'Mutual ignorance breeds mutual distrust.'

'Trust is one of the greatest economic forces on earth' - Charlie Munger

'Knowledge will forever govern ignorance.'

- US President James Madison (1751-1836)

'My model for business is The Beatles: They were four guys that kept each others' negative tendencies in check; they balanced each other. And the total was greater than the sum of the parts.'

-Apple co-founder Steve Jobs (1955-2011)

'The most important single ingredient in the formula of success is knowing how to get along with people.'

- Former President Theodore Roosevelt's (1858–1919)

'No one is useless in this world who lightens the burdens of another.'

-Charles Dickens (1812-1870), in "Our Mutual Friend"

'Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited, whereas imagination embraces the entire world.'

- Albert Einstein

'In my experience, each failure contains the seeds of your next success—if you are willing to learn from it.'

- Microsoft cofounder Paul Allen (1953–2018)

'It's those who lie outside ordinary experience who have the most to teach us.'

- Author Malcolm Gladwell (1963 - present)

'If you want to succeed, you should strike out on new paths, rather than travel the worn paths of accepted success.'

- Billionaire John D. Rockefeller (1839-1937)

Listen to why Ray Dalio seeks out disagreement

One of Ray Dalio's principles is to constantly be challenged by smart people. He says thoughtful disagreement is key to becoming smarter and making better, more thorough decisions.

'Only those who dare to fail greatly can ever achieve greatly.'

- Bobby Kennedy

'I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work.'

-Inventor and businessman Thomas Edison (1847-1931)

A quote by broadcast legend Walter Cronkite

"In seeking truth you have to get both sides of a story."

'Remember, no man is a failure who has friends.'

- 1946 film "It's a Wonderful Life"

The unavailability bias says what we don't see must not exist

Before social media, information was more scarce, and it was the norm not to know much about some controversy or episode. This led to a common prejudice: the availability bias, that what is at hand must be true (in business, the courts, finance, and many fields). With information overload today, the inverse occurs: when something is missing (like the photo of a suspect), it makes us think the suspect does not exist.

'I honestly think it is better to be a failure at something you love than to be a success at something you hate.'

-Comedian George Burns (1896-1996)

'Profits made out of the distress of the people are always much smaller than profits made out of the most lavish service of the people at the lowest prices that competent management can make possible.'

- Henry Ford

'There cannot be mental atrophy in any person who continues to observe, to remember what he observes, and to seek answers for his unceasing hows and whys about things.'

-Alexander Graham Bell (1847-1922)

'Let us learn to show our friendship for a man when he is alive and not after he is dead.'

Meyer Wolfsheim in F. Scott Fitzgerald's "The Great Gatsby"

'Many of life's failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.'

- Inventor Thomas Edison (1847 - 1931)

'Men and nature must work hand in hand. The throwing out of balance of the resources of nature throws out of balance also the lives of men.'

- President Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945)

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos emphasizes worrying about customers rather than competition

In a 1999 shareholder letter, Bezos wrote, "I constantly remind our employees to be afraid, to wake up every morning terrified. Our customers have made our business what it is, and we consider them to be loyal to us – right up until the second that someone else offers them a better service." Motivated by fear, the entrepreneur advocates consistent innovation, experimentation, and improvement to create a better customer experience.

'Mediocrity is always invisible until passion shows up and exposes it'

- Graham Cooke

'I have learned from experience that the greater part of our happiness or misery depends upon our dispositions, and not upon our circumstances.'

- Martha Washington (1731-1802)

A Harvard professor argues that impostor syndrome can be a good sign

Specifically, Arthur C. Brooks has argued that self-doubt is usually evidence of healthy humility—not incompetence—and a clear contrast to the overconfidence of people who actually are impostors in their careers.

Polish chemist and physicist Marie Curie (1867–1934) on learning

“Nothing in life is to be feared; it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less."

Hear history nerd Ray Dalio talk about making decisions during times of uncertainty

For Dalio, history is the best teacher. Dalio emphasizes relying on and respecting the past as a framework for the future, so that during unsettling times, people still make good decisions.

'There's a hell of a distance between wise-cracking and wit. Wit has truth in it; wise-cracking is simply calisthenics with words.'

- Writer Dorothy Parker (1893-1967)

Tesla's lack of business savvy and inability to commercialize led to his obscurity

For decades, despite pioneering technologies for large-scale electrical systems and telecommunications, Nikola Tesla had been forgotten to history. Rather than monetizing his work and becoming more well known, his inventor-first mentality saw him sell off lucrative patents to fund new experiments in the short term.

'Happiness depends more upon the internal frame of a persons own mind—than on the externals in the world.'

- George Washington (1732-1799)

A quote by Ralph Bunche

"The well-being and the hopes of the peoples of the world can never be served until peace - as well as freedom, honor and self-respect - is secure."

Twain was a notoriously bad investor

After becoming a famous writer, Twain invested in railroad stocks, a magnetic telegraph, and a printing press that weighed four tons. Eventually, he founded his own publishing company, which ultimately led to his bankruptcy. “He is, in business,” one lawyer said, “just a big overgrown boy.”

Twain's ‘To the Person Sitting in the Darkness’ satirized American imperialism

The 1901 essay was a response to the Philippine-American War as well as Rudyard Kipling’s poem, “The White Man’s Burden,” which argued that Western nations had a moral duty to rescue non-Western nations from ignorance. Twain’s essay ironically encouraged lecturing citizens of the countries being invaded: “for the sake of the Business we must persuade him to look at the Philippine matter in another and healthier way. We must arrange his opinions for him.”

'Early to bed, early to rise, work like hell, and advertise.'

- Ted Turner, on his secret to success (1938-2026)

'The consumer isn't a moron, she's your wife' is among David Ogilvy's most memorable pieces of advertising advice.

'No big challenge has ever been solved, and no lasting improvement has ever been achieved, unless people dare to try something different.'

- Apple CEO Tim Cook (1960 - present)