Quote

Few things are sadder than encountering a person who knows exactly what he should do, yet cannot muster enough energy to do it. He who desires but acts not, wrote Blake with his accustomed vigor, Breeds pestilence.

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

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Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
Age: 90
Born: 1934
Born: September 29
Professor
Psychiatrist
Psychologist
University Teacher
Fiume
Things
Wrote
Pestilence
Exactly
Blake
Desire
Muster
Energy
Breeds
Cannot
Vigor
Persons
Accustomed
Person
Desires
Encountering
Enough
Acts
Sadder

More quotes by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

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Half a century ago, the Austrian psychiatrist Viktor Frankl wrote that happiness cannot be attained by wanting to be happy - it must come as the unintended consequence of working for a goal greater than oneself.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
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One must develop skills that stretch capacities, that make one more than what one is.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
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The more a person feels skilled, the more her moods will improve while the more challenges that are present, the more her attention will become focused and concentrated.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
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To be creative, a person has to internalize the entire system that makes creativity possible. Creative individuals are remarkable for their ability to adapt to almost any situation and to make do with whatever is at hand to reach their goals.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
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Happiness is not something that happens ... It does not depend on outside events, but, rather, on how we interpret them.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
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Contrary to what most of us believe, happiness does not simply happen to us. It's something that we make happen, and it results from doing our best. Feeling fulfilled when we live up to our potentialities is what motivates differentiation and leads to evolution.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
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Some individuals have developed such strong internal standards that they no longer need the opinion of others to judge whether they have performed a task well or not. The ability to give objective feedback to oneself is in fact the mark of the expert.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
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The mood state Americans are in, on average, when watching television is mildly depressed.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
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A person who forgoes the use of his symbolic skills is never really free.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
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If I had to express in one word what makes their [creative individuals'] personalities different from others, it's complexity. They show tendencies of thought and action that in most people are segregated. They contain contradictory extremes instead of being an individual, each of them is a multitude.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
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If you are interested in something, you will focus on it, and if you focus attention on anything, it is likely that you will become interested in it. Many of the things we find interesting are not so by nature, but because we took the trouble of paying attention to them.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
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Only direct control of experience, the ability to derive moment-by-moment enjoyment from everything we do, can overcome the obstacles to fulfillment.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
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It is when we act freely, for the sake of the action itself rather than for ulterior motives, that we learn to become more than what we were.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
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It is essential to learn to enjoy life. It really does not make sense to go through the motions of existence if one does not appreciate as much of it as possible.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
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It is by becoming increasingly complex that the self might be said to grow.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
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A person can make himself happy, or miserable, regardless of what is actually happening 'outside,' just by changing the contents of consciousness.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
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There are two main strategies we can try to improve the quality of life. The first is to try making external conditions match our goals. The second is to change how we experience external conditions to make them fit our goals better.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
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Without respect, the subtle alchemy that binds an organization or that serves as the impetus for a business transaction would dissolve into mutual suspicion and hostility.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
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However, a good life consists of more than simply the totality of enjoyable experiences. It must also have a meaningful pattern, a trajectory of growth that results in the development of increasing emotional, cognitive, and social complexity.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
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Participate as fully as possibly in the world around you.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi