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Martin Seligman


American
August 12, 1942
Psychologist
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I think we pursue positive relationships whether or not they bring us engagement or happiness.


Martin Seligman
We have children to pursue other elements of well-being. We want meaning in life. We want relationships.
Martin Seligman
Tags: Life Want Other
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If we just wanted positive emotions, our species would have died out a long time ago.


Martin Seligman
The fundamentalist religions simply seem to offer more hope for a brighter future than do the more liberal, humanistic ones.
Martin Seligman
Tags: Hope Future More
The dirty little secret of both clinical psychology and biological psychiatry is that they have completely given up on the notion of cure.
Martin Seligman
Tags: Up Little Both
When we take time to notice the things that go right - it means we're getting a lot of little rewards throughout the day.
Martin Seligman
Tags: Time Things Go
The word 'happiness' always bothered me, partly because it was scientifically unwieldy and meant a lot of different things to different people, and also because it's subjective.
Martin Seligman
One of my signature strengths is the love of learning, and by teaching, I have built it into the fabric of my life. I try to do some of it every day.
Martin Seligman
The goal of a life free of dysphoria is a snare and a delusion. A better goal is of good commerce with the world. Authentic happiness, astonishingly, can occur even in the presence of authentic sadness.
Martin Seligman
There are physical characteristics which are inherited. These include things like good looks, high intelligence, physical coordination. These attributes contribute to success in life, and success in life is a determinant of optimism.
Martin Seligman
If the point of the inner-child movement is to cure adult problems, it doesn't work. Reliving childhood traumas gives you a nice afterglow, but it lasts only for hours or days. There is no evidence it changes adult problems.
Martin Seligman
Tags: Work You Only
Some find that very optimistic people have benign illusions about themselves. These people may think they have more control, or more skill, than they actually do. Others have found that optimistic people have a good handle on reality. The jury is still out.
Martin Seligman
Tags: Good People About
I believe psychology has done very well in working out how to understand and treat disease. But I think that is literally half-baked. If all you do is work to fix problems, to alleviate suffering, then by definition you are working to get people to zero, to neutral.
Martin Seligman
Tags: Work You People
Sexual performance problems, such as impotence and frigidity, are 70 to 90 percent changeable. But a homosexual who wants to be a heterosexual - that's close to unchangeable. And a transsexual - say a man who believes he's really a woman in a man's body - is completely unchangeable; you'd have to change the body to conform to the psyche.
Martin Seligman
Tags: Change You Who