Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi Quotes

If you are interested in something, you will focus on it, and if you focus attention on anything, it is likely that you will become interested in it. Many of the things we find interesting are not so by nature, but because we took the trouble of paying attention to them.

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

• Nature
• Attention
• Focus
• Psychology

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Quotes to Explore

• Man has evolved a mutual relationship with nature on earth, but his power to change its surface has grown so tremendously that this may become a curse instead of a blessing.

  

  Walter Gropius
  • May
  • Power
  • Nature

• But more wonderful than the lore of old men and the lore of books is the secret lore of ocean.

  

  H. P. Lovecraft
  • Men
  • Nature
  • Ocean

• Those who seek to satisfy the mind of man by hampering it with ceremonies and music and affecting charity and devotion have lost their original nature.

  

  Zhuangzi
  • Music
  • Mind
  • Nature

• The Holocaust changed our perception of morality not only because we discovered that morality is the only thing that can stand up to the ultimate evil, but also because it shifted the focus from society to the individual.

  

  Yair Lapid
  • Up
  • Society
  • Focus

• God seldom suspends the laws of nature, just as God does not remove free will to keep evil people from doing evil things.

  

  Adam Hamilton
  • People
  • God
  • Nature

• I don't pay attention to auction prices. Nothing interests me less. One of the benefits of not being an artist is I don't have to navigate the social hierarchies of the art world as a person of desire. I don't need anything. I live in a different way.

  

  Rachel Kushner
  • World
  • Different
  • Live

• I wanted the focus to be on my ability as a singer and as an entertainer - not on my private life.

  

  Adam Lambert
  • Life
  • Focus
  • Private Life

• I can't just sit down and make a song in a day. It's only possible if you focus on the music and not the sound.

  

  Anton Zaslavski
  • Music
  • Song
  • Day

• History repeats itself. So you might wanna pay attention.

  

  Quavo Migos
  • History
  • You
  • Attention

• Politicians aren't special. They lie the same way we all do, revealing their true nature under pressure.

  

  Pamela Meyer
  • True
  • Nature
  • Lie

• I don't believe in evil, I believe only in horror. In nature there is no evil, only an abundance of horror: the plagues and the blights and the ants and the maggots.

  

  Karen Blixen
  • Believe
  • Nature
  • Evil

• This is the Outsider's extremity. He does not prefer not to believe; he doesn't like feeling that futility gets the last word in the universe; his human nature would like to find something it can answer to with complete assent. But honesty prevents his accepting a solution that he cannot reason about.

  

  Colin Wilson
  • Believe
  • Nature
  • Feeling

• You are very kind in planning presents for me to make, and my mother has shown me exactly the same attention; but as I do not choose to have generosity dictated to me, I shall not resolve on giving my cabinet to Anna till the first thought of it has been my own.

  

  Jane Austen
  • Mother
  • Giving
  • Attention

• I think the stigma surrounding mental illness and also the stigma surrounding self-esteem issues or insecurities or just even feeling different is something that doesn't really get enough attention. Everybody struggles with feeling alone or that they are going through something they don't quite understand.

  

  Brittany Snow
  • Different
  • Feeling
  • Attention

• I'm quite into fitness, and I have a fantastic personal trainer who knows me, knows my body, knows when to push me, and knows when not to push me. She doesn't make me do 20 burpees in a row and instead focuses on strengthening my core, telling me we need to focus on making me into 'a tall giraffe'!

  

  Poppy Delevingne
  • She
  • Focus
  • Fitness

• I don't spend time wondering what might be next; I just focus on trying to savor every day.

  

  Trisha Yearwood
  • Time
  • Trying
  • Focus

• I am, by nature, an optimist.

  

  Martin Heinrich
  • Nature

• Psychology is the science of the intellects, characters and behavior of animals including man.

  

  Edward Thorndike
  • Science
  • Psychology

• I mean, I don't really pay too much attention publicly to what people think.

  

  Brooke Burke
  • People
  • Attention

• All successful employers are stalking men who will do the unusual, men who think, men who attract attention by performing more than is expected of them.

  

  Charles M. Schwab
  • Men
  • Attention

• I'm riding you with a slack rein, my pet, but don't forget that I'm riding with curb and spurs just the same.

  

  Margaret Mitchell
  • Forget
  • Pet
  • Riding

• It takes courage, of course, to step out of the fray, as it takes courage to do anything that's necessary, whether tending to a loved one on her deathbed or turning away from that sugarcoated doughnut.

  

  Pico Iyer
  • Courage

• I win or I die.

  

  Joaquin Andujar
  • Die

• If you are interested in something, you will focus on it, and if you focus attention on anything, it is likely that you will become interested in it. Many of the things we find interesting are not so by nature, but because we took the trouble of paying attention to them.

  

  Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
  • Nature
  • Attention
  • Focus