Quotes About Judgment

Never confuse thoughtlessness with malice.

Are you just a car salesman or are you a poet too?" "I've never been accused of poetry before.

We call people rats, who desert a sinking ship; but in some cases the rat has the wisdom of the situation.

Superstition...is what we call the miracles we don't approve of.

El poder es, en esencia, amoral. Una de las habilidades más importantes que deberá adquirir es la capacidad de aprender a ver circunstancias, en lugar de, simplemente, el bien o el mal.

be aware of these illusions and façades and to train ourselves to look through them. We must scrutinize everybody for signs of their character, no matter the appearance they present or the position they occupy.

Es más fácil soportar la mala conciencia que la mala fama.

Asimismo, el modo en que la gente maneja el poder y la responsabilidad te dirá mucho sobre ella. Como dijo Lincoln: "Si quieres probar el carácter de un hombre, dale poder".

the tendency to mistake appearances for reality—the feeling that if someone seems to belong to your group, their belonging must be real.

The ability to measure people and to know who you're dealing with is the most important skill of all in gathering and conserving power. Without it you are blind:

Understand: people will tend to judge you based on your outward appearance. If you are not careful and simply assume that it is best to be yourself, they will begin to ascribe to you all kinds of qualities that have little to do with who you are but correspond to what they want to see.

So it is important to judge over time whether a person is rational or irrational. Can they sustain success and hit upon several good strategies? Can they adjust and learn from failures?

The greatest danger you face is your general assumption that you really understand people and that you can quickly judge them. Instead, you must begin with the assumption that you are ignorant and that you have natural biases that will make you judge people incorrectly. Each person you meet is like an undiscovered country, with a very particular psychological chemistry that you will carefully explore.

Moralizers who try to separate themselves and denounce the narcissists in the world today are often the biggest narcissists of them all - they love the sound of their voice as they point fingers and preach.

Second, the Laws will make you a master interpreter of the cues that people continually emit, giving you a much greater ability to judge their character.

Power is a game—this cannot be repeated too often—and in games you do not judge your opponents by their intentions but by the effect of their actions.

Normally, if we pay attention to people's behavior, we are in a rush to fit their actions into categories and to hurry to conclusions, so we settle for the judgment that suits our own preconceptions. Or we accept their self-serving explanations. The Laws will rid you of this habit by making it clear how easy it is to misread people and how deceptive first impressions can be.

It is an extremely human response to not look inward after a mistake or crime, but rather to look outward and to affix blame and guilt on a convenient object.

you must begin with the assumption that you are ignorant and that you have natural biases that will make you judge people incorrectly.

All working situations require a kind of distance between people. You are trying to work, not make friends; friendliness (real or false) only obscures that fact. The key to power, then, is the ability to judge who is best able to further your interests in all situations. Keep friends for friendship, but work with the skilled and competent.

Appearance Bias I understand the people I deal with; I see them just as they are. We see people not as they are, but as they appear to us. And these appearances are usually misleading.

Sigue la ciega Fortuna / a la audacia ciega y loca, / y muchas veces los cuerdos / lo son haciendo las cosas / sin dar tiempo a la cordura / de examinarlas juiciosa.

Men of great abilities are slow to act. for it is easier to avoid occasions for committing yourself than to come well out of a commitment. Such occasions test your judgment; it is safer to avoid them than to emerge victorious from them. One obligation leads to a greater one, and you come very near to the brink of disaster. BALTASAR GRACIÁN, 1601-1658

The Blame Bias I learn from my experience and mistakes. Mistakes and failures elicit the need to explain. We want to learn the lesson and not repeat the experience. But in truth, we do not like to look too closely at what we did; our introspection is limited. Our natural response is to blame others, circumstances, or a momentary lapse of judgment. The reason for this bias is that it is often too painful to look at our mistakes.