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 More Quotes by Martin Seligman More Quotes From Martin Seligman 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 accomplish-nothing self-esteem depression By activating an expansive, tolerant, and creative mindset, positive feelings maximize the social, intellectual, and physical benefits that will accrue. Martin Seligman psychology creative feelings The pleasant life: a life that successfully pursues the positive emotions about the present, past, and future. Martin Seligman pursue emotion past We're not prisoners of the past. Martin Seligman prisoner past What are the enabling conditions that make human beings flourish? How do we get from zero to plus five? Martin Seligman plus enabling zero I'm trying to broaden the scope of positive psychology well beyond the smiley face. Happiness is just one-fifth of what human beings choose to do. Martin Seligman psychology faces trying 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 passionate-desire giving-up believe Finding temporary and specific causes for misfortune is the art of hope: Temporary causes limit helplessness in time, and specific causes limit helplessness to the original situation. Martin Seligman limits hope art What determines how much time and deliberate practice a child is willing to devote to achievement? Nothing less than her character. Martin Seligman practice character children Whether or not we have hope depends on two dimensions of our explanatory style; pervasiveness and permanence. Martin Seligman style hope two The Fundamentalist Religions simply seem to offer more hope for a brighter future than do the more liberal, humanistic ones. Martin Seligman brighter-future fundamentalist-religion psychology Some find that very optimistic people have benign illusions about themselves. These people may think they have more control, or more skill, than they actually do. Others have found that optimistic people have a good handle on reality. The jury is still out. Martin Seligman optimistic reality thinking Pleasure is the least consequential... engagement and meaning are much more important. Martin Seligman engagement pleasure important Money, amazingly, is losing its power... Our economy is rapidly changing from a money economy to a satisfaction economy. Martin Seligman economy satisfaction losing Finding permanent and universal causes for misfortune is the practice of despair. Martin Seligman despair causes practice The drive to resist compulsion is more important in wild animals than sex, food, or water... The drive for competence or to resist compulsion is a drive to avoid helplessness. Martin Seligman animal water sex On the other hand, permanent causes produce helplessness far into the future, and universal causes spread helplessness through all your endeavors. Martin Seligman future causes hands Flow occurs in your life when your highest skills are matched to challenges that quite exactly meet them. Martin Seligman flow skills challenges Ten years ago, when I was on an airplane and I introduced myself to my seatmate, and told them [I was a psychologist], they'd move away from me. ... And now when I tell people what I do, they move toward me. Martin Seligman motivation inspiration moving If we just wanted positive emotions, our species would have died out a long time ago. Martin Seligman emotion wanted long
