Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

"Perseverance is the willingness to continue despite setbacks and uncertainty."

"Gratitude transforms our experience by directing attention toward what sustains us."

"Justice requires both wisdom and compassion applied with consistency and courage."

"Patience with ourselves is as important as patience with others."

"Kindness costs nothing but returns immeasurable dividends."

"Fear often reveals what we care about most."

"The measure of power is not control over others, but ability to shape one's own experience."

"The best moments usually occur when a person's body or mind is stretched to its limits in a voluntary effort to accomplish something difficult and worthwhile."

"Complexity is good. Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication."

"The purpose of life is to make your heartbeat match the beat of the universe, to match your nature with Nature."

"Flow is being completely involved in an activity for its own sake. The ego falls away. Time flies."

"The only way to make sense out of change is to plunge into it, move with it, and join the dance."

"To overcome the anxieties and depressions of contemporary life, individuals must become independent of the social environment to the degree that they no longer respond exclusively in terms of its rewards and punishments."

"Unless we are willing to encourage our youth to dream, we can never expect them to think."

"Nothing is as efficient as losing yourself in the present moment."

"A person who lives fully is prepared to die at any moment."

"The goal of life is to make your life into a work of art."

"A wealthy life is one where you control what you think about, how you spend your attention."

"The happiness of a person does not depend on external things. It depends on what happens in the brain."

"Without adversity and challenge, there is no growth."

"The self is not something we are born with. It is continually created as we interact with the world around us."

"Enjoyment appears at the boundary between boredom and anxiety, when the challenges are just balanced with the person's capacity to act."

"You cannot live a fulfilling life if you don't know who you are."

"The universe makes no sense without you."

"Many people spend their lives climbing the ladder of success only to discover it was leaning against the wrong wall."

"Consciousness is our ultimate reality. It is the one thing we know directly."

"The ability to take joy in one's actual circumstances is a chief source of happiness."

"Attention is like energy in physics. You direct it, you control where it goes."

"Creative individuals are remarkable for their ability to adapt to almost any situation and to make productive use of whatever is at hand."

"One of the oldest and most universal custom is the game of improving the present moment by picturing a rosy future."