Attribution Error Quotes

I've always lived by this philosophy, when it comes to conspiracies, never to attribute to deviousness that which can be explained by incompetence.

Happy is he who can trace effects to their causes.

It's human nature to find patterns where there are none and to find skill where luck is a more likely explanation (particularly if you're the lucky manager).

It is only our bad temper that we put down to being tired or worried or hungry; we put our good temper down to ourselves.

I rarely find that things put in quotes, attributed to me, are things that I said -certainly in the context in which they are presented.

You find actually over the years that you get attributed with a lot of things you didn't do and you don't get reported on a lot of things you did do and I must say, when I read some of these things I wonder where the journalists get them from. They generally speak to somebody who's spoken to somebody who was down the back of a pub who heard the barman say, and gradually finds its way into magazines or articles but no, that's not the case.

Don't confuse luck with skill when judging others, and especially when judging yourself.

When our side wins it’s always because of national trends. When the other side wins, it’s always because of local conditions.

Socialists try to convince us that the tea becomes sweet not because of sugar, but because of mixing.

If a club is winning, you never pay attention to a guy who's 0-for-10. If a club is losing, all of a sudden you'll find that he's the main reason why you're losing, which is absurd for me.

If a person is A) poorly, B) receives treatment intended to make him better, and C) gets better, then no power of reasoning known to medical science can convince him that it may not have been the treatment that restored his health.

We perceive through our senses a person, a situation or an event, and in an instant, we project our mental models - our fears, background and experiences - onto that perception. This often results in cognitive errors, which means we judge and respond incorrectly.

It is certain that success naturally confirms in us a favourable opinion of our own abilities. Scarce any man is willing to allot to accident, friendship, and a thousand causes, which concur in every event without human contrivance or interposition, the part which they may justly claim in his advancement. We rate ourselves by our fortune rather than our virtues, and exorbitant claims are quickly produced by imaginary merit.

We are not more ingenious in searching out bad motives for good actions when performed by others, than good motives for bad actions when performed by ourselves.

There is an universal tendency among mankind to conceive all beings like themselves, and to transfer to every object, those qualities, with which they are familiarly acquainted, and of which they are intimately conscious. We find human faces in the moon, armies in the clouds; and by a natural propensity, if not corrected by experience and reflection, ascribe malice or good-will to every thing, that hurts or pleases us.

But most it is presumption in us when the help of heaven we count the act of men.

I am only too aware that I am open to Rees's Second Law of Quotation: "However sure you are that you have attributed a quotation correctly, an earlier source will be pointed out to you."

Note to all men: If you're going to make mention of something that a woman did, like wear cowboy boots, make sure you've got the right woman!

Generally there is Stigler's law of eponymy that says that a scientific notion is never attributed to the right person; in particular, the law is not due to Stigler.