“We are prone to overestimate how much we understand about the world and to underestimate the role of chance in events.”

—  Daniel Kahneman, book Thinking, Fast and Slow

Source: Thinking, Fast and Slow

Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "We are prone to overestimate how much we understand about the world and to underestimate the role of chance in events." by Daniel Kahneman?
Daniel Kahneman photo
Daniel Kahneman51
Israeli-American psychologist 1934

Related quotes

N. R. Narayana Murthy photo

“I am struck by the incredible role played by the interplay of chance events with intentional choices. While the turning points themselves are indeed often fortuitous, how we respond to them is anything but so. It is this very quality of how we respond systematically to chance events that is crucial.”

N. R. Narayana Murthy (1946) Indian businessman

Life lessons from Narayana Murthy (2013)

“We tend to overestimate what we can do in the short term and underestimate what we can do in the long term.”

Tim Hurson (1946) Creativity theorist, author and speaker

Think Better: An Innovator's Guide to Productive Thinking

T. Harv Eker photo

“If you are insecure, guess what? The rest of the world is too. Do not overestimate the competition and underestimate yourself. You are better than you think.”

T. Harv Eker (1954) American writer

Timothy Ferriss photo

“If you are insecure, guess what? The rest of the world is, too. Do not overestimate the competition and underestimate yourself. You are better than you think.”

Timothy Ferriss book The 4-Hour Workweek

The 4-Hour Workweek (2007)

Mario Puzo photo

“A friend should always underestimate your virtues and an enemy overestimate your faults”

Mario Puzo The Godfather

Source: The Godfather

Eric Hoffer photo

“To overestimate the originality of one's thoughts is perhaps a less serious defect than being unaware of their newness. There is a more pronounced lack of sensitivity in underestimating (ourselves and others) than in overestimating.”

Eric Hoffer (1898–1983) American philosopher

Entry (1957)
Eric Hoffer and the Art of the Notebook (2005)

Charles James Fox photo

“How much the greatest event it is that ever happened in the world! and how much the best!”

Charles James Fox (1749–1806) British Whig statesman

Letter to Mr. Fitzpatrick (30 July 1789) on the fall of the Bastille, printed in J. Russell (ed.), Memorials and Correspondence of Charles James Fox. Volume II (London: Richard Bentley, 1853), p. 361.
1780s

Markus Zusak photo

“I am constantly overestimating and underestimating the human race - that rarely do I ever simply estimate it.”

Markus Zusak book The Book Thief

Source: The Book Thief

“God does not give us more than we can handle," I am told but I wonder if God doesn't overestimate me just a little. Or perhaps, and this is likely, I underestimate God.”

Julia Cameron (1948) American writer

Source: Finding Water: The Art of Perseverance

Related topics