If we start to think about trust as a public good (like clean air and water), we see that we can all benefit from higher levels of trust in terms of communicating with others, making financial transitions smoother, simplifying contracts, and many other business and social activities. Without constant suspicion, we can get more out of our exchanges with others while spending less time making sure that others will fulfill their promises to us. Yet as the tragedy of commons exemplifies, in the short term it is beneficial for each individual to violate and take advantage of the established trust. I suspect that most people and companies miss or ignore the fact that trust is an important public resource and that losing it can have long-term negative consequences for everyone involved. It doesn't take much to violate trust. Just a few bad players in the market can spoil it for everyone else. Dan Ariely
Some Similar Quotes
  1. Love all, trust a few, do wrong to none. - William Shakespeare

  2. I don't trust people who don't love themselves and tell me, 'I love you.' ... There is an African saying which is: Be careful when a naked person offers you a shirt. - Maya Angelou

  3. Have enough courage to trust love one more time and always one more time. - Maya Angelou

  4. The beginning of love is the will to let those we love be perfectly themselves, the resolution not to twist them to fit our own image. If in loving them we do not love what they are, but only their potential likeness to ourselves, then... - Thomas Merton

  5. Trust no friend without faults, and love a woman, but no angel. - Doris Lessing

More Quotes By Dan Ariely
  1. Ownership is not limited to material things. It can also apply to points of view. Once we take ownership of an idea – whether it’s about politics or sports – what do we do? We love it perhaps more than we should. We prize it...

  2. To summarize, using money to motivate people can be a double-edged sword. For tasks that require cognitive ability, low to moderate performance-based incentives can help. But when the incentive level is very high, it can command too much attention and thereby distract the person’s mind...

  3. Another company came up with an even more brilliant idea --- that nobody could own their own cubicle -- designing the system such that those who showed up to work earliest in the morning could claim the ones closest to the windows. None of the...

  4. Understand that relativity is everywhere, and that we view everything through its lens - rose-colored or otherwise. When you meet someone in a different country or city and it seems that you have magical connection, realize that the enchantment might be limited to the surrounding...

  5. In running back and forth among the things that might be important, we forget to spend enough time on what really is important.

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