Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

"To be creative is to be fully human. To inhibit creativity is to diminish ourselves."

"The most meaningful relationships are those where both people are fully engaged in each other's growth."

"Without pain, there is no growth. Without growth, there is no life."

"The present moment is the only moment that is truly yours."

"To find happiness, stop looking for it and start building the conditions that produce it."

"The structure of the self is determined by the systems of goals one has internalized."

"Life becomes meaningful when we stop asking what we can get from it and start asking what we can give to it."

"Every person is an artist. The question is whether they choose to be a conscious artist or an unconscious one."

"The deepest forms of happiness come from mastering challenges that are worthwhile."

"To be fully present with another person is the greatest form of love."

"The more complex your self becomes, the more life you can enjoy."

"The best moments in our lives are not the passive, receptive, relaxing times... The best moments usually occur if a person's body or mind is stretched to its limits in a voluntary effort to accomplish something difficult and worthwhile."

"Creativity is not a talent. It is a way of operating."

"The ownership of possessions can become a burden. We are defined not by what we own, but by what we do and how we think."

"When we stop trying to be everything to everyone, we can be everything to someone."

"The ability to find joy in the mundane is the greatest skill one can develop."

"A person can make himself happy, or miserable, regardless of what is actually happening. The key is the goals he or she is working toward."

"Attention is like energy—we have a limited amount, and where we direct it shapes our reality."

"Boredom and anxiety are signposts that your skills and challenges are misaligned."

"The autotelic personality transforms potentially threatening situations into enjoyable challenges."

"We cannot live only for ourselves. A thousand fibers connect us with our fellow men; and among those fibers, as sympathetic threads, we feel a responsibility for the lives of others."

"The paradox of the self is that it can grow only by transcending itself, by losing itself in the larger world around it."

"Memory is the theater of the mind where experience is transformed into understanding."

"A broken heart is an open heart."

"The struggle against chaos creates order, and the struggle against order creates freedom."

"What we fear doing most is usually what we most need to do."

"The quality of life does not depend on happiness alone, but on how engaged we are."

"Passion and interest are not the same. One is sustainable; the other is fleeting."

"When we learn to value the intrinsic aspects of activities, external rewards become less important."

"The self becomes complex as it accumulates experiences and perspectives."