Mihaly Csíkszentmihalyi Quotes

Biography: Mihaly Csíkszentmihalyi is best known for his work in psychology, par... more Biography: Mihaly Csíkszentmihalyi is best known for his work in psychology, particularly for introducing the concept of "flow," a state of deep immersion and optimal experience in activities. Born in 1934 in Hungary, he emigrated to the U.S. where he became a prominent psychologist, authoring influential books like "Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience." less

"Where is wisdom we have lost in knowledge? Where is knowledge we have lost in information?""Inner conflict is a result of an unsolved encounter between conflicting ideas, impulses, or motives""The way to happiness lies neither in protection from difficulty nor in escape from reality""We can only have a coherent conception of reality—our conscious experience of it, that is—if we pay attention to its contents one by one, moment by moment""Complexity requires investing energy to go beyond entropy, the universal law of inertia and decay, and beyond the social programming that keeps us on a narrow track""The meaning of life is meaning: whatever it is, wherever it comes from, a unified purpose is what gives meaning to life""Competition is an easy way to experience flow, but it is a cheap trick ""One of the major reasons why a flow experience involves such deep enjoyment is that it is self-contained""The quality of life does not depend on happiness alone but also on what one does to be happy""The best way a human being can spend a lifetime is to develop something that is universally recognized as worthwhile ""A good life is one that is characterized by complete absorption in what one does ""We are the masters of our own destiny ""Repression is not the way to virtue. When people restrain themselves out of fear, their lives are by necessity diminished ""Each person allocates his or her limited attention either by focusing it intentionally like a beam of energy or by diffusing it in desultory random movements ""It is not the skills we actually have that determine how we feel but the skills we think we have ""Work is a lasting way to manage time and the self""One of the most effective ways to improve a job's flow potential is to structure it so that it resembles a game""Attention shapes the self, and is in turn shaped by it""The elements of strength, clarity, and simplicity contribute to the beauty of a flow activity""The roots of happiness grow deepest in the soil of action"

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