Martin Seligman Quotes - Page 2

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Achievement Belief Challenges Children Emotions Exercise Feelings

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.

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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

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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

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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

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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

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It's a matter of ABC: When we encounter ADVERSITY, we react by thinking about it. Our thoughts rapidly congeal into BELIEFS. These beliefs may become so habitual we don't even realize we have them unless we stop to focus on them. And they don't just sit there idly; they have CONSEQUENCES.

Martin Seligman

Adversity, Thinking, Focus

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

Martin Seligman

Past, Emotion, Pursue

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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

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There is one aspect of happiness that's been well studied, and it's the notion of flow. Ask yourselves, when for you does time stop? When are you truly at home, wanting to be no place else?

Martin Seligman

Home, Doe, Flow

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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

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To be a virtuous person is to display, by acts of will, all or at least most of the six ubiquitous virtues: wisdom, courage, humanity, justice, temperance, and transcendence.

Martin Seligman

Justice, Humanity, Six

Martin Seligman (2011). “Authentic Happiness”, p.121, Nicholas Brealey Publishing

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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

Martin Seligman

Self Esteem, Needs, Results

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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

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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

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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

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

Martin Seligman

Zero, Enabling, Plus

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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

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Pleasure is the least consequential... engagement and meaning are much more important.

Martin Seligman

Important, Engagement, Pleasure

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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

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Born: August 12, 1942
Occupation: Psychologist
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