Quotes / Sunk Cost Fallacy

"No matter how far you've gone down the wrong road, turn back."

— Turkish proverb

"One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we've been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We're no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It's simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that we've been taken. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back."

— Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark

Redcloak: Throw away lives? How dare you?! Every goblin that has died since I've been high priest has been to further the Plan! Their deaths were a necessary sacrifice! They were NOT my fault!
Right-Eye: Wait... that's it, isn't it? It's all about whose fault it is... If I kill Xykon now, then it was all a waste. You ordered goblins to their deaths believing in the Plan—so if we abandon it now, then you were wrong. You let them die for nothing. You're willing to throw good lives after bad so that you don't have to admit that we were wrong to work with Xykon in the first place, much less help him cheat death.

— The Order of the Stick Prequel Book, Start of Darkness

"It will all be worth it. You'll see."

— Redcloak (to himself, after losing an eye to his boss), The Order of the Stick

"We fix it or he'll make sure you go right back into prison, forfeiting your daughter. Give up now, and everything you've done so far has been a lie."

—Blaine O'Malley, Dumbing of Age

"I must spill yet more blood, so the blood already split will not be in vain."

—Lelouch Lamperouge, Code Geass

"I fight so that all the fighting I've already done hasn't been for nothing. I fight... because I must."

—Ulfric Stormcloak, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

Princess Carolyn: I have loved you for twenty-five years, and I have never loved anyone better. That kind of love, you only get it when you're young and stupid. I'm not gonna get it again. And when I tell my daughter the story of the great love of my life, I want it to have a happy ending.
BoJack: Is it possible that you letting me go is the happy ending?
Princess Carolyn: I've gone with you this far. In for a penny, in for a pound, right? Sunk cost and all that?

—BoJack Horseman, "Sunk Cost and All That"

Gabe: Have you heard of the "Sunk Cost Fallacy"? At first I thought it was a dick thing, but it's something else.
Tycho: I have. It means that you need to maintain harmful behaviors in perpetuity because you made a bad decision a long time ago, and now you deserve to be punished.
Gabe: Yeah, that's not what it means.

— Penny Arcade, "Finisher"

"If I hang up my sword now... all the lives I've taken so far will have been a waste. Until the new age comes, I will wield my sword."

— Himura Kenshin, Rurouni Kenshin: The Beginning

"It's a pain, I sure don't need it
And I probably should delete it
But for me, that would be crossing the line
'Cuz I hate to waste a buck ninety-nine
Hey, I paid good money for this (RINGTONE!)"

—"Weird Al" Yankovic, "Ringtone"

All these ideas for what the space lasers should become after the primary reason for their existence ended have, to me, the same subtext. "We spent billions and billions and BILLIONS on this thing! We've gotta figure out something to do with it!"

—Jacob Geller, The Conceptual Failure of Orbital Lasers

"i put years of hard work into getting my torture degree at torture college & now everyones like "oh tortures bad","its ineffective" fuck off"

— dril

Tails: Have you ever heard of the sunk-cost fallacy?
Player Character: [while playing a slot machine for the ninth time] The sunk-cost fallacy? The phenomenon whereby a person is reluctant to abandon a strategy or course of action because they have invested heavily in it, even when it is clear that abandonment would be more beneficial? Of course I've heard of it, why do you ask?
Tails: No reason.

—The Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog

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