A Primer in Positive Psychology. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. Character strengths before and after September 11.

You are in the right spot if you were looking for the greatest quotes from the world of psychology and positive psychology! We boldly bring together some of the best quotes ever from the greatest psychologists of the past and the present.

These quotes wonderfully explain the psychological truths behind the secretive workings of the human mind. They help us understand ourselves better and show us our true potential in a way we might have never realized before. (Honestly, you might be blown away by some of them!)

50 Greatest Quotes of Positive Psychology

Here are the fifty greatest positive psychology quotes:

• Diener is a professor of psychology at the Universities of Utah and Virginia, and Joseph R. Smiley Distinguished. The positive or negative emotions they.
• Amazon.com: Character Strengths and Virtues: A Handbook and Classification (467): Christopher Peterson, Martin Seligman: Books.
• In a very general sense, positive psychology can be thought of as the science of happiness; it is an area of study that seeks to identify and promote.

• The aim of Positive Psychology is to catalyze a change in psychology from a preoccupation only with repairing the worst things in life to also building the best qualities in life. — Martin Seligman (Father of Positive Psychology)

• A joyful life is an individual creation that cannot be copied from a recipe. — Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (Father of “Flow”)

• If positive psychology teaches us anything, it is that all of us are a mixture of strengths and weaknesses. No one has it all, and no one lacks it all. — Chris Peterson

• Once you start making the effort to “wake yourself up” – that is, be more mindful in your activities – you suddenly start appreciating life. — Robert Biswas-Diener (nicknamed “Indiana Jones of Positive Psychology”)

• As for the future, it remains unwritten. Anything can happen, and often we are wrong. The best we can do with the future is to prepare and savor the possibilities of what can be done in the present. — Todd Kashdan

• It is not primarily our physical selves that limit us but rather our mindset about our physical limits. ― Ellen J. Langer

• Love is that micro-moment of warmth and connection that you share with another living being. — Barbara L. Fredrickson

• While some pain is probably inevitable in all relationships, successful couples are usually the ones who are able to forgive. — Ilona Boniwell

• Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way. — Viktor Frankl

• The good life is a process, not a state of being. — Carl Rogers

• Love and work are to people what water and sunshine are to plants. — Jonathan Haidt

• Probably the biggest insight … is that happiness is not just a place, but also a process. … Happiness is an ongoing process of fresh challenges, and… it takes the right attitudes and activities to continue to be happy. — Ed Diener (nicknamed “Dr. Happiness”)

Take a break with this beautiful, calming, and inspiring video of the positive psychology quotes. Watch with pleasure and share with joy!

• For happy people, time is ‘filled and planned’. For unhappy people time is unfilled, open, and uncommitted; they postpone things and are inefficient. — Michael Argyle

• Nothing in life is as important as you think it is, while you are thinking about it. — Daniel Kahneman (The Winner of 2002 Nobel in Economics)

• The highest and most beautiful things in life are not to be heard about, nor read about, nor seen but, if one will, are to be lived. — Søren Kierkegaard (The First Existentialist Philosopher)

• Compassion is one of the few things we can practice that will bring…happiness to our lives. — Dalai Lama (The Exiled Spiritual Leader of The Tibetan People)

• We need 4 hugs a day for survival. We need 8 hugs a day for maintenance. We need 12 hugs a day for growth. — Virginia Satir (Mother of Family Therapy)

• If you plan on being anything less than you are capable of being, you will probably be unhappy all the days of your life. — Abraham Maslow (Proponent of The Hierarchy of Needs)

• Unhappiness is best defined as the difference between our talents and our expectations. — Edward de Bono (Originator of the concept of Lateral Thinking)

• We need each other. The sooner we learn that, it is better for us all. — Erik Erikson

• We all die. The goal isn’t to live forever, the goal is to create something that will.— Chuck Palahniuk (Author of the award-winning Fight Club)

The next quote resonates with the spirit of positive psychology but comes from a person who is not a psychologist. For a guy born without arms or legs, who has lectured in 50 countries to more than 3 million people, he is way more inspirational than most of us: Nick Vujicic.

• Life isn’t is about having, it’s about being. You could surround yourself with all that money can buy, and you’d still be as miserable as a human can be. I know people with perfect bodies who don’t have half the happiness I’ve found. … The “if I just had X, I would be happy” syndrome is a mass delusion. When you look for happiness in mere objects, they are never enough. Look around. Look within.

• The truth is, bad things don’t affect us as profoundly as we expect them to. That’s true of good things, too. We adapt very quickly to either. —Daniel Gilbert (Researcher on Affective Forecasting)

• When we encounter an unexpected challenge of a threat, the only way to save ourselves is to hold on tight to the people around us and not let go. — Shawn Achor

• Happiness, not money or prestige, should be regarded as the ultimate currency — the currency by which we take the measure of our lives. — Tal Ben-Shahar (Taught the most popular course in the history of Harvard University, Positive Psychology 1504)

• Vulnerability is not weakness. And that myth is profoundly dangerous. — Brené Brown

• Hope has proven a powerful predictor of outcome in every study we’ve done so far. — Charles Rick Snyder

• Every person on this earth is full of great possibilities that can be realized through imagination, effort, & perseverance. — Scott Barry Kaufman

• The best way to find out whether you’re on the right path? Stop looking at the path. — Marcus Buckingham (Founder of The Strengths Revolution)

• Being entirely honest with oneself is a good exercise. — Sigmund Freud (Founder of Psychoanalysis)

• Follow your dreams. Figure out where you’d like to be, what you would like to be doing, and then figure out what you need to do to get there. — Kennon Sheldon

• Happiness is not out there for us to find. The reason that it’s not out there is that it’s inside us. — Sonja Lyubomirsky (The How of Happiness)

• Becoming is better than being. — Carol S. Dweck (Pioneering Researcher of Mindset)

• Even a happy life cannot be without a measure of darkness, and the word happy would lose its meaning if it were not balanced by sadness. — Carl Jung (Founder of Analytical Psychology)

• Discussing positive experiences leads to heightened well-being, increased overall life satisfaction, and even more energy. — Nathaniel M. Lambert (The Journal of Positive Psychology)

• Happiness is the only thing that multiplies when you share it. —Albert Schweitzer (Philosopher, Physician, Nobel prize winner)

• Be content with what you have; rejoice in the way things are. When you realize there is nothing lacking, the whole world belongs to you. — Lao Tzu (Founder of Taoism)

• It’s more selfless to act happy. It takes energy, generosity, and discipline to be unfailingly lighthearted. yet everyone takes the happy person for granted. — Gretchen Rubin

• We can regret less and be grateful for what is good in life. — Barry Schwartz

• The difference between misery and happiness depends on what we do with our attention. — Sharon Salzberg

• Extroversion is an enormously appealing personality style, but we’ve turned it into an oppressive standard to which most of us feel we must conform. — Susan Cain

• Gratitude … goes far beyond saying ‘thank you.’ When we are grateful, we affirm that a source of goodness exists in our lives. — Robert Emmons (World’s Foremost Researcher on Gratitude)

• Happy marriages are based on a deep friendship, mutual respect, and enjoyment of each others’ company. — John Gottman (Four decades of research on Divorce Prediction and Marital Stability)

• A crisis is a terrible thing to waste. — Paul Romer (Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, 2018)

• Denial is a useful defense mechanism until it’s not. — Rosalind Kaplan

• Genuine feelings cannot be produced, nor can they be eradicated. We can only repress them, delude ourselves, and deceive our bodies. The body sticks to the facts. — Alice Miller

• Compassion does not render people tearful idlers, moral weaklings, or passive onlookers but individuals who will take on the pain of others. — Dacher Keltner (Director of the Greater Good Science Center)

• What stress really does, though, is deplete willpower, which diminishes your ability to control those emotions. — Roy F. Baumeister (Author of Evil: Inside Human Violence and Cruelty)

• When we are open to new possibilities, we find them. Be open and skeptical of everything. — Todd Kashdan

Wanting to be someone else is a waste of the person you are. I’d rather be hated for who I am than loved for who I am not.

History of This Post

This post has seen one-million-plus (1,006,505) hits as early as Oct 2016. As of that date, it has seen viral shares all over the social media, with Facebook shares clocking at 3,600, Twitter at 551, LinkedIn at 403, and Pinterest at 725. Making it probably the most shared ‘Positive Psychology Quotes’ post on the internet.

This post is the world’s first set of famous positive psychology picture-quotes. We first published it in March 2015 after losing a tonne of sweat and sleep to help you get into the high spirits of positivity.

This post turned out to be a viral post containing the most authentic collection of Positive Psychology quotes to appear on the internet first. While trying to create something that would make people happy, we felt a sense of unparalleled happiness ourselves!

And we shall keep on feeling humbled and grateful to everyone who came to this post and shared a bit.

A quote is a great way to inspire us if the words are right. These powerful and meaningful words come from the authorities in positive psychology. So, these are indeed some rightmost words to make you feel positive, inspired, and happy.

Frankly, we were a little apprehensive about whether people would like it. But when we launched, we felt great satisfaction to see it loved and shared by millions of you.

This post of positive psychology quotes has been copied and re-posted at many places. But frankly, we do not mind. We are rather happy that the kind words have spread far and wide. We feel proud it turned out the first of its kind.

When we think back, our greatest challenge was to create this quotes-post in a format people could come back to again and get psyched and motivated each time. So we made this as picture-quotes so that it was as much shareable as memorable.

A Primer In Positive Psychology Ebook

We’re grateful for the kindness of all who shared it. And, yes, Todd Kashdan makes a double appearance!

Positive Psychology Picture Book

A Primer In Positive Psychology By Christopher Peterson

Did you watch that calming video in this post? We recently brought out a beautiful photo book with the exact same positive psychological quotes! We’d be delighted if you buy a copy or gift one to someone you care for!Click here (or the pic below) to buy it.

Masters of Positivity Featured Here

We tried to include everyone that is Who’s Who of Positive Psychology:

Abraham Maslow, Martin Seligman, Chris Peterson, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Ed Diener, Sonja Lyubomirsky, Kennon Sheldon, Todd Kashdan, Robert Biswas-Diener, Barbara Fredrickson, Ellen Langer, Ilona Boniwell, Daniel Gilbert, Robert Emmons, Dacher Keltner, Jonathan Haidt, Tal Ben-Shahar, Charles R. Snyder, Scott Barry Kaufman, Nathaniel M. Lambert, John Gottman, Shawn Achor.

• Abraham Maslow, the legendary psychologist behind the Hierarchy of Needs pyramid, was the one who coined and gave us the term positive psychology in 1954.
• As we searched through the publicly available resources, the journey became increasingly fascinating, and we rushed to include Carl Rogers, Abraham Maslow, Sigmund Freud, and Carl G. Jung.
• We also included some “psychological” quotes by a few giants who are not positive psychologists but work in other branches, like social psychology.
• We also went a little adventurous and included quotes from some inspirational masters of their trade, but incidentally not from the world of psychology, as Nick Vujicic, H. H. Dalai Lama, Paul Romer, and even rock ‘n’ roll legend Kurt Cobain. Their words make us feel optimistic, feel good, and prove that happiness is a choice. Without their words, this post and our world would have been poor.

Final Words

Keep this page bookmarked, as you would want to return here a few times. And please share it further. Post one on your social networks so that your followers and friends get a booster dose of authentic happiness.

We are sure you would love to come back here again in some weeks or months to refresh the feeling of happiness. We feel humbled by your love for this post. Thank you forever!

We’re sure you’d like this post too: The Greatest Resilience Quotes For The Leader In You.

• What the best 5 quotes from positive psychology?

  1. A joyful life is an individual creation that cannot be copied from a recipe. — Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
  2. Love is that micro-moment of warmth and connection that you share with another living being. — Barbara Fredrickson
  3. The truth is, bad things don’t affect us as profoundly as we expect them to. That’s true of good things, too. We adapt very quickly to either. — Daniel Gilbert
  4. Happiness, not money or prestige, should be regarded as the ultimate currency — the currency by which we take the measure of our lives. — Tal Ben-Shahar
  5. When we are open to new possibilities, we find them. Be open and skeptical of everything. — Todd Kashdan

• What are some journals on Positive Psychology?

  Some of the best-established journals to find authentic quotes and findings on positive psychology are 1. The Journal of Positive Psychology 2. Journal of Happiness Studies 3. Journal of Well-Being Assessment 4. International Journal of Applied Positive Psychology 5. Indian Journal of Positive Psychology.

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Author Bio: Written and reviewed by Sandip Roy – a medical doctor, psychology writer, happiness researcher. Founder of Happiness India Project, and chief editor of its blog. He writes popular-science articles on positive psychology and related medical topics.

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