There is an interesting scientific dispute about realism and optimism. Some find that very optimistic people have benign illusions about themselves. These… — Martin Seligman Copy Share Image
The good life consists in deriving happiness by using your signature strengths every day in the main realms of living. The meaningful… — Martin Seligman Copy Share Image
Positive thinking is the notion that if you think good thoughts, things will work out well. Optimism is the feeling of thinking… — Martin Seligman Copy Share Image
Rather than giving people an inflated view of themselves, we need to give them concrete reasons to feel good about themselves. — Martin Seligman Copy Share Image
There are physical characteristics which are inherited. These include things like good looks, high intelligence, physical coordination. These attributes contribute to success… — Martin Seligman Copy Share Image
Optimistic people generally feel that good things will last a long time and will have a beneficial effect on everything they do.… — Martin Seligman Copy Share Image
I think you can be depressed and flourish, I think you can have cancer and flourish, I think you can be divorced… — Martin Seligman Copy Share Image
The goal of a life free of dysphoria is a snare and a delusion. A better goal is of good commerce with… — Martin Seligman Copy Share Image
You can have meaning, accomplishment, engagement and good relationships, even if you are dull on the positive affect side. — Martin Seligman Copy Share Image
It used to be that whenever I introduced myself to people and told them I was a psychologist, they would shrink away from me.… — Martin Seligman Copy Share Image
I have never worked on interrogation; I have never seen an interrogation, and I have only a passing knowledge of the literature on interrogation.… — Martin Seligman Copy Share Image
I'm trying to broaden the scope of positive psychology well beyond the smiley face. Happiness is just one-fifth of what human beings choose to… — Martin Seligman Copy Share Image
It's a matter of ABC: When we encounter ADVERSITY, we react by thinking about it. Our thoughts rapidly congeal into BELIEFS. These beliefs may… — Martin Seligman Copy Share Image
One of the things psychologists used to say was that if you are depressed, anxious or angry, you couldn't be happy. Those were at… — Martin Seligman Copy Share Image
It is the combination of reasonable talent and the ability to keep going in the face of defeat that leads to success. — Martin Seligman Copy Share Image
Psychology is much bigger than just medicine, or fixing unhealthy things. It's about education, work, marriage - it's even about sports. What I want… — Martin Seligman Copy Share Image
What humans want is not just happiness. They want justice; they want meaning. — Martin Seligman Copy Share Image
I have spent most of my life working with mental illness. I have been president of the world's largest association of mental-illness workers, and… — Martin Seligman Copy Share Image
Finding permanent and universal causes for misfortune is the practice of despair... — Martin Seligman Copy Share Image
We deprive our children, our charges, of persistence. What I am trying to say is that we need to fail, children need to fail,… — Martin Seligman Copy Share Image
One of my worries about America is the epidemic of depression we've been in. One of the possibilities about that is that the 'I'… — Martin Seligman Copy Share Image
