Daniel Kahneman  

"Daniel Kahneman's fascination with the complexity of the mind had come from a moment of terror when he was a child, living in Nazi-occupied France during the Second World War. One day, he had been stopped by an SS officer. Kahneman was a Jew, and the SS was in charge of sending people to the death camps. He was convinced that he was about to be sent away to be killed. But the SS man picked him up, kissed him and showed him pictures of his own son in Germany. Kahneman decided that the human mind was very strange and full of contradictory impulses."--Can't Get You Out of My Head (2021) by Adam Curtis

"Entrepreneurs don’t take risks because they love risk. They do it because they don’t know the odds. They don’t fully appreciate the risks they are taking. Optimism is the engine of capitalism. When you look at big successes, it’s because someone tried something they shouldn’t have."

"Everyone should wish their children be optimists. They are happier, persevere more. Though, I don’t want a financial advisor who is an optimist."

--Daniel Kahneman interviewed by Michael J. Mauboussin

"It must have been late 1941 or early 1942. Jews were required to wear the Star of David and to obey a 6 p.m. curfew. I had gone to play with a Christian friend and had stayed too late. I turned my brown sweater inside out to walk the few blocks home. As I was walking down an empty street, I saw a German soldier approaching. He was wearing the black uniform that I had been told to fear more than others – the one worn by specially recruited SS soldiers. As I came closer to him, trying to walk fast, I noticed that he was looking at me intently. Then he beckoned me over, picked me up, and hugged me. I was terrified that he would notice the star inside my sweater. He was speaking to me with great emotion, in German. When he put me down, he opened his wallet, showed me a picture of a boy, and gave me some money. I went home more certain than ever that my mother was right: people were endlessly complicated and interesting". (Kahneman, 2003, p. 417), NobelPrize Bio 2002