Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi Quotes

The individual (no matter how well-meaning he might be, no matter how much strength he might have, if only he would use it) does not have the passion to rip himself away from either the coils of Reflection or the seductive ambiguities of Reflection; nor do the surroundings and times have any events or passions, but rather provide a negative setting of a habit of reflection, which plays with some illusory project only to betray him in the end with a way out: it shows him that the most clever thing to do is nothing at all.

In the dim background of our mind we know meanwhile what we ought to be doing: getting up, dressing ourselves, answering the person who has spoken to us, trying to make the next step in our reasoning. But somehow we cannot start.

I don't do anything with my life except romanticize and decay with indecision.

So many times it seemed like there were chances to stop things before they started. Or even stop them in midstream. But it was even worse when you knew in that very moment that there was still time to save yourself, and yet you couldn't even budge.

He has sat on the fence so long that the iron has entered his soul.

You freeze with the number of opportunities given to you and just decide to do nothing at all.

Indecision and reveries are the anesthetics of constructive action.

I can't stand the kind of paralysis that some people fall into because they're not happy with the choices they've made.

All The Woulda-Coulda-Shouldas Layin' In The Sun, Talkin' 'Bout The Things They Woulda-Coulda-Shoulda Done... But All Those Woulda-Coulda-Shouldas All Ran Away And Hid From One Little Did.

Many a false step was made by standing still.

Some people spend the whole of their lives sitting waiting for one train, only to find that they never even made it to the station.

A lobster, when left high and dry among the rock, does not have the sense enough to work his way back to the sea, but waits for the sea to come to him. If it does not come, he remains where he is and dies, although the slightest effort would enable him to reach the waves, which are perhaps within a yard of him. The world is full of human lobsters; people stranded on the rocks of indecision and procrastination, who, instead of putting forth their own energies, are waiting for some grand billow of good fortune to set them afloat.

of all the follies that we can commit, the greatest is to hesitate.

Maybe it was inertia -or worse, fear- that was keeping me in the same place.

I've committed to nothing...and that's just suicide...by tiny, tiny increments.

I get the urge for going/But I never seem to go.

Our trouble is not ignorance, but inaction.

Believing nothing does whilst there remained anything else to be done.

He was powerless because he had no precise desire, and this tortured him because he was vainly seeking something to desire. He could not even make himself stretch out his hand to switch on the light. The simple transition from intention to action seemed an unimaginable miracle.

Inaction may be the biggest form of action.

Too many of us fail to fulfill our needs because we say no rather than yes, or perhaps later in life, yes when we should say no.

The only risk we run is by doing nothing.

On the plains of hesitation bleach the bones of countless millions who, at the dawn of decision, sat down to wait, and waiting died.

If there is one eternal truth of politics, it is that there are always a dozen good reasons for doing nothing.

Impulses are hard to come by these days.