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Finding permanent and universal causes for misfortune is the practice of despair.

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
Practice
Desperation
Misfortunes
Permanent
Findings
Finding
Despair
Universal
Helplessness
Causes
Misfortune

More quotes by Martin Seligman

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In a society in which individualism is becoming rampant, people more and more believe that they are the center of the world. Such a belief system makes individual failure almost inconsolable.
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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.
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Whether or not we have hope depends on two dimensions of our explanatory style pervasiveness and permanence.
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When well-being comes from engaging our strengths and virtues, our lives are imbued with authenticity.
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Success requires persistence, the ability to not give up in the face of failure. I believe that optimistic explanatory style is the key to persistence.
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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.
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Reaching beyond where you are is really important.
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Money, amazingly, is losing its power... Our economy is rapidly changing from a money economy to a satisfaction economy.
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Just as the good life is something beyond the pleasant life, the meaningful life is beyond the good life.
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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.
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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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Optimism generates hope...hope releases dreams...dreams set goals...enthusiasm follows
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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.
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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.
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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.
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The belief that we can rely on shortcuts to happiness, joy, rapture, comfort, and ecstasy, rather than be entitled to these feelings by the exercise of personal strengths and virtues, leads to legions of people who, in the middle of great wealth, are starving spiritually.
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The pleasant life: a life that successfully pursues the positive emotions about the present, past, and future.
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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.
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Flow occurs in your life when your highest skills are matched to challenges that quite exactly meet them.
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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.
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