Marilyn vos Savant Quotations

To acquire knowledge, one must study; but to acquire wisdom, one must observe.

Know where to find the sunrise and sunset times and note how the sky looks at those times, at least once.

A good idea will keep you awake during the morning, but a great idea will keep you awake during the night.

Be able to draw an illustration as least well enough to get your point across to another person.

Be able to sneeze without sounding ridiculous. That means neither stifling yourself or spraying your immediate vicinity.

Email, instant messaging, and cell phones give us fabulous communication ability, but because we live and work in our own little worlds, that communication is totally disorganized.

Teens think listening to music helps them concentrate. It doesn't. It relieves them of the boredom that concentration on homework induces.

At first, I only laughed at myself. Then I noticed that life itself is amusing. I've been in a generally good mood ever since.

When our spelling is perfect, it's invisible. But when it's flawed, it prompts strong negative associations.

Be able to defend your arguments in a rational way. Otherwise, all you have is an opinion.

Being defeated is often a temporary condition. Giving up is what makes it permanent.

Be able to analyze statistics, which can be used to support or undercut almost any argument.

Be in the habit of experimenting with your clothing so that you don't get stuck for life with a self-image developed over the course of high school.

Be able to go shopping for a bathing suit and not become depressed afterward.

Know how to effectively voice a complaint or make a claim at a retail store.

Skill is successfully walking a tightrope between the twin towers of New York's World Trade Center. Intelligence is not trying.

Success is achieved by developing our strengths, not by eliminating our weaknesses.

Avoid using cigarettes, alcohol, and drugs as alternatives to being an interesting person.

Be able to correctly pronounce the words you would like to speak and have excellent spoken grammar.

Have enough sense to know, ahead of time, when your skills will not extend to wallpapering.

If your head tells you one thing, and your heart tells you another, before you do anything, you should first decide whether you have a better head or a better heart.

Understand why casinos and racetracks stay in business - the gambler always loses over the long term.

A person who learns to juggle six balls will be more skilled than the person who never tries to juggle more than three.

Be able to suffer wearing a necktie or slightly high heels for an entire evening without complaint or early removal.

Have you ever noticed that when you must struggle to hear something, you close your eyes?

Be able to recognize the dangerous snakes, spiders, insects, and plants that live in your area of the country.

Be in the habit of getting up bright and early on the weekends. Why waste such precious time in bed?

The difference between talking on your cell phone while driving and speaking with a passenger is huge. The person on the other end of the cell phone is chattering away, oblivious.

Be able to tell whether garments that look good on the hanger actually look good on you

What is the essence of America? Finding and maintaining that perfect, delicate balance between freedom 'to' and freedom 'from.'

Be able to notice all the confusion between fact and opinion that appears in the news

I suspect that some apparently homosexual people are really heterosexuals who deeply phobic about the opposite sex or have other emotional problems.

Learn at least two classic ballroom dances, at least one of them Latin.

Be able to recognize when you're reading or hearing material biased to your own side.

Be able to read blueprints, diagrams, floorplans, and other diagrams used in the construction process.

Know what happens when an individual declares bankruptcy and how it affects his or her life.

I think change is possible, but only for individuals who were never truly gay in the first place and who have a strong personal motivation to recover their heterosexuality.

Although spoken English doesn't obey the rules of written language, a person who doesn't know the rules thoroughly is at a great disadvantage.

The length of your education is less important than its breadth, and the length of your life is less important than its depth.

Capital punishment is the source of many an argument, both good and bad.

Be able to confide your innermost secrets to your mother and your innermost fears to your father.

Know how to garnish food so that it is more appealing to the eye and even more flavorful than before.

Play more than one game at a time. This is a painless way to learn how to do many things at once.

Attention-deficit disorders seem to abound in modern society, and we don't know the cause.

Be able to meet any deadline, even if your work is done less well than it would be if you had all the time you would have preferred.

Be able to keep a secret or promise when you know in your heart that it is the right thing to do.

Know how to treat frostbite until you can get indoors.

Evolution has long been the target of illogical arguments that use presumption.

People who work crossword puzzles know that if they stop making progress, they should put the puzzle down for a while.

Be able to cite three good qualities of every relative or acquaintance that you dislike.

Know the difference between principles based on right or wrong vs. principles based on personal gain, and consider the basis of your own principles.

Experts say you can't concentrate on more than one task at a time.

Know how to drive safely when it's raining or when it's snowing. The two conditions are different.

Be able to recognize many of the major constellations and know the stories behind them

Know the names of past and current artists who are most famous for playing their instruments.

Know what to do if you feel faint or dizzy, especially if you might fall and hit your head.

Know the function of a fuse box and the appearance of a tripped circuit breaker.

Know how and how much to tip people who expect gratuities, even in the case of poor service.

Be able to back up a car for a considerable distance in a straight line and back out of a driveway.

Be able to blow out a dinner candle without sending wax flying across the table.

Know how weather, especially humidity, can affect the movement of doors and windows.

Working in an office with an array of electronic devices is like trying to get something done at home with half a dozen small children around. The calls for attention are constant.

No one would choose to be jerked randomly off task again and again until you have half a dozen things you're trying to get done, all at the same time.

Be able to live alone, even if you don't want to and think you will never find it necessary.

Know why certain foods, such as truffles, are expensive. It's not because they taste best.

I would not encourage children or teens to multitask because we don't know where those efforts may lead.

Society needs people who can manage projects in addition to handling individual tasks.

The freedom to be an individual is the essence of America.

Be able to hiccup silently, or at least without alerting neighbors to your situation. The first hiccup is an exception.

Know the official post office abbreviations for all 50 states without having to consult a list.

Know how to behave at a fine restaurant, which is a telltale measure of social maturity.

Know about the appeals process, especially in the case of the most serious crimes.

Know which officials are voted into office and which are appointed, and by whom.

I believe that one can indeed work on two or more tasks at once, but in ways yet to be understood.

The chess player who develops the ability to play two dozen boards at a time will benefit from learning to compress his or her analysis into less time.

Be able to identify the most common breeds of dogs and cats on sight.

Know how to travel from your town to a nearby town without a car, either by bus or by rail.

Be able to decline a date so gracefully that the person isn't embarrassed that he or she asked.

Spending waiting moments doing crossword puzzles or reading a book you brought yourself.

Be able to describe anything visual, such as a street scene, in words that convey your meaning.

Know how to behave at a buffet. Take a clean plate for a second helping.

Know how your representatives stand on major national or state issues.

Make a habit of canceling every subscription to anything you don't have time to read

Scientists and creationists are always at odds, of course.

While you're writing, you can't concentrate nearly as well on what the speaker is saying.

Many people feel they must multi-task because everybody else is multitasking, but this is partly because they are all interrupting each other so much.

Stop asking for directions so much. Assuming that you're in a safe environment, pay attention and figure things out for yourself. Have the nerve to take a wrong turn now and then. You'll develop better working instincts and have more self-esteem too.

There's plenty of intelligence in the world, but the courage to do things differently is in short supply.

Suppose you're on a game show, and you're given the choice of three doors. Behind one door is a car, the others, goats. You pick a door, say #1, and the host, who knows what's behind the doors, opens another door, say #3, which has a goat. He says to you: 'Do you want to pick door #2?' Is it to your advantage to switch your choice of doors?

I think one of the problems [with raising intelligent children] is compulsory schooling...and that children are sitting there and they are taught and told what to believe. They are passive from the very beginning, and one must be very, very aggressive intellectually to have a high IQ [...] the child is taught. Right from the beginning, it's a passive process. He or she sits there, and they simply try to believe everything they're told.

I love having ten times as much stuff to do as I can possibly find time to do. That way, I can pick the one-tenth that I want to do most. But if I only have enough to just occupy all my time, I'm stuck doing all of whatever stuff it happens to be.

Feeling is what you get for thinking the way you do.

Ultimately, our future is like a mirror. Whenever we face it, it always reflects what we left behind.

An act of justice closes the book on a misdeed; an act of vengeance writes one of its own

It is a lot easier to prove that you don't love someone than it is to prove that you do, but one of the best 'proofs' I know is the desire to devote time to the person with no expectation of any sort of compensation, including gratitude, in return.

...there are days when I feel I can do anything and days when I feel I can do nothing. But fortunately for those around me, neither sort occurs very often.

Revenge feels right only to those directly involved. Justice feels right even to outsiders.

Common sense comes from experience, and kids need to fail as well as succeed in order to learn it. It's difficult to develop common sense when you spend a lot of time in your room where nothing much happens.

I believe a 'talented' person is one who has learned how to effectively cultivate and polish any of the many desirable capabilities with which most of us are born but few of us nurture.

I believe that one becomes stronger emotionally by taking life less personally. If your employer criticizes your report, don't take it personally. Instead, find out what's needed and fix it. If your girlfriend laughs at your tie, don't take it personally. Find another tie or find another girlfriend.