Top 500 Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi Quotes (2024 Update)

1. “The happiest people spend much time in a state of flow – the state in which people are so involved in an activity that nothing else seems to matter; the experience itself is so enjoyable that people will do it even at great cost, for the sheer sake of doing it.”

— Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

2. “Flow is being completely involved in an activity for its own sake. The ego falls away. Time flies. Every action, movement, and thought follows inevitably from the previous one, like playing jazz.”

— Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

3. “A joyful life is an individual creation that cannot be copied from a recipe.”

— Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

4. “Act as if the future of the universe depends on what you do, while laughing at yourself for thinking that your actions make any difference.”

— Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

5. “A person can make himself happy, or miserable, regardless of what is actually happening ‘outside,’ just by changing the contents of consciousness.”

— Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

6. “Those periods of struggling to overcome challenges are what people find to be the most enjoyable times.”

— Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

7. “Purpose provides activation energy for living.”

— Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

8. “Control of consciousness determines the quality of life.”

— Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

9. “Goals transform a random walk into a chase.”

— Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

10. “A typical day is full of anxiety and boredom. Flow experiences provide the flashes of intense living against this dull background.”

— Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

11. “Knowing oneself is not so much a question of discovering what is present in one’s self, but rather the creation of who one wants to be.”

— Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

12. “Happiness does not simply happen to us. It’s something that we make happen.”

— Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

13. “Take charge of your schedule. Make time for reflection and relaxation.”

— Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

14. “One cannot lead a life that is truly excellent without feeling that one belongs to something greater and more permanent than oneself.”

— Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

15. “It is essential to learn to enjoy life. It really does not make sense to go through the motions of existence if one does not appreciate as much of it as possible.”

— Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

16. “It is by being fully involved with every detail of our lives, whether good or bad, that we find happiness, not by trying to look for it directly.”

— Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

Featured in: Happiness Quotes

17. “Contrary to what most of us believe, happiness does not simply happen to us. It’s something that we make happen, and it results from doing our best. Feeling fulfilled when we live up to our potentialities is what motivates differentiation and leads to evolution.”

— Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

18. “Wake up in the morning with a specific goal to look forward to.”

— Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

19. “If you do anything well, it becomes enjoyable. To keep enjoying something, you need to increase its complexity.”

— Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

20. “Flow is hard to achieve without effort. Flow is not ’wasting time.”

— Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

21. “It is when we act freely, for the sake of the action itself rather than for ulterior motives, that we learn to become more than what we were.”

— Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

22. “For better or worse, our future will be determined in large part by our dreams and by the struggle to make them real.”

— Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

23. “It is how people respond to stress that determines whether they will profit from misfortune or be miserable.”

— Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

24. “Competition is an easy way to get into flow.”

— Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

25. “If we are so rich, why aren’t we happy?”

— Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

26. “Enjoyment appears at the boundary between boredom and anxiety, when the challenges are just balanced with the person’s capacity to act.”

— Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

27. “Socializing is more positive than being alone, that’s why meetings are so popular. People don’t like being alone. That would be, however, an important skill to learn...”

— Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

28. “Attention is psychic energy, and like physical energy, unless we allocate some part of it to the task at hand, no work gets done.”

— Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

29. “To be creative, a person has to internalize the entire system that makes creativity possible. Creative individuals are remarkable for their ability to adapt to almost any situation and to make do with whatever is at hand to reach their goals.”

— Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

30. “Optimal experience is that rare occasion when we feel a sense of exhilaration, a deep sense of enjoyment that is long cherished and that becomes a landmark in memory for what life should be like.”

— Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

31. “Repeatedly we question the necessity of our actions and evaluate critically the reasons for carrying them out. But in flow there is no need to reflect, because the action carries us forward as if by magic.”

— Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

32. “The task is to learn how to enjoy everyday life without diminishing other people’s chances to enjoy theirs.”

— Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

33. “It is better to look suffering straight in the eye, acknowledge and respect it’s presence, and then get busy as soon as possible focusing on things we choose to focus on.”

— Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

34. “People generally report higher levels of stress, depression, and tension after watching TV. It seems that TV’s main virtue is that it occupies the mind undemandingly.”

— Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

35. “Even without success, creative persons find joy in a job well done. Learning for its own sake is rewarding.”

— Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

36. “Most enjoyable activities are not natural; they demand an effort that initially one is reluctant to make. But once the interaction starts to provide feedback to the person’s skills, it usually begins to be intrinsically rewarding.”

— Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

37. “Some individuals have developed such strong internal standards that they no longer need the opinion of others to judge whether they have performed a task well or not. The ability to give objective feedback to oneself is in fact the mark of the expert.”

— Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

Featured in: Strong Quotes

38. “If we agree that the bottom line of life is happiness, not success, then it makes perfect sense to say that it is the journey that counts, not reaching the destination.”

— Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

39. “Other things equal, a life filled with complex flow activities is more worth living than one spent consuming passive entertainment.”

— Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

40. “To gain control over the quality of experience, one needs to learn how to build enjoyment into what happens day in, day out.”

— Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

41. “For a person to become deeply involved in any activity it is essential that he knows precisely what tasks he must accomplish, moment by moment.”

— Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

42. “Competition is enjoyable only when it is a means to perfect one’s skills; when it becomes an end in itself, it ceases to be fun.”

— Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

Featured in: Fun Quotes

43. “Find out what you like and what you hate about life. Start doing more of what you love, less of what you hate.”

— Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

44. “Look at problems from as many viewpoints as possible. Figure out the implications of the problem. Implement the solution.”

— Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

45. “The most important step in emancipating oneself from social controls is the ability to find rewards in the events of each moment.”

— Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

46. “Often we don’t have a good notion of what our talents are, because we have never had a chance to try them out.”

— Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

47. “Develop what you lack.”

— Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

48. “Creativity is any act, idea, or product that changes an existing domain, or that transforms an existing domain into a new one What counts is whether the novelty he or she produces is accepted for inclusion in the domain.”

— Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

49. “To be successful you have to enjoy doing your best while at the same time contributing to something beyond yourself.”

— Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

50. “One of the most frequently mentioned dimensions of the flow experience is that, while it lasts, one is able to forget all the unpleasant aspects of life.”

— Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi