Psychologists call this habituation, economists call it declining marginal utility, and the rest of us call it marriage.

People are happiest when they're trying to achieve goals that are difficult but not out of reach.

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.

Most of us appear to believe that we are more athletic, intelligent, organized, ethical, logical, interesting, open-minded, and healthy-not to mention more attractive-than the average person.

Humans react to danger when it is immediate, immoral, visible... Global warming does not press any of those buttons.

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.

We humans can look deep into future and predict what will happen, but then turn around and do nothing about it.