If we just wanted positive emotions, our species would have died out a long time ago. Martin Seligman More Quotes by Martin Seligman More Quotes From Martin Seligman Life inflicts the same setbacks and tragedies on the optimist as on the pessimist, but the optimist weathers them better. Martin Seligman pessimisttragedyweather Doing a kindness produces the single most reliable momentary increase in well-being of any exercise we have tested. Martin Seligman increasekindnessexercise The good life is using your signature strengths every day to produce authentic happiness and abundant gratification. Martin Seligman good-lifesignatureshappiness 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 psychologythings-in-lifequality 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 spiritualyearsthinking 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 dealsoptimismskills Psychology should be just as concerned with building strength as with repairing damage Martin Seligman psychologymotivationinspiration 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 rewardslittlesmean Optimism generates hope...hope releases dreams...dreams set goals...enthusiasm follows Martin Seligman optimismgoaldream 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 oppositesbelievethinking 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 good-lifesignaturesmeaningful Optimism is a tool with a certain clear set of benefits: it fights depression, it promotes achievement and produces better health. Martin Seligman optimismachievementfighting When well-being comes from engaging our strengths and virtues, our lives are imbued with authenticity. Martin Seligman authenticitypsychologyvirtue 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 good-relationshipaccomplishmentfeel-good Just as the good life is something beyond the pleasant life, the meaningful life is beyond the good life. Martin Seligman good-lifelife-ismeaningful 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 finding-yourselfpsychologycountry 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 optimismbeliefmeaningful You go into flow when your highest strengths are deployed to meet the highest challenges that come your way. Martin Seligman flowchallengesway 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 persistenceskillschildren 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 exercisejoypeople
