Red Queen Effect

It takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place.

- From Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking Glass

Choice Overload

...Psychologists have a term for this - choice overload. In the presence of an abundance of information or too many choices, people often become overwhelmed and frozen. Those individuals inevitably revert to what is easiest, effectively making no decision at all. That can be dangerous in business and in life. One study showed that when presented with many products (jelly, in this case), most consumers tend to default to the easiest choice: buying nothing at all. Good thing there is only one type of air.

- Jeff Stibel, in a Harvard Business Review blog

Loneliness and Powerlessness of Wisdom

The worst pain a man can suffer: to have insight into much and power over nothing.

- Herodotus, Greek author (5th century BC), quoted in a blog post