Quote

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.

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
Age: 89
Born: 1934
Born: September 29
Professor
Psychiatrist
Psychologist
University Teacher
Fiume
Others
Ends
Predictably
Feels
Preferences
Long
Exploit
Good
Exploits
Preference
Respond
Easy

More quotes by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

Image
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.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
Image
If we agree that the bottom line of life is happiness, not success, then it makes perfect sense to say that it is the journey that counts, not reaching the destination.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
Image
Those periods of struggling to overcome challenges are what people find to be the most enjoyable times.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
Image
Look at problems from as many viewpoints as possible. Figure out the implications of the problem. Implement the solution.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
Image
To be overcome with the ultimate goal often interferes with performance.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
Image
A person who forgoes the use of his symbolic skills is never really free.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
Image
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.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
Image
One of the surest ways to enrich life is to make experiences less fleeting.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
Image
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
Image
Through learning we grow, becoming more than we were before, and in that sense learning is unselfish, because it results in the transformation of what we were before, a setting aside of the old self in favor of a more complex one.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
Image
...if we expended all our energies solely on taking care of our own needs we would stop growing. In that respect what we call soul can be viewed as the surplus energy that can be invested into change and transformation. As such, it is the cutting edge of evolution.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
Image
I have a naive trust in the universe - that at some level it all makes sense, and we can get glimpses of that sense if we try.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
Image
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
Image
Other things equal, a life filled with complex flow activities is more worth living than one spent consuming passive entertainment.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
Image
It is not the skills we actually have that determine how we feel but the ones we think we have.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
Image
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
Image
..Such practices and beliefs, which interfere with happiness, are neither inevitable nor necessary they evolved by chance, as a result of random responses to accidental conditions. But once they become part of the norms and habits of a culture, people assume that this is how things must be they come to believe they have no other options.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
Image
A person can make himself happy, or miserable, regardless of what is actually happening 'outside,' just by changing the contents of consciousness.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
Image
We can transform reality to the extent that we influence what happens in consciousness and thus free ourselves from the threats and blandishments of the outside world.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
Image
The mood state Americans are in, on average, when watching television is mildly depressed.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi