Wake up and smell the cheese – there’s nothing wrong with motivational quotes | Rosie Fould

It's so easy to scoff at pseudo-profound sayings, but in my dark times I have found them comforting

If you're offended by swearing, apologies, because I'm about to use the word bullshit quite a lot. It's not my fault. It's because researchers who recently published a paper about the intelligence of people who believe in the wisdom of inspirational quotes were awfully fond of the word bullshit. It appears in the title, On the Reception and Detection of Pseudo-profound Bullshit; it's there five times in the abstract alone; and the first keyword is - well, you can probably guess.

The researchers were extremely keen to know whether certain people were more likely to believe in pseudo-profound statements, and whether that had anything to do with intelligence. You know the kind of thing: phrases such as "You can't start on the next chapter of your life if you keep rereading the last one" or "If opportunity doesn't knock, build a door."