Martin E.P. Seligman Quotes

#1. First, you learn to recognize the automatic thoughts flitting through your consciousness at the times you feel worst.

Martin E.P. Seligman

#2. Practiced regularly (twice a day), relaxation or meditation prevents angry arousal.

Martin E.P. Seligman

#3. Second, you learn to dispute the automatic thoughts by marshaling contrary evidence.

Martin E.P. Seligman

#4. Third, you learn to make different explanations, called reattributions, and use them to dispute your automatic thoughts.

Martin E.P. Seligman

#5. Above all, during the interval, change from "ego orientation" to "task orientation." Think: "I know this seems like a personal insult, but it is not. It is a challenge to be overcome that calls on skills I have.

Martin E.P. Seligman

#6. Fifth, you learn to recognize and question the depression-sowing assumptions governing so much of what you do:

Martin E.P. Seligman

#7. At my parents' house, I recently found a 1950 black-and-white snapshot of a chubby bespectacled warrior holding a three-and-a-half-foot freshly killed rattlesnake. The boy's smile is ecstatic.

Martin E.P. Seligman

#8. While you can't control your experiences, you can control your explanations.

Martin E.P. Seligman

#9. So anger helps us defend threatened territory - it is just, and it is honest. Not only that - it is healthy. It is widely believed that bottling up anger can kill us, slowly and in three different ways.

Martin E.P. Seligman

#10. The genius of evolution lies in the dynamic tension between optimism and pessimism continually correcting each other.

Martin E.P. Seligman

#11. Anger, unlike fear or sadness, is a moral emotion. It is "righteous." It aims not only to end the current trespass but to repair any damage done. It also aims to prevent further trespass by disarming, imprisoning, emasculating, or killing the trespasser.

Martin E.P. Seligman

#12. Authentic happiness derives from raising the bar for yourself, not rating yourself against others.

Martin E.P. Seligman

#13. Fourth, you learn how to distract yourself from depressing thoughts.

Martin E.P. Seligman

#14. Pessimistic labels lead to passivity, whereas optimistic ones lead to attempts to change.

Martin E.P. Seligman

#15. The skills of becoming happy turn out to be almost entirely different from the skills of not being sad, not being anxious, or not being angry.

Martin E.P. Seligman

#16. Try to reframe the provocation: Maybe he's having a rough day. There's no need to take it personally. Don't act like a jerk just because he is. He couldn't help it. This could be a testy situation, but easy does it.

Martin E.P. Seligman

#17. [R]aising children ... was about identifying and amplifying their strengths and virtues, and helping them find the niche where they can live these positive traits to the fullest.

Martin E.P. Seligman

#18. The optimist believes that bad events have specific causes, while good events will enhance everything he does; the pessimist believes that bad events have universal causes and that good events are caused by specific factors. When

Martin E.P. Seligman

#19. Exploders, people who have frequent outbursts of temper, also have more cancer than normal people.

Martin E.P. Seligman

#20. But out-of-hand anger ruins many lives. More, I believe, than schizophrenia, more than alcohol, more than AIDS. Maybe even more than depression.

Martin E.P. Seligman