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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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Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
Age: 90
Born: 1934
Born: September 29
Professor
Psychiatrist
Psychologist
University Teacher
Fiume
Instead
Contradictory
Thought
Creative
Multitudes
Different
Word
Contain
People
Show
Complexity
Individual
Tendencies
Action
Extremes
Segregated
Individuals
Multitude
Makes
Express
Personalities
Others

More quotes by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

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One must develop skills that stretch capacities, that make one more than what one is.
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Knowing oneself is not so much a question of discovering what is present in one's self, but rather the creation of who one wants to be.
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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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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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Produce as many ideas as possible. Try to produce unlikely ideas.
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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.
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An ideal organization is one in which each worker's potentialities find room for expression.
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People who learn to control inner experience will be able to determine the quality of their lives, which is as close as any of us can come to being happy.
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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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Attention is psychic energy, and like physical energy, unless we allocate some part of it to the task at hand, no work gets done.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
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Participate as fully as possibly in the world around you.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
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Flow is hard to achieve without effort. Flow is not 'wasting time.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
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The psychic entropy peculiar to the human condition involves seeing more to do than one can actually accomplish and feeling able to accomplish more than what conditions allow.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
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If we are so rich, why aren't we happy?
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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Problems are solved only when we devote a great deal of attention to them and in a creative way...to have a good life, it is not enough to remove what is wrong with it. We also need a positive goal, otherwise why keep going? Creativity is one answer to that question - It provides one of the most exciting models for living.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
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Competition is an easy way to get into flow.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
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Getting control of life is never easy, and sometimes it can be definitely painful.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
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Happiness does not simply happen to us. It's something that we make happen.
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