Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi Quotes

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.

The final goal of human effort is man's self-transforma tion.

The best investment you can make is in yourself.

The most important investment you can make is in yourself. Very few people get anything like their potential horsepower translated into the actual horsepower of their output in life. Potential exceeds realization for many people...The best asset is your own self. You can become to an enormous degree the person you want to be.

Is not labour, like learning, its own reward?

The self-surmounter can never put up with the man who has ceased to be dissatisfied with himself.

Self-improveme nt is no more God's plan than self-salvation.

the process of building a self and its works is always too slow. One is always in arrears to oneself.

In activity we must find our joy as well as glory; and labor, like everything else that is good, is its own reward.

The real value of setting and achieving goals lies not in the rewards you receive, but in the person you become as a result of reaching your goals.

The act of loving is an act of self-evolution even when the purpose of the act is someone else's growth.

Investing in yourself is the best investment you will ever make. It will not only improve your life, it will improve the lives of all those around you.

Work hard at your job and you can make a living. Work hard on yourself and you can make a fortune.

Happiness is the joy we feel striving after our potential.

But if we are talking in terms of making progress in life, we must understand that "good enough" is very different from "best.

Unless a man has talents to make something of himself, freedom is an irksome burden. Of what avail is freedom to choose if the self be ineffectual? We join a mass movement to escape individual responsibility, or, in the words of the ardent young Nazi, "to be free from freedom."

I happen to think we’ve set our ideal on the wrong objects; I happen to think that the greatest ideal man can set before himself is self-perfection.

I think success has a lot to do with my own personal growth.

Goals are a means to an end, not the ultimate purpose of our lives. They are simply a tool to concentrate our focus and move us in a direction. The only reason we really pursue goals is to cause ourselves to expand and grow.

You implanted your highest goal into the heart of those passions: then they became your virtues and joys.

The key to life is to become skillful enough to be able to do rewarding things.

Self-improvement is a dangerous form of vanity.

Man must live, not only exist; he must do, not merely be; he must grow, not just vegetate.

We are responsible for what we are, and whatever we wish ourselves to be, we have the power to make ourselves. If what we are now has been the result of our own past actions, it certainly follows that whatever we wish to be in the future can be produced by our present actions; so we have to know how to act.

It is not enough to merely exist. It's not enough to say, 'I'm earning enough to live and support my family. I do my work well. I'm a good parent.' That's all very well. But you must do something more.