Once a depressed person becomes active and hopeful, self-esteem always improves. Bolstering self-esteem without changing hopelessness, without changing passivity, accomplishes nothing.

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 belief that we can rely on shortcuts to happiness, joy, rapture, comfort, and ecstasy, rather than be entitled to these feelings by the exercise of personal strengths and virtues, leads to legions of people who, in the middle of great wealth, are starving spiritually.

You go into flow when your highest strengths are deployed to meet the highest challenges that come your way.

The good life is using your signature strengths every day to produce authentic happiness and abundant gratification.

If we just wanted positive emotions, our species would have died out a long time ago.

The Fundamentalist Religions simply seem to offer more hope for a brighter future than do the more liberal, humanistic ones.