Martin Seligman

“It used to be that whenever I introduced myself to people and told them I was a psychologist, they would shrink away from me. Because, quite rightly, the impression the American public has of psychologists is, 'You want to know what's wrong with me.'”

“Psychology is much bigger than just medicine, or fixing unhealthy things. It's about education, work, marriage - it's even about sports. What I want to do is see psychologists working to help people build strengths in all these domains.”

“I have never worked on interrogation; I have never seen an interrogation, and I have only a passing knowledge of the literature on interrogation. With that qualification, my opinion is that the point of interrogation is to get at the truth, not to get at what the interrogator wants to hear.”

“One of my worries about America is the epidemic of depression we've been in. One of the possibilities about that is that the 'I' gets bigger and bigger, and the 'we' gets smaller and smaller.”

“We have children to pursue other elements of well-being. We want meaning in life. We want relationships.”

“אופטימיות היא אחת התכונות שמבטיחות רווחה נפשית רבה יותר, וכתוצאה מכך גם חיים ארוכים. אופטימיסטים מתייחסים למגבלותיהם כאלמנט שאפשר להתגבר עליו. הם רואים בבעיות כשלים ספציפיים, תולדה של נסיבות זמניות או שמקורן באנשים אחרים. הפסימיסטים מאמינים שבעיותיהם יימשכו לנצח, שהן מחבלות בכל מעשיהם ושאין להם שליטה בהן.”

“הגאונות של האבולוציה טמונה במתח הדינמי שבין אופטימיות לפסימיות ובאופן שבו הם מתקנים באופן מתמיד והדדי זה את זה.”

“הצלחה מרמזת על התמדה, על היכולת לא לוותר עם כישלון.”

“אמונה בשיפור עצמי היא נבואה שמגשימה את עצמה בדיוק כמו האמונה הישנה לגבי חוסר השינוי של האופי.”

“The dirty little secret of both clinical psychology and biological psychiatry is that they have completely given up on the notion of cure.”

“I believe it is within our capacity that by the year 2051 that 51 percent of the human population will be flourishing. That is my charge.”

“Well-being cannot exist just in your own head. Well-being is a combination of feeling good as well as actually having meaning, good relationships and accomplishment.”

“Suppose you could be hooked up to a hypothetical 'experience machine' that, for the rest of your life, would stimulate your brain and give you any positive feelings you desire. Most people to whom I offer this imaginary choice refuse the machine. It is not just positive feelings we want: we want to be entitled to our positive feelings.”

“Optimistic people generally feel that good things will last a long time and will have a beneficial effect on everything they do. And they think that bad things are isolated: They won't last too long and won't affect other parts of life.”

“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.”

“I don't think anyone's found a way of eliminating thoughts of danger and loss. It's rather that, when they're unrealistic, you become an acrobat at marshaling evidence against them.”

“If we just wanted positive emotions, our species would have died out a long time ago.”

“I have spent most of my life working with mental illness. I have been president of the world's largest association of mental-illness workers, and I am all for more funding for mental-health care and research - but not in the vain hope that it will curb violence.”

“It is the combination of reasonable talent and the ability to keep going in the face of defeat that leads to success.”

“Reaching beyond where you are is really important.”