Quotes About Trust

Honesty is all I've got, she said finally, speaking in a low voice. I don't have family. I don't have beauty, or a man. I don't have money, and I sure as hell don't have a future. All I've got to prop up my pride is my word. Her chin rose. When Jenny Jones says something, you can bet your last peso that it's true.

Say yes, Jenny. Promise you'll marry me. Promise you'll still be here, driving me crazy and loving me when we're little and old and surrounded by grandchildren. Promise that you'll let me love you until I take my last breath. Promise.

Annie] "I just wondered … is slowly a good thing?" "Is slowly …" His fingers relaxed and she felt rather than saw his smile. He brushed his fingertips across her lips, then sank back to his pillow. "Oh yes, Annie love. Slowly is a very good thing." "Oh, my.

Bootie Grant Glover! You do amaze me! Mem stared at her sister. Do I understand this? You're giving me permission to engage in a romantic tryst? Certainly not! Bootie pulled to her full diminished height. I'm merely saying if disaster strikes, I won't abandon you.

hand. "Care to explain

It was nine forty-five. I had Myrt's designer goggles dangling from one finger. Amy held out her hand. "I'll take vet duty if I can borrow the Subaru.

Everywhere there are the politicians and the priest, the ayatollahs and the economists, who will try to explain that reality is what they say it is. Never trust them; trust only the novelist, those deep bankers who spend their time trying to turn pieces of printed paper into value, but never pretend that the result is anything more than a useful fiction.

You believe someone not because you have no doubts about them. Belief is not the absence of doubt. You believe someone because you don't have enough doubts about them.

legitimacy is based on three things. First of all, the people who are asked to obey authority have to feel like they have a voice--that if they speak up, they will be heard. Second, the law has to be predictable. There has to be a reasonable expectation that the rules tomorrow are going to be roughly the same as the rules today. And third, the authority has to be fair. It can't treat one group differently from another.

The right way to talk to strangers is with caution and humility.

When people in authority want the rest of us to behave, it matters—first and foremost—how they behave.

The thing we want to learn about a stranger is fragile. If we tread carelessly it will crumple under our feet... The right way to talk to strangers is with caution and humility.

When people are overwhelmed with information and develop immunity to traditional forms of communication, they turn instead for advice and information to the people in their lives whom they respect, admire, and trust. The cure for immunity is finding Mavens, Connectors, and Salesmen.

We start by believing. And we stop believing only when our doubts and misgivings rise to the point where we can no longer explain them away.

Because we do not know how to talk to strangers, what do we do when things go awry with strangers? We blame the stranger.

To assume the best about another is the trait that has created modern society. Those occasions when our trusting nature gets violated are tragic. But the alternative—to abandon trust as a defense against predation and deception—is worse.

We are bad lie detectors in those situations when the person we're judging is mismatched.

Puzzle Number One: Why can't we tell when the stranger in front of us is lying to our face?

Just think about how many times you have criticized someone else, in hindsight, for their failure to spot a liar. You should have known. There were all kinds of red flags. You had doubts. Levine would say that's the wrong way to think about the problem. The right question is: were there enough red flags to push you over the threshold of belief? If there weren't, then by defaulting to truth you were only being human.

Next time you meet a doctor, and you sit down in his office and he starts to talk, if you have the sense that he isn't listening to you, that he's talking down to you, and that he isn't treating you with respect, listen to that feeling. You have thin-sliced him and found him wanting.

That's the consequence of not defaulting to truth. If you don't begin in a state of trust, you can't have meaningful social encounters.

This is called the "principle of legitimacy," and legitimacy is based on three things. First of all, the people who are asked to obey authority have to feel like they have a voice—that if they speak up, they will be heard. Second, the law has to be predictable. There has to be a reasonable expectation that the rules tomorrow are going to be roughly the same as the rules today. And third, the authority has to be fair. It can't treat one group differently from another.

We need to respect the fact that it is possible to know without knowing why we know and accept that—sometimes—we're better off that way. 1.

There's no possibility of being pessimistic when people are dependent on you for their only optimism.