Quotes & Sayings About Overconfidence

Overconfidence is a strong ally. People are always surprised when you try to do things you can't. — Edward W. Robertson

Doubt is not the enemy of justice; overconfidence is. — Carol Tavris

If overconfidence can cause the Roman Empire to fall, I ought to be able to get a ground ball. — Dan Quisenberry

Self esteem is not the same as being self centered, self absorbed or selfish. Self esteem is also not complacency or overconfidence, both of which and set us up for failure. Self esteem is a strong motivator to work hard. Self esteem is related to mental health and happiness. — Glenn R. Schiraldi

The most damaging cognitive bias is overconfidence (illusory superiority), making leaders use their "gut" when they should be more rational. — Paul Gibbons

Let the word go forth from this time and place, to friend and foe alike, that the torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans, born in this century, tempered by war, disciplined by a hard and bitter peace, proud of our ancient heritage, and unwilling to witness or permit the slow undoing of those human rights to which this nation has always been committed, and to which we are committed today at home and around the world. Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty. — John F. Kennedy

You know, I can't stop thinking about you.
Oh really? Why you so obsessed about me?
Because..you're so full of shit yet still alive. — Toba Beta

It's alright to have a good opinion of yourself, but we Americans are so smug with our cockiness, we somehow feel that just because we are Americans, we can whip our weight in wildcats. — Ernie Pyle

What you need to remember, with these guys, is that they don't know they're con men. They're wildly overconfident. Omnipotence, omniscience
that's part of the mythology that surrounds the Special Forces ... Your guy can walk in the door and promise training in something he personally doesn't know how to do, and not even realize he's bullshitting about his own capabilities. It's a special kind of gullibility ... — William Gibson

Better not perceive yourselves too high, O humans.
We only value mankind as our experimentation object. — Toba Beta

Columbia Business School even has a term for it now. They call it "honest overconfidence" and they have found that men on average rate their performance to be 30 percent better than it is. — Katty Kay

The man who wishes to keep at the problem long enough to really learn anything positively must not take dangerous risks. Carelessness and overconfidence are usually more dangerous than deliberately accepted risks. — David McCullough

A puzzling limitation of our mind: our excessive confidence in what we believe we know, and our apparent inability to acknowledge the full extent of our ignorance and the uncertainty of the world we live in. We are prone to overestimate how much we understand about the world and to underestimate the role of chance in events. Overconfidence is fed by the illusory certainty of hindsight. — Daniel Kahneman

The hedge fund known as "Long Term Capital Management" collapsed last fall through overconfidence in its highly leveraged methods, despite I.Q.'s of its principals that must have averaged 160. Smart people aren't exempt from professional disasters from overconfidence. Often, they just run aground in the more difficult voyages they choose, relying on their self-appraisals that they have superior talents and methods. — Charlie Munger

Overconfidence is a lowly bitch that easily fucked. — Toba Beta

If there is such a thing as a secret to the nature of trading, this is it: At the very core of one's ability 1) to trade without fear or overconfidence, 2) perceive what the market is offering from its perspective, 3) stay completely focused in the "now moment opportunity flow," and 4) spontaneously enter the "zone," it is a strong virtually unshakeable belief in an uncertain outcome with an edge in your favor. — Mark Douglas

Incompetence annoys me. Overconfidence terrifies me. — Malcolm Gladwell

The events of the Titanic disaster can be seen as a symbol of what happens through overconfidence in technology, complacence, and a mindset of profits over people's safety. — Deborah Hopkinson

Auguste preferred women. He told me I would grow into it. I told him that he could get heirs and I would read books. I was ... nine? Ten? I thought I was already grown up. The hazards of overconfidence. — C.S. Pacat

Don't be too obvious about it. — Auliq Ice

Because if taken in excess, it causes giddiness, recklessness, and dangerous overconfidence,' said Slughorn. 'Too much of a good thing, you know . . . highly toxic in large quantities. But taken sparingly, and very occasionally . . . — J.K. Rowling

I don't think there is a thing like overconfidence in chess. It's always better to be too confident than too reluctant. — Magnus Carlsen

Courage is willingness to take the risk once you know the odds. Optimistic overconfidence means you are taking the risk because you don't know the odds. It's a big difference. — Daniel Kahneman

Sometimes it's difficult to accept, to recognise one's own mistakes, but one must do it. I was guilty of overconfidence and arrogance, and I was punished for that. — Mikhail Gorbachev

Less reasoning when be too sure. — Toba Beta

The real struggle is in your own mind. You must know you are going to win before you start the fight. You have to see it, smell it, and believe it utterly. It is a form of confidence, but you must guard against overconfidence. You have to be flexible - able to adapt in an instant and never allow yourself to give up. Without this, nothing else is possible. — Michael J. Sullivan

OVERCONFIDENCE. We often stroll through life, thinking everything will be fine, until suddenly it isn't. — Timothy J. Keller

Overconfidence: As the WYSIATI rule implies, neither the quantity nor the quality of the evidence counts for much in subjective confidence. — Daniel Kahneman

As part of an effort to prod college seniors to get tetanus shots, a group of students was given a lecture meant to educate them about the dangers of tetanus and the importance of getting inoculated against it. A large majority of those students reported that they were convinced and planned to get their shots, but in the end only 3 percent got them. Bu another group of students, who were presented with the same lecture, had a 28 percent inoculation rate. The difference? The second group was given a map of the campus and asked to plan their route to the health center and pick a date and time to go. Sometimes, you see, motivation isn't our problem. Rather, we need to identify life's everyday mental obstacles - regret, fatigue, overconfidence, fear, to name just four - and put ourselves into position to hurdle them. — Gary Belsky

I have a cunning plan. — Richard Curtis

As we neared the watering hole, I saw lions sprawled at the base of the acacia tree, relaxing in the shade. Many, many lions. If a group of lions is normally called a pride, then this was, at the very least, an overconfidence. Possibly an arrogance. — Dixie Lyle

Overconfidence precedes carelessness. — Toba Beta

The illusion that we understand the past fosters overconfidence in our ability to predict the future. — Daniel Kahneman

Since he was much weaker than his enemy, he could afford to display no weakness at all. — Michael Dobbs

Not cocky overconfidence that comes from collecting biased information and ignoring uncertainties, but the real confidence that comes from knowing you've made the best decision that you could. — Chip Heath

It wasn't that he seemed at all violent - rather, he had a peculiar unhinged intensity that told her that to challenge him would mean hearing him defend his hypothesis for the next forty minutes. — Joe Pitkin

Like all vain men, he had moments of unreasonable confidence. — Warren Eyster

Never believe you are the best, but believe you are one of the best. — Auliq Ice

One of these days my overconfidence is going to get me killed . . . but not today. — Bryan Schardein

Except for some effects that I attribute mostly to age, my intuitive thinking is just as prone to overconfidence, extreme predictions, and the planning fallacy as it was before I made a study of these issues. — Daniel Kahneman

Successful gamblers - and successful forecasters of any kind - do not think of the future in terms of no-lose bets, unimpeachable theories, and infinitely precise measurements. These are the illusions of the sucker, the sirens of his overconfidence. — Nate Silver

Doubt is often better than overconfidence, for it leads to inquiry, and inquiry leads to invention. — Hudson Maxim

Don't you know about the praying mantis that waved its arms angrily in front of an approaching carriage, unaware that they were incapable of stopping it? Such was the high opinion it had of its talents. — Zhuangzi

Why do they wait until sixth grade when you already know everything? — Judy Blume

In Dune and Dune Messiah, he [Frank Herbert] was cautioning against pride and overconfidence, that form of narcissism described in Greek tragedies that invariably led to the great fall. — Brian Herbert

To a winner, complacency and overconfidence can be destructive. To losers, desperation and despondency are just as harmful. — Bill Walsh

Errors of human judgment can infect even the smartest people, thanks to overconfidence, lack of attention to details, and excessive trust in the judgments of others, stemming from a failure to understand that others are not making independent judgments, but are themselves following still others - the blind leading the blind. - ROBERT J. SHILLER, PROFESSOR OF ECONOMICS, YALE UNIVERSITY — Pamela Yellen

Because economists go through a similar training and share a common method of analysis, they act very much like a guild. The models themselves may be the product of analysis, reflection, and observation, but practitioners' views about the real world develop much more heuristically, as a by-product of informal conversations and socialization among themselves. This kind of echo chamber easily produces overconfidence - in the received wisdom or the model of the day. Meanwhile, the guild mentality renders the profession insular and immune to outside criticism. The models may have problems, but only card-carrying members of the profession are allowed to say so. The objections of outsiders are discounted because they do not understand the models. The profession values smarts over judgment, being interesting over being right - so its fads and fashions do not always self-correct. — Dani Rodrik

I'm very confident in what I do, but I'd like to think I don't ever show any kind of cockiness or overconfidence. — David Wright

Companies selling a product play down its vulnerability and emphasize its robustness. But only after technology leaves the dock is it really tested. For human operators in control of a supposedly infallible system, complacency and overconfidence can take over, and caution may be thrown to the wind. — Henry Petroski

Both religiousness and lawlessness share the same problems: overconfidence and unrighteousness. "Why do bad things happen to good people?" we might ask - the very question that betrays our misplaced assumption that we somehow deserve a good life. — Tim Chaddick

Every woman knows what I'm talking about. It's the presumption that makes it hard, at times, for any woman in any field; that keeps women from speaking up and from being heard when they dare; that crushes young women into silence by indicating, the way harassment on the street does, that this is not their world. It trains us in self-doubt and self-limitation just as it exercises men's unsupported overconfidence. — Rebecca Solnit

Modern society is large and complex, with institutions wielding great power over the lives of many. This is why Johnson and Fowler added a dire parting shot in their predictions. Since you are programmed to become increasingly overconfident the less you understand about any given scenario, you can expect to find the most destructive overconfidence in places that are exceedingly complicated and unpredictable. — David McRaney

A very disturbing feature of overconfidence is that it often appears to be poorly associated with knowledge - that is, the more ignorant the individual, the more confident he or she maybe. — Robert Trivers

People exaggerate their confidence in their plans - something we call the planning fallacy ... The existence of the plan tends to induce overconfidence. — Daniel Kahneman

Don't belittle anyone who you don't recognize.
Don't be fooled by anybody who underrates you. — Toba Beta

Overconfidence blurs out the risk. Inferiority magnifies it. — Toba Beta

Overconfidence in one's own ability is the root of much evil. Vanity, egoism, is the deadliest of all characteristics. This vanity, combined with extreme ignorance of conditions the knowledge of which is the very A B C of business and of life, produces more shipwrecks and heartaches than any other part of our mental make-up. — Alice Foote MacDougall

Incompetence is certainty in the absence of expertise. Overconfidence is certainty in the presence of expertise. — Malcolm Gladwell

Overconfidence comes from fear and doubt, and you boast an ego when you're feeling less than. — Nikki Sixx

There's a lot of overconfidence about this bill. We're going to expose it. It will not pass. — Jeff Sessions

Before you attempt to beat the odds, be sure you could survive the odds beating you. — Larry Kersten

No civilization, no matter how mighty it may appear to itself, is indestructible. — Niall Ferguson

Oversimplifying is the first grave mistake we make when confronted by complexity; overconfidence is the second. And there is a third: based on our overconfidence in our oversimplified conclusions, we overreact. — Ted Cadsby

The key to overcoming the ill effects of a love of comfort is a commitment to continual growth and skill development. One of the saddest things I see in my work is when an individual achieves a certain level of success in their career and, out of comfort or overconfidence, stops focusing on developing their skills. — Anonymous

A certain death of an artist is overconfidence. — Robin Trower

Someone has said that no theology is worth believing that cannot be preached standing in front of the gates of Auschwitz. I, for one, could not stand at those gates and preach a version of God's sovereignty that makes the extermination of six million Jews, including many children, a part of the will and plan of God such that God foreordained and rendered it certain.18 I want young Calvinists (and others) to know and at least come to terms with the inevitable and unavoidable consequences of what this radical form of Reformed theology teaches. And I want to give their friends and relatives and Spiritual mentors ammunition to use in undermining their sometimes overconfidence in the solidity of their belief system. — Roger E. Olson

CEOs of large firms often fail to read the handwriting on the wall, because of complacence, inertia, or overconfidence. — Navi Radjou