Alchemy Quotes
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Alchemy Quotes
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“the human mind does not run on logic any more than a horse runs on petrol”
― Alchemy: The Surprising Power of Ideas That Don't Make Sense
― Alchemy: The Surprising Power of Ideas That Don't Make Sense
“Irrational people are much more powerful than rational people, because their threats are so much more convincing.”
― Alchemy: The Dark Art and Curious Science of Creating Magic in Brands, Business, and Life
― Alchemy: The Dark Art and Curious Science of Creating Magic in Brands, Business, and Life
“It is much easier to be fired for being illogical than it is for being unimaginative. The fatal issue is that logic always gets you to exactly the same place as your competitors.”
― Alchemy: The Surprising Power of Ideas That Don't Make Sense
― Alchemy: The Surprising Power of Ideas That Don't Make Sense
“the uber map is a psychological moonshot, because it does not reduce the waiting time for a taxi but simply makes waiting 90% less frustrating”
― Alchemy: The Surprising Power of Ideas That Don't Make Sense
― Alchemy: The Surprising Power of Ideas That Don't Make Sense
“you are not thinking; you are merely being logical”
― Alchemy: The Surprising Power of Ideas That Don't Make Sense
― Alchemy: The Surprising Power of Ideas That Don't Make Sense
“Not everything that makes sense works, and not everything that works makes sense.”
― Alchemy: The Dark Art and Curious Science of Creating Magic in Brands, Business, and Life
― Alchemy: The Dark Art and Curious Science of Creating Magic in Brands, Business, and Life
“It’s important to remember that big data all comes from the same place – the past. A new campaigning style, a single rogue variable or a ‘black swan’ event can throw the most perfectly calibrated model into chaos.”
― Alchemy: The Surprising Power of Ideas That Don't Make Sense
― Alchemy: The Surprising Power of Ideas That Don't Make Sense
“when you demand logic, you pay a hidden price: you destroy magic”
― Alchemy: The Surprising Power of Ideas That Don't Make Sense
― Alchemy: The Surprising Power of Ideas That Don't Make Sense
“Hillary thinks like an economist, while Donald is a game theorist, and is able to achieve with one tweet what would take Clinton four years of congressional infighting. That’s alchemy; you may hate it, but it works.”
― Alchemy: The Surprising Power of Ideas That Don't Make Sense
― Alchemy: The Surprising Power of Ideas That Don't Make Sense
“And in reality ‘context’ is often the most important thing in determining how people think, behave and act:”
― Alchemy: The Surprising Power of Ideas That Don't Make Sense
― Alchemy: The Surprising Power of Ideas That Don't Make Sense
“it is perfectly possible to be both rational and wrong.”
― Alchemy: The Surprising Power of Ideas That Don't Make Sense
― Alchemy: The Surprising Power of Ideas That Don't Make Sense
“Evolution is like a brilliant uneducated craftsman: what it lacks in intellect it makes up for in experience.”
― Alchemy: The Dark Art and Curious Science of Creating Magic in Brands, Business, and Life
― Alchemy: The Dark Art and Curious Science of Creating Magic in Brands, Business, and Life
“The number of people who think they understand statistics dangerously dwarfs those who actually do, and maths can cause fundamental problems when badly used.”
― Alchemy: The Dark Art and Curious Science of Creating Magic in Brands, Business, and Life
― Alchemy: The Dark Art and Curious Science of Creating Magic in Brands, Business, and Life
“We don’t value things; we value their meaning. What they are is determined by the laws of physics, but what they mean is determined by the laws of psychology.”
― Alchemy: The Surprising Power of Ideas That Don't Make Sense
― Alchemy: The Surprising Power of Ideas That Don't Make Sense
“Our conscious mind tries hard to preserve the illusion that it deliberately chose every action you have ever taken; in reality, in many of these decisions it was a bystander at best, and much of the time it did not even notice the decision being made.”
― Alchemy: The Dark Art and Curious Science of Creating Magic in Brands, Business, and Life
― Alchemy: The Dark Art and Curious Science of Creating Magic in Brands, Business, and Life
“what matters is not whether an idea is true or effective, but whether it fits with the preconceptions of a dominant cabal”
― Alchemy: The Surprising Power of Ideas That Don't Make Sense
― Alchemy: The Surprising Power of Ideas That Don't Make Sense
“all big data comes from the same place: the past. Yet a single change in context can change human behaviour significantly.”
― Alchemy: The Surprising Power of Ideas That Don't Make Sense
― Alchemy: The Surprising Power of Ideas That Don't Make Sense
“Rory’s Rules of Alchemy The opposite of a good idea can also be a good idea. Don’t design for average. It doesn’t pay to be logical if everyone else is being logical. The nature of our attention affects the nature of our experience. A flower is simply a weed with an advertising budget. The problem with logic is that it kills off magic. A good guess which stands up to observation is still science. So is a lucky accident. Test counterintuitive things only because no one else will. Solving problems using rationality is like playing golf with only one club. Dare to be trivial. If there were a logical answer, we would have found it.”
― Alchemy: The Dark Art and Curious Science of Creating Magic in Brands, Business, and Life
― Alchemy: The Dark Art and Curious Science of Creating Magic in Brands, Business, and Life
“For a business to be truly customer-focused, it needs to ignore what people say. Instead it needs to concentrate on what people feel.”
― Alchemy: The Dark Art and Curious Science of Creating Magic in Brands, Business, and Life
― Alchemy: The Dark Art and Curious Science of Creating Magic in Brands, Business, and Life
“Some scientists believe that driverless cars will not work unless they learn to be irrational. If such cars stop reliably whenever a pedestrian appears in front of them, pedestrian crossings will be unnecessary and jaywalkers will be able to march into the road, forcing the driverless car to stop suddenly, at great discomfort to its occupants. To prevent this, driverless cars may have to learn to be ‘angry’, and to occasionally maliciously fail to stop in time and strike the pedestrian on the shins.”
― Alchemy: The Dark Art and Curious Science of Creating Magic in Brands, Business, and Life
― Alchemy: The Dark Art and Curious Science of Creating Magic in Brands, Business, and Life
“No living creature can evolve and survive in the real world by processing information in an objective, measured and proportionate manner.”
― Alchemy: The Dark Art and Curious Science of Creating Magic in Brands, Business, and Life
― Alchemy: The Dark Art and Curious Science of Creating Magic in Brands, Business, and Life
“People who are not skilled at mathematics tend to view the output of second-rate mathematicians with an high level of credulity, and attach almost mystical significance to their findings. Bad maths is the palmistry of the twenty-first century.”
― Alchemy: The Dark Art and Curious Science of Creating Magic in Brands, Business, and Life
― Alchemy: The Dark Art and Curious Science of Creating Magic in Brands, Business, and Life
“All too often, what matters is not whether an idea is true or effective, but whether it fits with the preconceptions of a dominant cabal.”
― Alchemy: The Surprising Power of Ideas That Don't Make Sense
― Alchemy: The Surprising Power of Ideas That Don't Make Sense
“There is an important lesson in evaluating human behaviour: never denigrate a behaviour as irrational until you have considered what purpose it really serves.”
― Alchemy: The Surprising Power of Ideas That Don't Make Sense
― Alchemy: The Surprising Power of Ideas That Don't Make Sense
“You will never uncover unconscious motivations unless you create an atmosphere in which people can ask apparently fatuous questions without fear of shame.”
― Alchemy: The Dark Art and Curious Science of Creating Magic in Brands, Business, and Life
― Alchemy: The Dark Art and Curious Science of Creating Magic in Brands, Business, and Life
“Here’s Ogilvy’s contemporary, Bill Bernbach: ‘Human nature hasn’t changed for a million years. It won’t even change in the next million years. Only the superficial things have changed. It is fashionable to talk about the changing man. A communicator must be concerned with the unchanging man – what compulsions drive him, what instincts dominate his every action, even though his language too often camouflages what really motivates him.”
― Alchemy: The Dark Art and Curious Science of Creating Magic in Brands, Business, and Life
― Alchemy: The Dark Art and Curious Science of Creating Magic in Brands, Business, and Life
“If you want to solve the problem, you have to understand ‘the real why’.”
― Alchemy: The Surprising Power of Ideas That Don't Make Sense
― Alchemy: The Surprising Power of Ideas That Don't Make Sense
“The trouble with market research is that people don’t think what they feel, they don’t say what they think, and they don’t do what they say.”
― Alchemy: The Surprising Power of Ideas That Don't Make Sense
― Alchemy: The Surprising Power of Ideas That Don't Make Sense
“Many pretend to despise and belittle that which is beyond their reach.”
― Alchemy: The Dark Art and Curious Science of Creating Magic in Brands, Business, and Life
― Alchemy: The Dark Art and Curious Science of Creating Magic in Brands, Business, and Life
“After all, no big business idea makes sense at first. I mean, just imagine proposing the following ideas to a group of sceptical investors: ‘What people want is a really cool vacuum cleaner.’ (Dyson) ‘. . . and the best part of all this is that people will write the entire thing for free!’ (Wikipedia) ‘. . . and so I confidently predict that the great enduring fashion of the next century will be a coarse, uncomfortable fabric which fades unpleasantly and which takes ages to dry. To date, it has been largely popular with indigent labourers.’ (Jeans) ‘. . . and people will be forced to choose between three or four items.’ (McDonald’s) ‘And, best of all, the drink has a taste which consumers say they hate.’ (Red Bull) ‘. . . and just watch as perfectly sane people pay $5 for a drink they can make at home for a few pence.’ (Starbucks)*”
― Alchemy: The Dark Art and Curious Science of Creating Magic in Brands, Business, and Life
― Alchemy: The Dark Art and Curious Science of Creating Magic in Brands, Business, and Life