Martin Seligman Quotes

Quotes about:

• Optimism generates hope...hope releases dreams...dreams set goals...enthusiasm follows

  Martin Seligman

  Dream, Goal, Optimism

  31 Copy quote

• The aim of Positive Psychology is to catalyze a change in psychology from a preoccupation only with repairing the worst things in life to also building the best qualities in life.

  Martin Seligman

  Things In Life, Psychology, Quality

  121 Copy quote

• Doing a kindness produces the single most reliable momentary increase in well-being of any exercise we have tested.

  Martin Seligman

  Kindness, Exercise, Increase

  Martin Seligman (2011). “Flourish”, p.33, Nicholas Brealey Publishing

  115 Copy quote

• The good life is using your signature strengths every day to produce authentic happiness and abundant gratification.

  Martin Seligman

  Happiness, Good Life, Signatures

  Martin Seligman (2011). “Authentic Happiness”, p.20, Nicholas Brealey Publishing

  127 Copy quote

• Life inflicts the same setbacks and tragedies on the optimist as on the pessimist, but the optimist weathers them better.

  Martin Seligman

  Weather, Tragedy, Pessimist

  Martin E.P. Seligman (2011). “Learned Optimism: How to Change Your Mind and Your Life”, p.312, Vintage

  145 Copy quote

• Changing the destructive things you say to yourself when you experience the setbacks that life deals all of us is the central skill of optimism.

  Martin Seligman

  Skills, Optimism, Deals

  Martin E.P. Seligman (2011). “Learned Optimism: How to Change Your Mind and Your Life”, p.39, Vintage

  110 Copy quote

• When we take time to notice the things that go right - it means we're getting a lot of little rewards throughout the day.

  Martin Seligman

  Mean, Rewards, Littles

  "11 Little Victories To Celebrate, Just Because" By Kate Bratskeir, www.huffingtonpost.com. May 16, 2013.

  100 Copy quote

• Habits of thinking need not be forever. One of the most significant findings in psychology in the last twenty years is that individuals choose the way they think.

  Martin Seligman

  Spiritual, Thinking, Years

  Martin E.P. Seligman (2011). “Learned Optimism: How to Change Your Mind and Your Life”, p.30, Vintage

  111 Copy quote

• Psychology should be just as concerned with building strength as with repairing damage

  Martin Seligman

  Motivation, Inspiration, Psychology

  109 Copy quote

• Well-being cannot exist just in your own head. Well-being is a combination of feeling good as well as actually having meaning, good relationships and accomplishment.

  Martin Seligman

  Accomplishment, Good Relationship, Feel Good

  Martin Seligman (2011). “Flourish”, p.37, Nicholas Brealey Publishing

  86 Copy quote

• The good life consists in deriving happiness by using your signature strengths every day in the main realms of living. The meaningful life adds one more component: using these same strengths to forward knowledge, power, or goodness. A life that does this is pregnant with meaning, and if God comes at the end, such a life is sacred.

  Martin Seligman

  Meaningful, Good Life, Signatures

  Martin Seligman (2011). “Authentic Happiness”, p.224, Nicholas Brealey Publishing

  97 Copy quote

• When well-being comes from engaging our strengths and virtues, our lives are imbued with authenticity.

  Martin Seligman

  Psychology, Authenticity, Virtue

  Martin Seligman (2011). “Authentic Happiness”, p.17, Nicholas Brealey Publishing

  88 Copy quote

• Optimism is a tool with a certain clear set of benefits: it fights depression, it promotes achievement and produces better health.

  Martin Seligman

  Fighting, Optimism, Achievement

  75 Copy quote

• Curing the negatives does not produce the positives.

  Martin Seligman

  Doe, Produce

  Martin E.P. Seligman (2011). “Learned Optimism: How to Change Your Mind and Your Life”, p.10, Vintage

  45 Copy quote

• You go into flow when your highest strengths are deployed to meet the highest challenges that come your way.

  Martin Seligman

  Challenges, Way, Flow

  Martin Seligman (2011). “Flourish”, p.37, Nicholas Brealey Publishing

  61 Copy quote

• Just as the good life is something beyond the pleasant life, the meaningful life is beyond the good life.

  Martin Seligman

  Meaningful, Good Life, Life Is

  Martin Seligman (2011). “Authentic Happiness”, p.20, Nicholas Brealey Publishing

  81 Copy quote

• The defining characteristic of pessimists is that they tend to believe that bad events will last a long time, will undermine everything they do, and are their own fault. The optimists, who are confronted with the same hard knocks of this world, think about misfortune in the opposite way. They tend to believe that defeat is just a temporary setback or a challenge, that its causes are just confined to this one case.

  Martin Seligman

  Believe, Thinking, Opposites

  95 Copy quote

• So Positive Psychology takes seriously the bright hope that if you find yourself stuck in the parking lot of life, with few and only ephemeral pleasures, with minimal gratifications, and without meaning, there is a road out. This road takes you through the countryside of pleasure and gratification, up into the high country of strength and virtue, and finally to the peaks of lasting fulfillment: meaning and purpose

  Martin Seligman

  Country, Psychology, Finding Yourself

  Martin Seligman (2011). “Authentic Happiness”, p.10, Nicholas Brealey Publishing

  97 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

  18 Copy quote

• We're not prisoners of the past.

  Martin Seligman

  Past, Prisoner

  17 Copy quote

• Reaching beyond where you are is really important.

  Martin Seligman

  Important, Positive Psychology, Reaching

  32 Copy quote

• Optimism is invaluable for the meaningful life. With a firm belief in a positive future, you can throw yourself into the service of that which is larger than you are.

  Martin Seligman

  Meaningful, Optimism, Belief

  Martin E.P. Seligman (2011). “Learned Optimism: How to Change Your Mind and Your Life”, p.11, Vintage

  21 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

  30 Copy quote

• We deprive our children, our charges, of persistence. What I am trying to say is that we need to fail, children need to fail, we need to feel sad, anxious and anguished. If we impulsively protect ourselves and our children, as the feel-good movement suggests, we deprive them of learning-persistence skills.

  Martin Seligman

  Children, Persistence, Skills

  82 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

  73 Copy quote

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