that I'm not expressing a preference for ignoring facts. I'm simply saying that a Master Persuader can do it and still come out ahead, no matter how many times the media points out the errors.

Trump was also smart enough to be vague about the details of the wall so that each of us could imagine the wall we wanted to imagine. He could have easily provided his own artists' renderings of the wall, but that would have been a mistake. It would have given critics lots of targets to attack. But there is one kind of wall that is hard to criticize: the one that is entirely different in each person's head.

it helps to see the world as math and not magic.

Trump's unexpected win created a persuasion bomb that no one knew how to defuse. The anti-Trumpers were locked into their Hitler movie, and confirmation bias would keep them there. It was a terrible situation for a country. And it was an enormous challenge for Trump, the Master Persuader.

If your cave-dwelling ancestors were enamored with the beauty of the scenery instead of, let's say, the herd of carnivorous dinosaurs stampeding their way, they would not have survived to create the miracle that is you.

The worst thing your brain could do is reinterpret your reality into a whole new movie with each new bit of information. That would be exhausting and without benefit. Instead, your brain takes the path of least resistance and instantly interprets your observations to fit your existing worldview. It's just easier.

Things that will someday work out well start out well. Things that will never work start out bad and stay that way.