List of Daniel Gilbert Quotes

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!

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.

No One Likes To Be Criticized, Of Course, But If The Things We Successfully Strive For Do Not Make Our Future Selves Happy, Or If The Things We Unsuccessfully Avoid Do, Then It Seems Reasonable (if Somewhat Ungracious) For Them To Cast A Disparaging Glance Backward And Wonder What The Hell We Were Thinking.

To Ensure That Our Views Are Credible, Our Brain Accepts What Our Eye Sees. To Ensure That Our Views Are Positive, Our Eye Looks For What Our Brain Wants. The Conspiracy Between These Two Servants Allows Us To Live At The Fulcrum Of Stark Reality And Comforting Illusion.

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.

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.

Variety Improves The Things That We Do Too Often, But It Rules The Things That We Don't Do Often Enough.

Because Your Brain Uses Information From The Areas Around The Blind Spot To Make A Reasonable Guess About What The Blind Spot Would See If Only It Weren't Blind, And Then Your Brain Fills In The Scene With This Information. That's Right, It Invents Things, Creates Things, Makes Stuff Up! It Doesn't Consult You About This, Doesn't Seek Your Approval. It Just Makes Its Best Guess About The Nature Of The Missing Information And Proceeds To Fill In The Scene.

To Learn From Experience, We Must Remember It, And, For A Variety Of Reasons, Memory Is A Faithless Friend.

The Price We Pay For Our Irresponsible Explanatory Urge Is That We Often Spoil Our Most Pleasant Experiences By Making Good Sense Of Them.

Psychologists Call This Habituation, Economists Call It Declining Marginal Utility, And The Rest Of Us Call It Marriage.

Arthritic Toothless People Who Love Orgasms Are More Likely To Reproduce Than Are Limber, Toothy People Who Do Not.