Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
8 quotes
Biography
"Control of consciousness determines the quality of life."
"But shortcuts are dangerous; we cannot delude ourselves that our knowledge is further along than it actually is."
"The best moments in our lives, are not the passive, receptive, relaxing times—although such experiences can also be enjoyable, if we have worked hard to attain them. The best moments usually occur when a person’s body or mind is stretched to its limits in a voluntary effort to accomplish something difficult and worthwhile."
"Optimal experience is thus something that we make happen. For a child, it could be placing with trembling fingers the last block on a tower she has built, higher than any she has built so far; for a swimmer, it could be trying to beat his own record; for a violinist, mastering an intricate musical passage. For each person there are thousands of opportunities, challenges to expand ourselves."
"And, in fact, you can find that the lack of basic resources, material resources, contributes to unhappiness, but the increase in material resources do not increase happiness."
"Enjoyment appears at the boundary between boredom and anxiety, when the challenges are just balanced with the person's capacity to act."
"The key to flow is to pursue an activity for its own sake, not for the rewards it brings."--(psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi on the state of being he calls "flow")"
"Creativity is a central source of meaning in our lives . . . most of the things that are interesting important and human are the results of creativity . . . when we are involved in it we feel that we are living more fully than during the rest of life."