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Psychology should be just as concerned with building strength as with repairing damage

Martin Seligman

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Martin Seligman
Age: 82
Born: 1942
Born: August 12
Bridge Player
Psychologist
University Teacher
Writer
Albany
New York
Martin E. P. Seligman
Martin E P Seligman
M. E. P. Seligman
M E P Seligman
M. Seligman
M Seligman
Seligman
Seligman M
Seligman M.
Seligman M. E. P.
Seligman MEP
Martin Elias Peter Seligman
Inspiration
Repairing
Damage
Psychology
Motivation
Concerned
Strength
Building

More quotes by Martin Seligman

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I believe that traditional wisdom is incomplete. A composer can have all the talent of Mozart and a passionate desire to succeed, but if he believes he cannot compose music, he will come to nothing. He will not try hard enough. He will give up too soon when the elusive right melody takes too long to materialize.
Martin Seligman
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Well-being cannot exist just in your own head. Well-being is a combination of feeling good as well as actually having meaning, good relationships and accomplishment.
Martin Seligman
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There is one aspect of happiness that's been well studied, and it's the notion of flow. Ask yourselves, when for you does time stop? When are you truly at home, wanting to be no place else?
Martin Seligman
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On the other hand, permanent causes produce helplessness far into the future, and universal causes spread helplessness through all your endeavors.
Martin Seligman
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Finding temporary and specific causes for misfortune is the art of hope: Temporary causes limit helplessness in time, and specific causes limit helplessness to the original situation.
Martin Seligman
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Optimism is invaluable for the meaningful life. With a firm belief in a positive future, you can throw yourself into the service of that which is larger than you are.
Martin Seligman
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On the relationship side, if you teach people to respond actively and constructively when someone they care about has a victory, it increases love and friendship and decreases the probability of depression.
Martin Seligman
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We're not prisoners of the past.
Martin Seligman
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Psychology is much bigger than just medicine, or fixing unhealthy things. Its about education, work, marriage - its even about sports. What I want to do is see psychologists working to help people build strengths in all these domains.
Martin Seligman
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To be a virtuous person is to display, by acts of will, all or at least most of the six ubiquitous virtues: wisdom, courage, humanity, justice, temperance, and transcendence.
Martin Seligman
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Once a depressed person becomes active and hopeful, self-esteem always improves. Bolstering self-esteem without changing hopelessness, without changing passivity, accomplishes nothing.
Martin Seligman
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One of the things psychologists used to say was that if you are depressed, anxious or angry, you couldn't be happy. Those were at opposite ends of a continuum. I believe that you can be suffering or have a mental illness and be happy - just not in the same moment that you're sad.
Martin Seligman
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Money, amazingly, is losing its power... Our economy is rapidly changing from a money economy to a satisfaction economy.
Martin Seligman
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Reaching beyond where you are is really important.
Martin Seligman
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There are physical characteristics which are inherited. These include things like good looks, high intelligence, physical coordination. These attributes contribute to success in life, and success in life is a determinant of optimism.
Martin Seligman
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Flow occurs in your life when your highest skills are matched to challenges that quite exactly meet them.
Martin Seligman
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Finding permanent and universal causes for misfortune is the practice of despair.
Martin Seligman
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What are the enabling conditions that make human beings flourish? How do we get from zero to plus five?
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You go into flow when your highest strengths are deployed to meet the highest challenges that come your way.
Martin Seligman
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The drive to resist compulsion is more important in wild animals than sex, food, or water... The drive for competence or to resist compulsion is a drive to avoid helplessness.
Martin Seligman