Quotes from Mastermind: How to Think Like Sherlock Holmes

Maria Konnikova ·  273 pages

Rating: (5.2K votes)


“the most powerful mind is the quiet mind. It is the mind that is present, reflective, mindful of its thoughts and its state. It doesn’t often multitask, and when it does, it does so with a purpose.”
― Maria Konnikova, quote from Mastermind: How to Think Like Sherlock Holmes


“We are terrible at seeking evidence that challenges our own beliefs, but other people do us this favor, just as we are good at finding errors in other people’s beliefs.”
― Maria Konnikova, quote from Mastermind: How to Think Like Sherlock Holmes


“A change in perspective, in physical location, quite simply forces mindfulness. It forces us to reconsider the world, to look at things from a different angle. And sometimes that change in perspective can be the spark that makes a difficult decision manageable, or that engenders creativity where none existed before.”
― Maria Konnikova, quote from Mastermind: How to Think Like Sherlock Holmes


“for every standard deviation increase in cloud cover on the day of the college visit, a student is 9 percent more likely to actually enroll in that college.”
― Maria Konnikova, quote from Mastermind: How to Think Like Sherlock Holmes


“Our education might stop, if we so choose. Our brains’ never does. The brain will keep reacting to how we decide to use it. The difference is not whether or not we learn, but what and how we learn.”
― Maria Konnikova, quote from Mastermind: How to Think Like Sherlock Holmes



“Imagination is all about new possibilities, eventualities that don’t exist, counterfactuals, a recombination of elements in new ways. It is about the untested. And the untested is uncertain. It is frightening—even”
― Maria Konnikova, quote from Mastermind: How to Think Like Sherlock Holmes


“A helpful exercise is to describe the situation from the beginning, either out loud or in writing, as if to a stranger who isn’t aware of any of the specifics—much like Holmes talks his theories through out loud to Watson. When Holmes states his observations in this way, gaps and inconsistencies that weren’t apparent before come to the surface.”
― Maria Konnikova, quote from Mastermind: How to Think Like Sherlock Holmes


“every time you find yourself making a judgment immediately upon observing—in fact, even if you don’t think you are, and even if everything seems to make perfect sense—train yourself to stop and repeat: It is impossible as I state it, and therefore I must in some respect have stated it wrong. Then go back and restate it from the beginning and in a different fashion than you did the first time around. Out loud instead of silently. In writing instead of in your head. It will save you from many errors in perception.”
― Maria Konnikova, quote from Mastermind: How to Think Like Sherlock Holmes


“a failure to use all senses equals a scene not seen to its full potential, attention that has not been allocated properly, and subconscious cues that color the attention that is allocated in a way that may not be optimal.”
― Maria Konnikova, quote from Mastermind: How to Think Like Sherlock Holmes


“How did the System Holmes machine become . . . a System Watson? Simple. Holmes says it himself: he had lost interest in the case. In his mind, it was already solved, down to the last detail—the visit, of which he thought so much that he decided it would be fine to disengage from everything else. And that’s a mistake he doesn’t normally make.”
― Maria Konnikova, quote from Mastermind: How to Think Like Sherlock Holmes



“It’s fun to home in on that incongruity”
― Maria Konnikova, quote from Mastermind: How to Think Like Sherlock Holmes


“Why do we so often fail at this final stage of perception? The answer lies in that very element we were discussing: engagement.”
― Maria Konnikova, quote from Mastermind: How to Think Like Sherlock Holmes


“the better they recalled the topics of conversation, the more extremely off their predictions were. In other words, the busier their brains were, the less they adjusted after forming an initial impression.”
― Maria Konnikova, quote from Mastermind: How to Think Like Sherlock Holmes


“We want to learn to pay attention better, to become superior observers, but we can’t hope to achieve this if we thoughtlessly pay attention to everything. That’s self-defeating. What we need to do is allocate our attention mindfully”
― Maria Konnikova, quote from Mastermind: How to Think Like Sherlock Holmes


“Whatever the situation, answering the question of what, specifically, you want to accomplish will put you well on your way to knowing how to maximize your limited attentional resources. It will help direct your mind, prime it, so to speak, with the goals and thoughts that are actually important—and help put those that aren’t into the background.”
― Maria Konnikova, quote from Mastermind: How to Think Like Sherlock Holmes



“Absent Holmes, the Watson storytelling approach is the natural, instinctive one. And absent Holmes’s insistence, it is incredibly difficult to resist our desire to form narratives, to tell stories even if they may not be altogether correct, or correct at all. We like simplicity. We like concrete reasons. We like causes. We like things that make intuitive sense (even if that sense happens to be wrong).”
― Maria Konnikova, quote from Mastermind: How to Think Like Sherlock Holmes


“That, in a nutshell, is the scientific method: understand and frame the problem; observe; hypothesize (or imagine); test and deduce; and repeat. To follow Sherlock Holmes is to learn to apply that same approach not just to external clues, but to your every thought—and then turn it around and apply it to the every thought of every other person who may be involved, step by painstaking step.”
― Maria Konnikova, quote from Mastermind: How to Think Like Sherlock Holmes


“Holmes’s trick is to treat every thought, every experience, and every perception the way he would a pink elephant. In other words, begin with a healthy dose of skepticism instead of the credulity that is your mind’s natural state of being.”
― Maria Konnikova, quote from Mastermind: How to Think Like Sherlock Holmes


“motivation predicts higher academic performance, fewer criminal convictions, and better employment outcomes. Children who have a so-called “rage to master”—a term coined by Ellen Winner to describe the intrinsic motivation to master a specific domain—are more likely to be successful in any number of endeavors, from art to science.”
― Maria Konnikova, quote from Mastermind: How to Think Like Sherlock Holmes


About the author

Maria Konnikova
Born date April 21, 2018
See more on GoodReads

Popular quotes

“The flower replied: You fool! Do you imagine I blossom in order to be seen? I blossom for my own sake because it pleases me, and not for the sake of others. My joy consists in my being and my blossoming.”
― Irvin D. Yalom, quote from The Schopenhauer Cure


“Their skin hung loose over their bodies like suits they had inherited from larger ancestors, with the trousers ridiculously baggy.”
― Roald Dahl, quote from Going Solo


“You can't get on Facebook and complain about the NSA's data mining operation - On Facebook - the most invasive, privacy harmful institution on the planet. It's like whining about a paper cut while swimming in a shark tank.”
― T. Rafael Cimino, quote from Mid Ocean


“Mindy.” he softly said my name. “Tell me…my beautiful red rose,” he continued, “why must you let this thorny bush grip onto you, keeping your light in its dull and ugly world?”
― E.M. Jade, quote from Captivated


“Baby, you stare at my dick any longer, Miss Mildred’s gonna have to send out a search party.”
… “I was staring at your hip muscles,” I corrected.
“Whatever,” he muttered, his lips now smiling too, then louder, “just sayin’, anything in that vicinity, your eyes on it, it’ll get thoughts on its own.”
“So noted,” I mumbled.”
― Kristen Ashley, quote from Raid


Interesting books

King Hall
(7.9K)
King Hall
by Scarlett Dawn
KJV Study Bible
(535)
Barracuda
(6.3K)
Barracuda
by Christos Tsiolkas
The Nest
(117K)
The Nest
by Cynthia D'Aprix Sweeney
Jake Ransom and the Howling Sphinx
(1.2K)
Jake Ransom and the...
by James Rollins
The Bone Labyrinth
(9.2K)
The Bone Labyrinth
by James Rollins

About BookQuoters

BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.

We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.

Founded in 2023, BookQuoters has quickly become a large and vibrant community of people who share an affinity for books. Books are seen by some as a throwback to a previous world; conversely, gleaning the main ideas of a book via a quote or a quick summary is typical of the Information Age but is a habit disdained by some diehard readers. We feel that we have the best of both worlds at BookQuoters; we read books cover-to-cover but offer you some of the highlights. We hope you’ll join us.