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

People are drastically overconfident about their judgments of others.

We are happy when we have family, we are happy when we have friends and almost all the other things we think make us happy are actually just ways of getting more family and friends.

The brain and the eye may have a contractual relationship in which the brain has agreed to believe what the eye sees, but in return the eye has agreed to look for what the brain wants.

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

People want to be happy, and all the other things they want are typically meant to be a means to that end.

The good news is that going blind is not going to make you as unhappy as you think it will. The bad news is that winning the lottery will not make you as happy as you expect.

Our brain accepts what the eyes see and our eye looks for whatever our brain wants.

The secret of happiness is variety, but the secret of variety, like the secret of all spices, is knowing when to use it.

We treat our future selves as though they were our children, spending most of the hours of most of our days constructing tomorrows that we hope will make them happy

Happiness refers to feelings, virtue refers to actions, and those actions can cause those feelings. But not necessarily and not exclusively.

The reality is that changes are coming. ... They must come. You must share in bringing them.

I equally dislike the favor of the public with the love of a woman - they are both a cloying treacle to the wings of independence.

All the gestures of children are graceful; the reign of distortion and unnatural attitudes commences with the introduction of the dancing master.

I am a Muslim and . . . my religion makes me be against all forms of racism. It keeps me from judging any man by the color of his skin. It teaches me to judge him by his deeds .

I know I'm prejudiced and I know I'm bigoted in a lot of different ways.

If it is true that cowardice is the most grave vice, then the dog, at least, is not guilty of it.

My parents were travelers. Every time my parents got ten dollars ahead they went somewhere. That's what they did. So I got the bug from them.

There has been a substitution of ideology for fact and scientific and engineering data in this administration.

I thought Love lived in the hot sunshine, But O, he lives in the moony light! I thought to find Love in the heat of day, But sweet Love is the comforter of night.