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Optimism is a tool with a certain clear set of benefits: it fights depression, it promotes achievement and produces better health.

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
Certain
Depression
Better
Achievement
Tools
Benefits
Promotes
Produce
Fights
Health
Produces
Clear
Tool
Fighting
Optimism

More quotes by 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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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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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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Doing a kindness produces the single most reliable momentary increase in well-being of any exercise we have tested.
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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Flow occurs in your life when your highest skills are matched to challenges that quite exactly meet them.
Martin Seligman
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The good life consists in deriving happiness by using your signature strengths every day in the main realms of living. The meaningful life adds one more component: using these same strengths to forward knowledge, power, or goodness. A life that does this is pregnant with meaning, and if God comes at the end, such a life is sacred.
Martin Seligman
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Ten years ago, when I was on an airplane and I introduced myself to my seatmate, and told them [I was a psychologist], they'd move away from me. ... And now when I tell people what I do, they move toward me.
Martin Seligman
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The pleasant life: a life that successfully pursues the positive emotions about the present, past, and future.
Martin Seligman
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People who believe they cause good things tend to like themselves better than people who believe good things come from other people or circumstances.
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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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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When well-being comes from engaging our strengths and virtues, our lives are imbued with authenticity.
Martin Seligman
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Just as the good life is something beyond the pleasant life, the meaningful life is beyond the good life.
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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What are the enabling conditions that make human beings flourish? How do we get from zero to plus five?
Martin Seligman
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Psychology should be just as concerned with building strength as with repairing damage
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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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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The good life is using your signature strengths every day to produce authentic happiness and abundant gratification.
Martin Seligman