Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi Quotes

85 Sourced Quotes

Whether we like it or not, each of us is constrained by limits on what we can do and feel. To ignore these limits leads to denial and eventually to failure. To achieve excellence, we must first understand the reality of the everyday, with all its demands

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
A joyful life is an individual creation that cannot be copied from a recipe.

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
The ability to take misfortune and make something good come of it is a rare gift. Those who possess it are..said to have resilience or courage.

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
A business is successful to the extent that it provides a product or service that contributes to happiness in all of its forms.

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
The downside, of course, is that over time religions become encrusted with precepts and ideas that are the antithesis of soul, as each faith tries to protect its doctrines and institution instead of nurturing the evolution of consciousness. If one is not careful to distinguish the genuine insights of a religion from its irrelevant accretions, one can go through life following an inappropriate moral compass.

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
But it is impossible to enjoy a tennis game, a book, or a conversation unless attention is fully concentrated on the activity.

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
The rules themselves are clear enough, and within everyone's reach. But many forces, both within ourselves and in the environment, stand in the way. It is a little like trying to lose weight: everyone knows what it takes, everyone wants to do it, yet it is next to impossible for so many.

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
You yourself are in an ecstatic state to such a point that you feel as though you almost don't exist. I've experienced this time and again. My hand seems devoid of myself, and I have nothing to do with what is happening. I just sit there watching in a state of awe and wonderment. And it just flows out by itself.

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
To know oneself is the first step toward making flow a part of one's entire life. But just as there is no free lunch in the material economy, nothing comes free in the psychic one. If one is not willing to invest psychic energy in the internal reality of consciousness, and instead squanders it in chasing external rewards, one loses mastery of one's life, and ends up becoming a puppet of circumstances.

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
The best moments in our lives are not the passive, receptive, relaxing times...the best moments usually occur when a person's body or mind is stretched to it's limited in voluntary effort to accomplish something difficult and worthwhile.

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi