Quotes from Scott Adams

An intentional "error" in the details of your message will attract criticism. The attention will make your message rise in importance—at least in people's minds—simply because everyone is talking about it.

Reality is overrated and impossible to understand with any degree of certainty. What you do know for sure is that some ways of looking at the world work better than others. Pick the way that works, even if you don't know why. The

Generally speaking, conservatives are opposed to legalization of marijuana whereas liberals are more likely to support it. I go one step further and suggest that doctors prescribe recreational drugs for old people to make their final years enjoyable. What do they have to lose? (Yes, I'm serious. I know it's hard to tell.)

A good general rule is that people are more influenced by visual persuasion, emotion, repetition, and simplicity than they are by details and facts.

Confirmation bias isn't an occasional bug in our human operating system. It is the operating system.

grabbing failure by the throat and squeezing it until it coughs up a hairball of success.

I don't read the news to find truth, as that would be a foolish waste of time. I read the news to broaden my exposure to new topics and patterns that make my brain more efficient in general and to enjoy myself, because learning interesting things increases my energy and makes me feel optimistic. Don't think of the news as information. Think of it as a source of energy.

Some humor experts say the secret to humor is to combine something unexpected with something bad and then make sure it's happening to someone else. But if that's all it took, serial killers would be winning comedy competitions.

Never be yourself if you can make yourself into something better through your conscious actions. You are what you do.

Free yourself from the shackles of an oppressive reality. What's real to you is what you imagine and what you feel. If you manage your illusions wisely, you might get what you want

Word-thinking is a term I invented to describe a situation in which people are trying to win an argument by adjusting the definition of words. In these situations there is no appeal to reason.

When you understand the power of honest praise (as opposed to bullshitting, flattery, and sucking up), you realize that withholding it borders on immoral.

But if your story is about the inner workings of competitive quilting, you'd better make it short and extra witty. People drift off when you stop talking about stuff that isn't, well, them. The

Insanity is always a reasonable diagnosis when you're dealing with writers and artists. Sometimes the only real difference between crazy people and artists is that artists write down what they imagine seeing. In the past few decades, hardly a week has gone by without a reader of my blog questioning my mental health. I understand that; I've read my writing too.

Dealing with experts is always tricky. Are they honest? Are they competent? How often are they right? My observation and best guess is that experts are right about 98 percent of the time on the easy stuff but only right 50 percent of the time on anything that is unusually complicated, mysterious, or even new. Years

A lack of fear of embarrassment is what allows one to be proactive. It's what makes a person take on challenges that others write off as too risky. It's what makes you take the first step before you know what the second step is. I'm not a fan of physical risks, but if you can't handle the risk of embarrassment, rejection, and failure, you need to learn how, and studies suggest that is indeed a learnable skill.1 As

Quality is not an independent force in the universe; it depends on what you choose as your frame of reference. When

If success were easy, everyone would do it. It takes effort. That fact works to your advantage because it keeps lazy people out of the game.

You're wasting your time if you try to make someone see reason when reason is not influencing the decision.

Other studies back this notion—physical fitness and daily exercise are correlated with success in business and in life.

The best any human can do is to pick a delusion that helps him get through the day. This is why people of different religions can generally live in peace. At some level, we all suspect that other people don't believe their own religion any more than we believe ours.

Unfortunately, most people believe that analogies are one of the best ways to persuade. That fact goes far in explaining why it seems that every debate on the Internet ends with a Hitler analogy. The phenomenon is so common it has its own name: Godwin's law. But I doubt many people have changed an opinion just because a stranger on the Internet compared them to Hitler. A direct attack usually just hardens people into their current opinions.

Losers have goals, winners have systems

To change yourself, part of the solution might involve spending more time with the people who represent the change you seek.