Pleasure is an important component of the quality of life, but by itself it does not bring happiness. Pleasure helps to maintain order, but by itself cannot create a new order in consciousness. - Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
We cannot deny the facts of nature, but we should certainly try to improve on them. - Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
As long as we respond predictably to what feels good and what feels bad, it is easy for others to exploit our preferences for their own ends. - Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
A person who forgoes the use of his symbolic skills is never really free. - Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
People who learn to control inner experience will be able to determine the quality of their lives, which is as close as any of us can come to being happy. - Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
Those who seek consolation in existing churches often pay for their peace of mind with a tacit agreement to ignore a great deal of what is known about the way the world works. - Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
There are two main strategies we can adopt to improve the quality of life. The first is to try making external conditions match our goals. The second is to change how we experience external conditions to make them fit our goals better. - Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
Repression is not the way to virtue. When people restrain themselves out of fear, their lives are by necessity diminished. Only through freely chosen discipline can life be enjoyed and still kept within the bounds of reason. - Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
Entropy is the normal state of consciousness - a condition that is neither useful nor enjoyable. - Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
People without an internalized symbolic system can all too easily become captives of the media. - Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
Without the capacity to provide its own information, the mind drifts into randomness. - Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
It does not seem to be true that work necessarily needs to be unpleasant. It may always have to be hard, or at least harder than doing nothing at all. But there is ample evidence that work can be enjoyable, and that indeed, it is often the most enjoyable part of life. - Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
Enjoyment appears at the boundary between boredom and anxiety, when the challenges are just balanced with the person's capacity to act. - Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
The key to flow is to pursue an activity for its own sake, not for the rewards it brings."--(psychologist on the state of being he calls "flow") - Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
A joyful life is an individual creation that cannot be copied from a recipe. - Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
It is how people respond to stress that determines whether they will profit from misfortune or be miserable. - Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi