Leonard Mlodinow quotes

What I have learned, above all, is to keep marching forward because the best news is that since chance does play a role, one important factor in success is under our control: the number of at bats, the number of chances taken, the number of opportunities seized. (Leonard Mlodinow)
The fact that human intuition is ill suited to situations involving uncertainty was known as early as the 1930's, when researchers noted that people could neither make up a sequence of numbers that passed mathematical tests for randomness nor recognize reliably whether a given string was randomly generated. View quote
Leonard Mlodinow
The law of small numbers is not really a law. It is a sarcastic name describing the misguided attempt to apply the law of large numbers when the numbers aren't large. View quote
Leonard Mlodinow
Another lottery mystery that raised many eyebrows occurred in Germany on June 21, 1995. The freak event happened in a lottery called Lotto 6/49, which means that the winning six numbers are drawn from 1 to 49. On the day in question the winning numbers were 15-25-27-30-42-48. The very same sequence had been drawn previously, on December 20, 1986. It was the first time in 3,016 drawings that a winning sequence had been repeated. What were the chances of that? Not as bad as you'd think. When you do the math, the chance of a repeat at some point over the years comes out to around 28 percent. View quote
Leonard Mlodinow
Subliminal is about how we misinterpret our behavior because were unaware of what our unconscious minds are doing. View quote
Leonard Mlodinow
The theory of randomness is fundamentally a codification of common sense. View quote
Leonard Mlodinow
We unfortunately seem to be unconsciously biased against those in society who come out on the bottom. View quote
Leonard Mlodinow
Random events often come like the raisins in a box of cereal - in groups, streaks, and clusters. And although Fortune is fair in potentialities, she is not fair in outcomes. View quote
Leonard Mlodinow
It is one of those contradictions of life that although measurement always carries uncertainty, the uncertainty in measurement is rarely discussed. View quote
Leonard Mlodinow
It might seem daunting to think that effort and chance, as much as innate talent, are what counts. But I find it encouraging because, while our genetic makeup is out of our control, our degree of effort is up to us. And the effects of chance, too, can be controlled to the extent that by committing ourselves to repeated attempts, we can increase our odds of success. View quote
Leonard Mlodinow
Perception requires imagination because the data people encounter in their lives are never complete and always equivocal. (Leonard Mlodinow)
The outline of our lives, like the candles flame, is continuously coaxed in new directions by a variety of random events that, along with our responses to them, determine our fate. View quote
Leonard Mlodinow
Historians whose profession is to study the past, are as wary as scientists of the idea that events unfold in a manner that can be predicted. In fact, in a study of history the illusion of inevitability has serious consequences that it is one of the few things that both conservative and socialist historians can agree on. View quote
Leonard Mlodinow
Comets at the time were considered by theologians and the general public alike as a sign of divine anger, and God must have seemed pretty pissed off to create this one - it occupied more than half of the visible sky. View quote
Leonard Mlodinow
The nasty thing about the availability bias is that it insidiously distorts our view of the world by distorting our perception of past events and our environment. View quote
Leonard Mlodinow
We afford automatic respect to superstar business moguls, politicians, and actors and to anyone flying around in a private jet, as if their accomplishments must reflect unique qualities not shared by those forced to eat commercial airline food. And we place too much confidence in the overly precise predictions of people - political pundits, financial experts, business consultants - who claim a track record demonstrating expertise. View quote
Leonard Mlodinow
Even random differences in pay lead to the backward inference of differences in skill and hence to the development of unequal influence. It's an element of personal and office dynamics that can't be ignored. View quote
Leonard Mlodinow
Nonverbal communication forms a social language that is in many ways richer and more fundamental than our words. View quote
Leonard Mlodinow
One thing that feeds into the way you experience the social world is your mood - and one thing that affects your mood is the weather. View quote
Leonard Mlodinow
Listeners instinctively detect that when we lower the usual pitch of our voice, we are sad, and when we raise it, we are angry or fearful. View quote
Leonard Mlodinow
The truth is that our unconscious minds are active, purposeful, and independent. Hidden they may be, but their effects are anything but, for they play a critical role in shaping the way our conscious minds experience and respond to the world. (Leonard Mlodinow)
Our subliminal mental processes operate outside awareness because they arise in these portions of our mind that are inaccessible to our conscious self; their inaccessibility is due to the architecture of the brain rather than because they have been subject to Freudian motivational forces like repression. View quote
Leonard Mlodinow
On the unconscious level, touch seems to impart a subliminal sense of caring and connection. View quote
Leonard Mlodinow
Obviously it can be a mistake to assign brilliance in proportion to wealth. View quote
Leonard Mlodinow
A failure doesn't mean you are unworthy, nor does it preclude success on the next try. View quote
Leonard Mlodinow