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Human beings are works in progress that mistakenly think they're finished.

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
Finished
Beings
Works
Progress
Human
Humans
Think
Thinking
Mistakenly

More quotes by Daniel Gilbert

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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 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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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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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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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
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The mistakes we make when we try to imagine our personal futures are also lawful, regular, and systematic. They, too, have a pattern that tells us about the powers and limits of foresight in much the same way that optical illusions tell us about the powers and limits of eyesight.
Daniel Gilbert
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To learn from experience, we must remember it, and, for a variety of reasons, memory is a faithless friend.
Daniel Gilbert
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In short, we derive support for our preferred conclusions by listening to the words that we put in the mouths of people who have already been preselected for their willingness to say what we want to hear.
Daniel Gilbert
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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.
Daniel Gilbert
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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.
Daniel Gilbert
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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.
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.
Daniel Gilbert
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People are drastically overconfident about their judgments of others.
Daniel Gilbert
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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
Daniel Gilbert
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Few of us can accurately gauge how we will feel tomorrow or next week. That's why when you go to the supermarket on an empty stomach, you'll buy too much, and if you shop after a big meal, you'll buy too little.
Daniel Gilbert
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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.
Daniel Gilbert
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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
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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
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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.
Daniel Gilbert
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If you are like most people, then like most people, you don't know you're like most people.
Daniel Gilbert