"At the very least, irrationality per se can be challenged. In contrast, acting irrational because we believe that other people are so irrational that their irrationality cannot be challenged leads to no challenge at all."

“Believing you’re good at something just because you do it—without any information that you’re doing it well—is indeed irrational.”

“Many people operate as if there are two separate and equal sources of information—the self and others, where the number of others is irrelevant. The result is a “truly” false-consensus effect in the context of knowing one’s own plus a certain number of others’ responses.”

“True scientific demonstration involves convincing an observer who is outside the process, particularly one not deeply and emotionally enmeshed in it.”

“The Milgram studies led to a great deal of criticism from other academic and professional psychologists. Ironically, the major focus of this criticism was that the studies would “destroy faith in psychologists as authorities,” to which Milgram’s response was “Fine!”

“The world as postulated by the recovered-memory theorists is not an impossible one—just an extraordinarily unlikely one.”

“I know better than to say “that’s absurd” to someone trained in Freudian analysis, because such a therapist will simply interpret such an assertion as confirmation of whatever is proposed.”