106 Quotes by 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.

Not only do happy people endure pain better and take more health and safety precautions when threatened, but positive emotions undo negative emotions.

To the scientists of the Renaissance, your critic was really your ally, helping you advance upon reality. Critics in science are not like drama critics, determining flops and successes. Criticism to scientists is just another means of finding out whether they're wrong, like running another experiment to see if it confirms or refutes a theory. Along with the advocacy principle of the courtroom, it is one of the best ways human beings have evolved to get closer to the truth.

What determines how much time and deliberate practice a child is willing to devote to achievement? Nothing less than her character.

Money, amazingly, is losing its power... Our economy is rapidly changing from a money economy to a satisfaction economy.

Flow occurs in your life when your highest skills are matched to challenges that quite exactly meet them.

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.

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

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.