Quote

Try to be surprised by something every day.

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
Surprised
Trying
Every
Something

More quotes by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

Image
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
Image
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.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
Image
One must develop skills that stretch capacities, that make one more than what one is.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
Image
...perhaps the most distinguishing trait of visionary leaders is that they believe in a goal that benefits not only themselves, but others as well. It is such vision that attracts the psychic energy of other people, and makes them willing to work beyond the call of duty for the organization.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
Image
Optimal experience is thus something that we make happen.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
Image
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
Image
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
Image
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
Image
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.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
Image
Creativity is any act, idea, or product that changes an existing domain, or that transforms an existing domain into a new one What counts is whether the novelty he or she produces is accepted for inclusion in the domain.
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
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
The mood state Americans are in, on average, when watching television is mildly depressed.
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
Produce as many ideas as possible. Try to produce unlikely ideas.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
Image
One of the surest ways to enrich life is to make experiences less fleeting.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
Image
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
Image
Creative individuals tend to be smart, yet also naive at the same time... Creative individuals have a combination of playfulness and discipline, or responsibility and irresponsibility.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
Image
Flow is hard to achieve without effort. Flow is not 'wasting time.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
Image
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