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

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

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.

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

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.

Our inability to recall how we really felt is why our wealth of experiences turns out to be poverty of riches.