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A person who forgoes the use of his symbolic skills is never really free.

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

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Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
Age: 89
Born: 1934
Born: September 29
Professor
Psychiatrist
Psychologist
University Teacher
Fiume
Skills
Free
Use
Persons
Person
Really
Never
Symbolic

More quotes by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

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Repression is not the way to virtue. When people restrain themselves out of fear, their lives are by necessity diminished. Only through freely chosen discipline can life be enjoyed and still kept within the bounds of reason.
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We can either help to make this world a more incredible place than it has ever been, or we can hasten its return to inorganic dust.
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How we feel about ourselves, the joy we get from living, ultimately depends directly on how the mind filters and interprets everyday experiences. Whether we are happy depends on inner harmony, not on the controls we are able to exert over the great forces of the universe.
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In large organizations the dilution of information as it passes up and down the hierarchy, and horizontally across departments, can undermine the effort to focus on common goals.
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Getting control of life is never easy, and sometimes it can be definitely painful.
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Happiness is not something that happens ... It does not depend on outside events, but, rather, on how we interpret them.
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Pleasure is an important component of the quality of life, but by itself it does not bring happiness. Pleasure helps to maintain order, but by itself cannot create a new order in consciousness.
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Those who seek consolation in existing churches often pay for their peace of mind with a tacit agreement to ignore a great deal of what is known about the way the world works.
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But shortcuts are dangerous we cannot delude ourselves that our knowledge is further along than it actually is.
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And, in fact, you can find that the lack of basic resources, material resources, contributes to unhappiness, but the increase in material resources do not increase happiness.
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If you do anything well, it becomes enjoyable. To keep enjoying something, you need to increase its complexity.
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One cannot lead a life that is truly excellent without feeling that one belongs to something greater and more permanent than oneself.
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It does not seem to be true that work necessarily needs to be unpleasant. It may always have to be hard, or at least harder than doing nothing at all. But there is ample evidence that work can be enjoyable, and that indeed, it is often the most enjoyable part of life.
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Competition is an easy way to get into flow.
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To play the trumpet well, a musician can not let more than a few days pass without practicing.
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You yourself are in an ecstatic state to such a point that you feel as though you almost don't exist. I've experienced this time and again. My hand seems devoid of myself, and I have nothing to do with what is happening. I just sit there watching in a state of awe and wonderment. And it just flows out by itself.
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As long as we respond predictably to what feels good and what feels bad, it is easy for others to exploit our preferences for their own ends.
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For a person to become deeply involved in any activity it is essential that he knows precisely what tasks he must accomplish, moment by moment.
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Entropy is the normal state of consciousness - a condition that is neither useful nor enjoyable.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
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Happiness does not simply happen to us. It's something that we make happen.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi