Daniel Gilbert Quotes - Page 2

Quotes about:

• We all have direct experience with things that do or don't make us happy, we all have friends, therapists, cabdrivers, and talk-show hosts who tell us about things that will or won't make us happy, and yet, despite all this practice and all this coaching, our search for happiness often culminates in a stinky mess. We expect the next car, the next house, or the next promotion to make us happy even though the last ones didn't and even though others keep telling us that the next ones won't.

  Daniel Gilbert

  Happiness, Practice, Car

  Daniel Gilbert (2006). “Stumbling on Happiness”, p.196, Vintage

  17 Copy quote

• 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

  Thinking, Ice Cream, Two

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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

  Environmental, Buttons, Doe

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• The human brain is the only object in the known universe that can predict its own future and tell its on fortune. The fact that we can make disastrous decisions even as we foresee their consequences is the great, unsolved mystery of human behavior. When you hold your fate in your hands, why would you ever make a fist?

  Daniel Gilbert

  Fate, Hands, Decision

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• When we have an experience -- hearing a particular sonata, making love with a particular person, watching the sun set from a particular window of a particular room -- on successive occasions, we quickly begin to adapt to it, and the experience yields less pleasure each time. Psychologists call this habituation, economists call it declining marginal utility, and the rest of us call it marriage

  Daniel Gilbert

  Yield, Making Love, Hearing

  Daniel Gilbert (2006). “Stumbling on Happiness”, Vintage

  4 Copy quote

• To learn from experience, we must remember it, and, for a variety of reasons, memory is a faithless friend.

  Daniel Gilbert

  Memories, Remember, Reason

  Daniel Gilbert (2006). “Stumbling on Happiness”, p.233, Vintage

  6 Copy quote

• 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

  Running, Rude, Ignorant

  "What Is Your Dangerous Idea?". Book by John Brockman (p. 43), 2007.

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• Impact is rewarding. Mattering makes us happy.

  Daniel Gilbert

  Impact

  Daniel Gilbert (2006). “Stumbling on Happiness”, p.23, Vintage

  8 Copy quote

• The word happiness is used to indicate at least three related things, which we might roughly call emotional happiness, moral happiness, and judgmental happiness.

  Daniel Gilbert

  Happiness, Emotional, Three

  Daniel Gilbert (2006). “Stumbling on Happiness”, p.31, Vintage

  11 Copy quote

• The fact that we often judge the pleasure of an experience by its ending can cause us to make some curious choices.

  Daniel Gilbert

  Judging, Choices, Causes

  Daniel Gilbert (2006). “Stumbling on Happiness”, p.203, Vintage

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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

  Offering, Problem, Should

  Daniel Gilbert (2006). “Stumbling on Happiness”, p.223, Vintage

  14 Copy quote

• 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

  People, Support, Listening

  Daniel Gilbert (2006). “Stumbling on Happiness”, Vintage

  4 Copy quote

• I think good things are happening to me and will continue. I am not optimistic about the rest of the species, but I'm so blessed, it's almost scary. I'm sorry to disappoint you, but I have a wildly sunny disposition. I love to laugh.

  Daniel Gilbert

  Sorry, Blessed, Optimistic

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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?

  Daniel Gilbert

  Memories, Forever, Important

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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

  Next Week, Meals, Gauges

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• Daniel Levitin has more insights per page than any other neuroscientist I know. The organized Mind is smart, important, and, as always, exquisitely written.

  Daniel Gilbert

  Smart, Organized Mind, Important

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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.

  Daniel Gilbert

  Data, Doe, Littles

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• Why isn’t it fun to watch a videotape of last night’s football game even when we don’t know who won? Because the fact that the game has already been played precludes the possibility that our cheering will somehow penetrate the television, travel through the cable system, find its way to the stadium, and influence the trajectory of the ball as it hurtles toward the goalposts!

  Daniel Gilbert

  Football, Cheer, Fun

  Daniel Gilbert (2006). “Stumbling on Happiness”, p.22, Vintage

  4 Copy quote

• The price we pay for our irresponsible explanatory urge is that we often spoil our most pleasant experiences by making good sense of them.

  Daniel Gilbert

  Pay, Pleasure, Spoil

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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

  Inability, Riches, Poverty

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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

  Jobs, Hair, Best Job

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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

  Enough, Variety

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• Is happiness really the only thing we should be aiming for?

  Daniel Gilbert

  Should

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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

  Environmental, Looks, Turns

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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

  Eye, Doors, Brain

  Daniel Gilbert (2006). “Stumbling on Happiness”, Vintage

  7 Copy quote

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