382 Quotes by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

When people restrain themselves out of fear, their lives are by necessity diminished. They become rigid and defensive, and their self stops growing.

Repeatedly we question the necessity of our actions and evaluate critically the reasons for carrying them out. But in flow there is no need to reflect, because the action carries us forward as if by magic.

Try to be surprised by something every day.

When a religion or ideology becomes dominant, the lack of controls will result in widening spirals of license leading to degradation and corruption.

If an enterprise does not aspire to be the best of its kind, it will attract second-rate employees, and it will be soon forgotten.

Often we don't have a good notion of what our talents are, because we have never had a chance to try them out.

Participate as fully as possibly in the world around you.

To be overcome with the ultimate goal often interferes with performance.

I have devoted 30 years of research to how creative people live and work, to make more understandable the mysterious process by which they come up with new ideas and new things. If I had to express in one word what makes their personalities different from others, it's complexity. They show tendencies of thought and action that in most people are segregated. They contain contradictory extremes; instead of being an individual, each of them is a multitude.