I'm all for past influences; the question is whether they are deterministic. Freud and the behaviorists argue that what we are at any given moment is billiard balls whose past determines our future course. That doesn't take into account that… — 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
The Fundamentalist Religions simply seem to offer more hope for a brighter future than do the more liberal, humanistic ones. — Martin Seligman Copy Share Image
If the point of the inner-child movement is to cure adult problems, it doesn't work. Reliving childhood traumas gives you a nice afterglow, but… — Martin Seligman Copy Share Image
