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We are happy when we have family, we are happy when we have friends and almost all the other things we think make us happy are actually just ways of getting more family and friends.

Daniel Gilbert

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Daniel Gilbert
Age: 67
Born: 1957
Born: November 5
Psychologist
University Teacher
Writer
the United States of America
Dan Gilbert
Daniel Todd Gilbert
Make
Ways
Things
Almost
Think
Getting
Thinking
Friends
Actually
Happy
Family
Way

More quotes by Daniel Gilbert

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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.
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What’s so curious about human beings is that we can look deeply into the future, foresee disaster, and still do nothing in the present to stop it. The majority of people on this planet, they’re overwhelmed with concerns about their immediate well being.
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If someone offered you a pill that would make you permanently happy, you would be well advised to run fast and run far. Emotion is a compass that tells us what to do, and a compass that perpetually stuck on north is worthless.
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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.
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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.
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The brain and the eye may have a contractual relationship in which the brain has agreed to believe what the eye sees, but in return the eye has agreed to look for what the brain wants.
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Human beings are works in progress that mistakenly think they're finished.
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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
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Variety improves the things that we do too often, but it rules the things that we don't do often enough.
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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.
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Psychologists call this habituation, economists call it declining marginal utility, and the rest of us call it marriage.
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Our inability to recall how we really felt is why our wealth of experiences turns out to be poverty of riches.
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Part of us believes the new car is better because it lasts longer. But, in fact, that's the worst thing about the new car. It will stay around to disappoint you, whereas a trip to Europe is over. It evaporates. It has the good sense to go away, and you are left with nothing but a wonderful memory.
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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.
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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.
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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?
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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.
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People want to be happy, and all the other things they want are typically meant to be a means to that end.
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The good news is that going blind is not going to make you as unhappy as you think it will. The bad news is that winning the lottery will not make you as happy as you expect.
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The fact that we often judge the pleasure of an experience by its ending can cause us to make some curious choices.
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