Learned helplessness is the giving-up reaction, the quitting response that follows from the belief that whatever you do doesn't matter.

Optimism is invaluable for the meaningful life. With a firm belief in a positive future, you can throw yourself into the service of that which is larger than you are.

The defining characteristic of pessimists is that they tend to believe bad events will last a long time, will undermine everything they do, and are their own fault.

The good life consists in deriving happiness by using your signature strengths every day in the main realms of living.

Nothing in life is as important as you think it is when you are thinking about it.

-- Daniel Kahneman

We can be blind to the obvious, and we are also blind to our blindness.

-- Daniel Kahneman

A reliable way to make people believe in falsehoods is frequent repetition, because familiarity is not easily distinguished from truth.

-- Daniel Kahneman

Believe it or not — and I know that most people do not — violence has declined over long stretches of time, and today we may be living in the most peaceable era in our species's existence.

-- Steven Pinker

Heroes are ordinary people whose social actions are extraordinary. They act when others are passive. They give up their egocentrism for their socio-centrism.

-- Philip Zimbardo