382 Quotes by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

If the firms that employ an increasing majority of the population are driven solely to satisfy the owner’s greed at the expense of working conditions, of the stability of the community, and of the health of the environment, chances are that the quality of our lives will be worse than it is now.

If I were starving, I would have taken her money. But since I am not, why should I make a deal that isn’t any fun? I enjoy the clash of wits involved in bargaining, when two persons try to outdo each other with ruses and with eloquence. She didn’t even flinch. She didn’t know any better. She didn’t pay me the respect of assuming that I was going to try to take advantage of her. If I had sold those pieces to that woman at that ridiculous price, I would have felt cheated.

If you are pained by external things, it is not they that disturb you, but your own judgment of them. And it is in your power to wipe out that judgment now.

Thus we might think of consciousness as intentionally ordered information. This.

By nature, however, we are born ignorant. Therefore should we not try to learn? Some people produce more than the usual amount of androgens and therefore become excessively aggressive. Does that mean they should freely express violence? We cannot deny the facts of nature, but we should certainly try to improve on them.

At certain times in history cultures have taken it for granted that a person wasn’t fully human unless he or she learned to master thoughts and feelings.

If a leader demonstrates that his purpose is noble, that the work will enable people to connect with something large – more permanent than their material existence – people will give the best of themselves to the enterprise.

The body is like a probe full of sensitive devices that tries to obtain what information it can from the awesome reaches of space.

It sounds somewhat ridiculous to say that one of the problems we face at this point in history is that we haven’t learned how to spend free time in a sensible way.