A general “law of least effort” applies to cognitive as well as physical exertion. The law asserts that if there are several ways of achieving the same goal, people will eventually gravitate to the least demanding course of action. In the economy of action, effort is a cost, and the acquisition of skill is driven by the balance of benefits and costs. Laziness is built deep into our nature.

Most of the moments of our life - and I calculated, you know, the psychological present is said to be about three seconds long; that means that, you know, in a life there are about 600 million of them; in a month, there are about 600,000 - most of them don't leave a trace.

Divorced women, compared to married women, are less satisfied with their lives, which is not surprising. But they're actually more cheerful, when you look at the average mood they're in in the course of the day.

True intuitive expertise is learned from prolonged experience with good feedback on mistakes.

People who are cognitively busy are also more likely to make selfish choices, use sexist language, and make superficial judgments in social situations.

An individual who expresses high confidence probably has a good story, which may or may not be true.

The extra daily social time of 1.7 hours in weekends raises average happiness by about 2%.