Quote

People want to be happy, and all the other things they want are typically meant to be a means to that end.

Daniel Gilbert

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Daniel Gilbert
Age: 67
Born: 1957
Born: November 5
Psychologist
University Teacher
Writer
the United States of America
Dan Gilbert
Daniel Todd Gilbert
Happy
Means
Ends
Mean
Things
People
Typically
Meant

More quotes by Daniel Gilbert

Image
Lower your cortisol level. The happiest people have the lowest level of cortisol, a stress hormone that raises blood pressure and weakens the immune system. Cut the stress-more yoga, less road rage-and you'll cut your cortisol production.
Daniel Gilbert
Image
Hateful, blasphemous, prejudiced, vulgar, rude, or ignorant remarks are the music of a free society, and the relentless patter of idiots is how we know we're in one. When all the words in our public conversation are fair, good, and true, it's time to make a run for the fence.
Daniel Gilbert
Image
We treat our future selves as though they were our children, spending most of the hours of most of our days constructing tomorrows that we hope will make them happy
Daniel Gilbert
Image
My friends tell me that I have a tendency to point out problems without offering solutions, but they never tell me what I should do about it.
Daniel Gilbert
Image
Your emotions are meant to fluctuate, just like your blood pressure is meant to fluctuate. It's a system that's supposed to move back and forth, between happy and unhappy. That's how the system guides you through the world.
Daniel Gilbert
Image
Humans react to danger when it is immediate, immoral, visible... Global warming does not press any of those buttons.
Daniel Gilbert
Image
The eye and brain are conspirators, and, like most conspiracies, theirs is negotiated behind closed doors, in the back room, outside of our awareness.
Daniel Gilbert
Image
Alas, we think of ourselves as unique entities-minds unlike any others-and thus we often reject the lessons that the emotional experience of others has to teach us.
Daniel Gilbert
Image
If I wanted to know what a certain future would feel like to me, I would find someone who is already living that future. If I wonder what it's like to become a lawyer or marry a busy executive or eat at a particular restaurant, my best bet is to find people who have actually done these things and see how happy they are.
Daniel Gilbert
Image
I have everything that I could possibly want in life, from a gorgeous granddaughter and a wonderful wife, brilliant students, the best job anyone could hope for, and about half of my hair. Not the half I would have kept, but no one consulted me.
Daniel Gilbert
Image
In short, if we adhere to the standard of perfection in all our endeavors, we are left with nothing but mathematics and the White Album.
Daniel Gilbert
Image
Human beings are works in progress that mistakenly think they're finished.
Daniel Gilbert
Image
People are drastically overconfident about their judgments of others.
Daniel Gilbert
Image
I actually think the same things do make most people happy. The differences are extremely small, and around the margins. You like peach ice cream I like strawberry ice cream. Both of us like ice cream much better than a smack on the head with two-by-four.
Daniel Gilbert
Image
Your mistake was not in imagining things you could not know—that is, after all, what imagination is for. Rather, your mistake was in unthinkingly treating what you imagined as though it were an accurate representation of the facts.
Daniel Gilbert
Image
We humans can look deep into future and predict what will happen, but then turn around and do nothing about it.
Daniel Gilbert
Image
Research suggests that people are typically unaware of the reasons why they are doing what they are doing, but when asked for a reason, they readily supply one.
Daniel Gilbert
Image
The data says that with the poor, a little money can buy a lot of happiness. If you're rich, a lot of money can buy you a little more happiness. But in both cases, money does it.
Daniel Gilbert
Image
Psychologists call this habituation, economists call it declining marginal utility, and the rest of us call it marriage.
Daniel Gilbert
Image
Which is more important - experience or memory of experience? If you could have an hour of ecstasy that you'd forever remember as torture, or an hour of torture that you'd forever remember as ecstasy, which would you prefer?
Daniel Gilbert