Marilyn vos Savant quotes:

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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 notice all the confusion between fact and opinion that appears in the news.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Multi-tasking arises out of distraction itself.

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

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

Almost all of the finer things in life are free or nearly free. You don't have to pay for the sky at night or snow in the morning or a kiss on the nose when you're sick. Forgetting that may put you at the mercy of those who seek to profit by convincing you to want whatever it is they have to sell.

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

[When asked if the voice is an instrument:] Yes, of course. Some are violins, some are fountain pens and some are stethoscopes. And others are just washboards.

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

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

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

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

I believe that love--not imitation--is the sincerest form of flattery. Your imitator thinks that you can be duplicated; your lover knows you can't.

Geometry is beautifully logical, and it teaches you how to think and prove that things are so, step by step by step. Proofs are excellent lessons in reasoning. Without logic and reasoning, you are dependent on jumping to conclusions or - worse - having empty opinions.

[Adulthood:] It's when you stop doing the stuff you have to make excuses for and when you stop making excuses for the stuff you have to do.

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.

If you never heard opportunity knock, maybe you're never at home.

. . . what women want is what men want. They want respect.

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

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

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

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

The squeaky wheel may get the most oil, but it's also the first to be replaced.

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

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

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

My thoughts are like waffles - the first few don't look so good.

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

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.

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

Know how to treat frostbite until you can get indoors.

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

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

Scientists and creationists are always at odds, of course.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

...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.

A 45-year old looks a lot like a 25-year old who's been out all night. And feels just as good about having survived the experience.

A fool is someone whose pencil wears out before its eraser does.

A friend is someone who stays by your side all through the troubles he's caused you.

A good leader needs to stand behind his or her followers as often as he or she needs to stand in front of them.

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

An error becomes a mistake when we refuse to admit it.

An ounce of sequins can be worth a pound of home cooking.

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

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

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

Be able to set a table so that you feel like you're dining, not just sitting and eating.

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.

Everybody loves an accent. It you've been unlucky in love, consider pulling up stakes and moving to another country. Then you'll be the one with a neat foreign accent.

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

How can we live in freedom and maintain that we are entitled to *anything* that we can't get without the labor of others? Remember, if we are entitled to the labor of others, that makes slaves of those others.

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 Picasso's success is just one small part of the broader modern phenomenon of artists themselves rejecting serious art- perhaps partly because serious art takes so much time and energy and talent to produce-in favor of what I call `impulse art': art work that is quick and easy, at least by comparison.

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.

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

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.

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

If achieving your potential requires favorable judgment by others, you are much less likely to succeed.

If you're wondering if you're dreaming, you're dreaming.

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.

I've never found an interesting person with a foul mouth.

Just because you're unemployed doesn't mean you're not doing anything useful. You are, for example, at least keeping your mother-in-law's wit sharp.

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

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