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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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Daniel Gilbert
Age: 67
Born: 1957
Born: November 5
Psychologist
University Teacher
Writer
the United States of America
Dan Gilbert
Daniel Todd Gilbert
Often
Rejects
Experience
Unlike
Others
Thus
Mind
Minds
Think
Lessons
Entities
Thinking
Unique
Reject
Emotional
Alas
Teach
Entity

More quotes by Daniel Gilbert

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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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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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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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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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Psychologists call this habituation, economists call it declining marginal utility, and the rest of us call it marriage.
Daniel Gilbert
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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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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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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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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.
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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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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
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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.
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.
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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.
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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Human beings are works in progress that mistakenly think they're finished.
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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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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We humans can look deep into future and predict what will happen, but then turn around and do nothing about it.
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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