I’ve been bothered about time generally and our tripartite division of time into past, present, and future. I think I know what the past is, and I think I know what future is, but I’m really not comfortable with the notion of present. Martin Seligman Read Quote
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 Read Quote
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 Read Quote
Life satisfaction essentially measures cheerful moods, so it is not entitled to a central place in any theory that aims to be more than a happiology. Martin Seligman Read Quote
We have children to pursue other elements of well-being. We want meaning in life. We want relationships. Martin Seligman Read Quote
One of the things psychologists used to say was that if you are depressed, anxious or angry, you couldn’t be happy. Those were at opposite ends of a continuum. I believe that you can be suffering or have a mental illness and be happy – just not in the same moment that you’re sad. Martin Seligman Read Quote
The fundamentalist religions simply seem to offer more hope for a brighter future than do the more liberal, humanistic ones. Martin Seligman Read Quote
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 Read Quote
Rather than giving people an inflated view of themselves, we need to give them concrete reasons to feel good about themselves. Martin Seligman Read Quote
I think you can be depressed and flourish, I think you can have cancer and flourish, I think you can be divorced and flourish. When we believed that happiness was only smiling and good mood, that wasn’t very good for people like me, people in the lower half of positive affectivity. Martin Seligman Read Quote
