Martin Seligman Quotes - Page 2

Quotes about:

• People who believe they cause good things tend to like themselves better than people who believe good things come from other people or circumstances.

  Martin Seligman

  Believe, People, Causes

  Martin E.P. Seligman (2011). “Learned Optimism: How to Change Your Mind and Your Life”, p.92, Vintage

  53 Copy quote

• Success requires persistence, the ability to not give up in the face of failure. I believe that optimistic explanatory style is the key to persistence.

  Martin Seligman

  Giving Up, Believe, Failure

  Martin E.P. Seligman (2011). “Learned Optimism: How to Change Your Mind and Your Life”, p.162, Vintage

  75 Copy quote

• The clearer the rules and the limits enforced by parents, the higher the child's self-esteem. The more freedom the child had, the lower his self-esteem.

  Martin Seligman

  Children, Self Esteem, Parent

  36 Copy quote

• Habits of pessimism lead to depression, wither achievement, and undermine physical health. The good news is that pessimism can be unlearned, and that with its removal depression, underachievement, and poor health can be alleviated.

  Martin Seligman

  Depression, Achievement, News

  Martin Seligman (2011). “What You Can Change... and What You Can't”, p.17, Nicholas Brealey Publishing

  49 Copy quote

• Positive thinking is the notion that if you think good thoughts, things will work out well. Optimism is the feeling of thinking things will be well and be hopeful.

  Martin Seligman

  Positive Thinking, Work Out, Optimism

  14 Copy quote

• Positive emotion can be about the past, the present, or the future. The positive emotions about the future include optimism, hope, faith, and trust. Those about the present include joy, ecstasy, calm, zest, ebullience, pleasure, and (most importantly) flow; these emotions are what most people usually mean when they casually-but much too narrowly-talk about "happiness." The positive emotions about the past include satisfaction, contentment, fulfillment, pride, and serenity.

  Martin Seligman

  Happiness, Mean, Pride

  Martin Seligman (2011). “Authentic Happiness”, p.60, Nicholas Brealey Publishing

  31 Copy quote

• Not only do happy people endure pain better and take more health and safety precautions when threatened, but positive emotions undo negative emotions.

  Martin Seligman

  Happiness, Pain, People

  Martin Seligman (2011). “Authentic Happiness”, p.42, Nicholas Brealey Publishing

  13 Copy quote

• The Fundamentalist Religions simply seem to offer more hope for a brighter future than do the more liberal, humanistic ones.

  Martin Seligman

  Fundamentalist Religion, Psychology, Brighter Future

  12 Copy quote

• Money, amazingly, is losing its power... Our economy is rapidly changing from a money economy to a satisfaction economy.

  Martin Seligman

  Satisfaction, Losing, Economy

  Martin Seligman (2011). “Authentic Happiness”, p.148, Nicholas Brealey Publishing

  10 Copy quote

• The belief that we can rely on shortcuts to happiness, joy, rapture, comfort, and ecstasy, rather than be entitled to these feelings by the exercise of personal strengths and virtues, leads to legions of people who, in the middle of great wealth, are starving spiritually.

  Martin Seligman

  Exercise, People, Joy

  Martin Seligman (2011). “Authentic Happiness”, p.16, Nicholas Brealey Publishing

  60 Copy quote

• The pleasant life: a life that successfully pursues the positive emotions about the present, past, and future.

  Martin Seligman

  Past, Emotion, Pursue

  9 Copy quote

• In a society in which individualism is becoming rampant, people more and more believe that they are the center of the world. Such a belief system makes individual failure almost inconsolable.

  Martin Seligman

  Believe, People, World

  "Learned Optimism: How to Change Your Mind and Your Life". Book by Martin Seligman, August 10, 2011.

  84 Copy quote

• Psychology is much bigger than just medicine, or fixing unhealthy things. Its about education, work, marriage - its even about sports. What I want to do is see psychologists working to help people build strengths in all these domains.

  Martin Seligman

  Sports, Medicine, People

  20 Copy quote

• In your own life, you should take particular care with endings, for their color will forever tinge your memory of the entire relationship and your willingness to reenter it.

  Martin Seligman

  Life, Memories, Work

  Martin Seligman (2011). “Authentic Happiness”, p.15, Nicholas Brealey Publishing

  28 Copy quote

• When it comes to our health, there are essentially four things under our control: the decision not to smoke, a commitment to exercise, the quality of our diet, and our level of optimism. And optimism is at least as beneficial as the others.

  Martin Seligman

  Commitment, Exercise, Optimism

  17 Copy quote

• Self-esteem cannot be directly injected. It needs to result from doing well, from being warranted.

  Martin Seligman

  Self Esteem, Needs, Results

  19 Copy quote

• The pursuit of happiness is enshrined in the Declaration of Independence as a right of all Americans, as well as on the self-improvement shelves of every American bookstore. Yet the scientific evidence makes it seem unlikely that you can change your level of happiness in any sustainable way. It suggests that we each have a fixed range for happiness just as we do for weight. And just as dieters almost always regain the weight they lose, sad people don't become lastingly happy, and happy people don't become lastingly sad.

  Martin Seligman

  Pursuit Of Happiness, Self, People

  Martin Seligman (2011). “Authentic Happiness”, p.8, Nicholas Brealey Publishing

  16 Copy quote

• By activating an expansive, tolerant, and creative mindset, positive feelings maximize the social, intellectual, and physical benefits that will accrue.

  Martin Seligman

  Creative, Feelings, Psychology

  Martin Seligman (2011). “Authentic Happiness”, p.44, Nicholas Brealey Publishing

  11 Copy quote

• On the relationship side, if you teach people to respond actively and constructively when someone they care about has a victory, it increases love and friendship and decreases the probability of depression.

  Martin Seligman

  People, Victory, Love And Friendship

  15 Copy quote

• What are the enabling conditions that make human beings flourish? How do we get from zero to plus five?

  Martin Seligman

  Zero, Enabling, Plus

  13 Copy quote

• Once a depressed person becomes active and hopeful, self-esteem always improves. Bolstering self-esteem without changing hopelessness, without changing passivity, accomplishes nothing.

  Martin Seligman

  Depression, Self Esteem, Accomplish Nothing

  14 Copy quote

• One of the things psychologists used to say was that if you are depressed, anxious or angry, you couldn't be happy. Those were at opposite ends of a continuum. I believe that you can be suffering or have a mental illness and be happy - just not in the same moment that you're sad.

  Martin Seligman

  Believe, Opposites, Suffering

  23 Copy quote

• Whether or not we have hope depends on two dimensions of our explanatory style; pervasiveness and permanence.

  Martin Seligman

  Hope, Two, Style

  Martin E.P. Seligman (2011). “Learned Optimism: How to Change Your Mind and Your Life”, p.89, Vintage

  14 Copy quote

• I believe that traditional wisdom is incomplete. A composer can have all the talent of Mozart and a passionate desire to succeed, but if he believes he cannot compose music, he will come to nothing. He will not try hard enough. He will give up too soon when the elusive right melody takes too long to materialize.

  Martin Seligman

  Giving Up, Believe, Passionate Desire

  Martin E. P. Seligman (1998). “Learned Optimism”, Free Press

  15 Copy quote

• Flow occurs in your life when your highest skills are matched to challenges that quite exactly meet them.

  Martin Seligman

  Skills, Challenges, Flow

  11 Copy quote

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