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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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Daniel Gilbert
Age: 67
Born: 1957
Born: November 5
Psychologist
University Teacher
Writer
the United States of America
Dan Gilbert
Daniel Todd Gilbert
Imagination
Though
Unthinkingly
Rather
Imagining
Facts
Treating
Things
Representation
Imagined
Accurate
Mistake

More quotes by Daniel Gilbert

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We humans can look deep into future and predict what will happen, but then turn around and do nothing about it.
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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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
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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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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
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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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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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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.
Daniel Gilbert
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Our brain accepts what the eyes see and our eye looks for whatever our brain wants.
Daniel Gilbert
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Humans react to danger when it is immediate, immoral, visible... Global warming does not press any of those buttons.
Daniel Gilbert
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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
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People are drastically overconfident about their judgments of others.
Daniel Gilbert
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Psychologists call this habituation, economists call it declining marginal utility, and the rest of us call it marriage.
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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Variety improves the things that we do too often, but it rules the things that we don't do often enough.
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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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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People want to be happy, and all the other things they want are typically meant to be a means to that end.
Daniel Gilbert
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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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To learn from experience, we must remember it, and, for a variety of reasons, memory is a faithless friend.
Daniel Gilbert