M Csikszentmihalyi Quotes & Sayings

They disregard the quality of immediate experience, and base their motivation instead on the strongly rooted cultural stereotype of what work is supposed to be like. — Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

Knowing oneself is not so much a question of discovering what is present in one's self, but rather the creation of who one wants to be. — Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

For a person to become deeply involved in any activity it is essential that he knows precisely what tasks he must accomplish, moment by moment. — Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

If we assume, however, that the desire to achieve optimal experience is the foremost goal of every human being, the difficulties of interpretation raised by cultural relativism become less severe. Each social system can then be evaluated in terms of how much psychic entropy it causes, measuring that disorder not with reference to the ideal order of one or another belief system, but with reference to the goals of the members of that society. — Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

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 — Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

The sacred books of Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, and the Veda are the best repositories of the ideas that mattered most to our ancestors, and to ignore them is an act of childish conceit. But it is equally naive to believe that whatever was written down in the past contains an absolute truth that lasts forever. — Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

Optimal experience is thus something that we make happen. — Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

In large organizations the dilution of information as it passes up and down the hierarchy, and horizontally across departments, can undermine the effort to focus on common goals. — Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

What love is to the heart, appetite is to the stomach. The stomach is the conductor that leads and livens up the great orchestra of our emotions. — Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

The mental framework that makes science enjoyable is accessible to everyone. It involves curiosity, careful observation, a disciplined way of recording events, and finding ways to tease out the underlying regularities in what one learns. It also requires the humility to be willing to learn from the results of past investigators, coupled with enough skepticism and openness of mind to reject beliefs that are not sup-ported by facts. — Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

The roots of the word "compete" are the Latin con petire, which meant "to seek together. — Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

People enter Web sites hoping to be led somewhere, hoping for a payoff. — Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

The universe is not hostile, nor yet is it friendly," in the words of J. H. Holmes. "It is simply indifferent. — Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

The key to flow is to pursue an activity for its own sake, not for the rewards it brings."
(psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi on the state of being he calls "flow") — Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

The only path to finding out what life is about is a patient, slow attempt to make sense of the realities of the past and the possibilities of the future as they can be understood in the present. — Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

Control of consciousness determines the quality of life. — Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

We shape our life by deciding to pay attention to it. It is the direction of our attention and its intensity that will determines what we accomplish and how well. — Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

Jane Fonda, who divided her life into three acts, decided after her sixtieth birthday that she was now facing the final act, and came to the following conclusion: "I thought to myself, well if that's the case and if what I'm scared of isn't death, but getting to the end with regrets, then I've got to figure out what would be the things that I would regret when I got to the last act if I hadn't done them or achieved them by then. And they were: having an intimate relationship and having made a difference." — Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

I mean, we're only here for a short while. And I think it's such a lucky accident, having been born, that we're almost obliged to pay attention. In some ways, this is getting far afield. I mean, we are - as far as we know - the only part of the universe that's self-conscious. We could even be the universe's form of consciousness. — Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

The gods of the Greeks were like helpless children compared to humankind today and the powers we now wield. — Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

And, in fact, you can find that the lack of basic resources, material resources, contributes to unhappiness, but the increase in material resources do not increase happiness. — Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

If the functions of the body are left to atrophy, the quality of life becomes merely adequate, and for some even dismal. But if one takes control of what the body can do, and learns to impose order on physical sensations, entropy yields to a sense of enjoyable harmony in consciousness. — Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

Only through freely chosen discipline can life be enjoyed, and still kept within the bounds of reason. If a person learns to control his instinctual desires, not because he has to, but because he wants to, he can enjoy himself without becoming addicted. A — Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

The flow experience, like everything else, is not "good" in an absolute sense. It is good only in that it has the potential to make life more rich, intense, and meaningful; it is good because it increases the strength and complexity of the self. — Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

To be overcome with the ultimate goal often interferes with performance. — Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

To realize the body's potential for flow is relatively easy. It does not require special talents or great expenditures of money. Everyone can greatly improve the quality of life by exploring one or more previously ignored dimensions of physical abilities. Of — Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

For the first few hundred years of American history, food preparation was generally approached in a no-nonsense manner. Even as late as twenty-five years ago, the general attitude was that "feeding your face" was all right, but to make too much fuss about it was somehow decadent. In the past two decades, of course, the trend has reversed itself so sharply that earlier misgivings about gastronomic excesses seem almost to have been justified. Now we have "foodies" and wine freaks who take the pleasures of the palate as seriously as if they were rites in a brand-new religion. Gourmet — Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

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. — Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

Writing gives the mind a disciplined means of expression. — Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

To gain control over the quality of experience, one needs to learn how to build enjoyment into what happens day in, day out. — Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

no worthwhile effort in one's life is either a success or a failure. — Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

Those periods of struggling to overcome challenges are what people find to be the most enjoyable times. — Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi