Monthly Archives: April 2013

Dan Ariely

Suppose you are at a bar, enjoying a conversation with some friends. With one brand you get a calorie-free beer, and with another you get a three-calorie beer. Which brand will make you feel that you are drinking a really light beer? Even though the difference between the two beers is negligible, the zero-calorie beer will increase the feeling that you’re doing the right thing, healthwise. You might even feel so good that you go ahead and order a plate of fries.

Dan Ariely, Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces that Shape Our Decisions, New York, 2008, p. 63

Michel de Montaigne

Je vois ordinairement, que les hommes, aux faicts qu’on leur propose, s’amusent plus volontiers à en chercher la raison, qu’à en chercher la verité : Ils passent par dessus les presuppositions, mais ils examinent curieusement les consequences. Ils laissent les choses, et courent aux causes. Plaisans causeurs. La cognoissance des causes touche seulement celuy, qui a la conduitte des choses : non à nous, qui n’en avons que la souffrance. Et qui en avons l’usage parfaictement plein et accompli, selon nostre besoing, sans en penetrer l’origine et l’essence. Ny le vin n’en est plus plaisant à celuy qui en sçait les facultez premieres. Au contraire : et le corps et l’ame, interrompent et alterent le droit qu’ils ont de l’usage du monde, et de soy-mesmes, y meslant l’opinion de science. Les effectz nous touchent, mais les moyens, nullement. Le determiner et le distribuer, appartient à la maistrise, et à la regence : comme à la subjection et apprentissage, l’accepter. Reprenons nostre coustume. Ils commencent ordinairement ainsi : Comment est-ce que cela se fait ? mais, se fait-il ? faudroit il dire.

Michel de Montaigne, Essais, III, 11

Piers Steel

Benjamin Franklin wrote about the need for hard work in The Way to Wealth, over 150 before Wallace Wattles’ The Science of Getting Rich, the book that inspired The Secret. Even if you adopt the premise that magical thinking works, it is traditionally thought to operate contrary to the way professed by The Secret. Magnets actually attract their counter; that is, positive attracts negative. Consequently, boasting about or predicting a positive result means it is less likely to come true; we jinx the outcome by tempting fate. It is why we knock on or touch woof after reporting good luck or health, in an effort to avoid the curse and allow the good luck to continue.

Piers Steel, The Procrastination Equation: How to Stop Putting Things Off and Start Getting Things Done, Harlow, 2011, p. 150