Quotessence
Home / Authors / Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi Quotes

Professor

Filter quotes by topic

AllIfsPeopleBusinessFlowPersonsGoalCreativityConsciousnessFeelsHappinessDoeEnergyIndividualActionHappensQualityTryingWayAttentionSelf

Famous Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi Quotes

“If there is one word that makes creative people different from others, it is the word complexity. Instead of being an individual, they are a multitude. Like the color white that includes all colors, they tend to bring together the entire range of human possibilities within themselves. Creativity allows for paradox, light, shadow, inconsistency, even chaos -and creative people experience both extremes with equal intensity.”

PeopleIfsHumansDifferentLightTogetherIndividualWhiteCreativityCreativePossibilityColorEqualShadowChaosExtremesRangeComplexityParadoxIntensityMultitudesOne WordCreative PeopleInconsistencyColor White
Author:Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
Create image

“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. To achieve such autonomy, a person has to learn to provide rewards to herself. She has to develop the ability to find enjoyment and purpose regardless of external circumstances.”

PersonsPurposeIndividualSocialTermAbilityEnvironmentAchieveCircumstancesDegreesAnxietyOvercomingIndependentRewardsPunishmentContemporaryEnjoymentAutonomyReward And PunishmentSocial EnvironmentContemporary Life
Book:Flow: the psychology of optimal experience
Create image

“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.”

NeedsGivingWellsFactsIndividualStrongAbilityBusinessOpinionJudgingStandardsTasksMarkOneselfObjectivesExpertsInternalsFeedback
Book:Good Business: Leadership, Flow, and the Making of Meaning
Create image

“Many business leaders today view their jobs as entailing responsibility for the welfare of the wider community. These individuals do not define themselves as profit-making machines whose only reason for existing is to satisfy escalating expectation for immediate gain.”

ReasonTodayJobsIndividualCommunityViewsBusinessResponsibilityLeaderExpectationsGainsMachinesProfitWelfareBusiness LeadersEscalating
Book:Good Business: Leadership, Flow, and the Making of Meaning
Create image

“A self that is only differentiated - not integrated - may attain great individual accomplishments, but risks being mired in self-centered egotism. By the same token, a person who self is based exclusively on integration will be well connected and secure, but lack autonomous individuality. Only when a person invests equal amounts of psychic energy in these two processes and avoids both selfishness and conformity is the self likely to reflect complexity.”

WellsMayPersonsTwoSelfIndividualEnergyProcessRiskAmountEqualIndividualityConnectedSecureSelfishnessAccomplishmentComplexityConformityIntegrationPsychicsEgotismSelf CenteredIntegratedTokensAutonomous
Author:Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
Create image

“A paycheck is a sufficient impetus to motivate some employees to do the minimum amount to get by, and for others, the challenge of getting ahead in the organization provides a satisfactory focus for a while. But these incentives alone are rarely strong enough to inspire workers to give their best to their work. For this a vision is needed, an overarching goal that gives meaning to the job, so that an individual can forget himself in the task and experience flow without doubts or regrets. The most important component of such a vision is an ingredient we call soul.”

GivingImportantSoulEnoughJobsIndividualStrongGoalChallengesWorkForgetVisionDoubtFocusInspireRegretAmountNeededFlowTasksOrganizationWorkersSufficientEmployeeIngredientsMinimumComponentsIncentivesStrong EnoughPaychecksImpetusForget Him
Author:Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
Create image

“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.”

PersonsArtHandsIndividualGoalAbilitySituationCreativityCreativeRemarkableBe CreativeAbility To Adapt
Book:Creativity: Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and Invention
Create image

“I have devoted 30 years of research to how creative people live and work, to make more understandable the mysterious process by which they come up with new ideas and new things. [...] If I had to express in one word what makes their personalities different from others, it's complexity. They show tendencies of thought and action that in most people are segregated. They contain contradictory extremes; instead of being an "individual", each of them is a "multitude".”

PeopleIfsYearsIdeasDifferentShowsActionIndividualProcessCreativePersonalityResearchCome UpExtremesTendenciesMysteriousComplexityNew ThingsDevotedNew IdeasMultitudesContradictoryOne WordCreative PeopleThoughts And Actions
Author:Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
Create image