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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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Daniel Gilbert
Age: 67
Born: 1957
Born: November 5
Psychologist
University Teacher
Writer
the United States of America
Dan Gilbert
Daniel Todd Gilbert
Humans
Deep
Nothing
Turn
Looks
Happen
Turns
Future
Happens
Around
Predict
Look
Environmental

More quotes by Daniel Gilbert

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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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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.
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If you are like most people, then like most people, you don't know you're like most people.
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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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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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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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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.
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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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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.
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Is happiness really the only thing we should be aiming for?
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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.
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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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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.
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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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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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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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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
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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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Our brain accepts what the eyes see and our eye looks for whatever our brain wants.
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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