"It is always amazing to see how wide a spectrum of results can be obtained from replicating an identical negotiation with different principal actors; it makes no difference whether there subjects are inexperienced or whether they are senior executives and young presidents of business firms. That is an important lesson to be learned here."

Howard Raiffa Economics See all quotes by Howard Raiffa →

React to this quote

More by Howard Raiffa

“The art of compromise centers on the willingness to give up something in order to get something else in return. Successful artists get more than they give up.”

“Ideas are incestuous.”

“the mediation of internal conflicts can be resolved by linkages with other problems.”

“Game theory, however, deals only with the way in which ultrasmart, all knowing people should behave in competitive situations, and has little to say to Mr. X as he confronts the morass of his problem.”

“We act like a zero-sum society, when in reality there is a lot of non zero-sum fat to be skimmed off to everyone's mutual advantage.”

“The need is not for the creation of new analytical techniques specially designed for the negotiation process, but rather for the creative use of analytical thinking that exploits existing techniques.”

Resonant Thoughts

"Yet, just as in any kindergarten, there are always a few naughty children who don't like to be told what to do. There are always some people who refuse to be administered amnesia. They are always tryi…"

— Yan Lianke

Literature1958

#time

"When you have a fire in an aircraft, there's no place to go, exactly, there's no — and you can't find any oxygen from outside the aircraft to get in the aircraft, because the windows don't open. I don…"

— Mitt Romney

Politics1947

#knowledge

"You well know … for which reason I began searching for a number of demonstrations proving a statement due to the ancient Greeks … and which passion I felt for the subject … so that you reproached me m…"

— Al-Biruni

Mathematics973–1050

#knowledge

"I know that you are looking for the Blue Bird, that is to say, the great secret of things and of happiness, so that Man may make our servitude still harder. … I do not hear the Animals... Where are th…"

— Maurice Maeterlinck

Literature1862–1949

#knowledge