When people restrain themselves out of fear, their lives are by necessity diminished. They become rigid and defensive, and their self stops growing.

When we are involved in [creativity], we feel that we are living more fully than during the rest of life.

It is amazing how little effort most people make to improve control of their attention. If reading a book seems too difficult, instead of sharpening concentration we tend to set it aside and instead turn on the television, which not only requires minimal attention, but in fact tends to diffuse what little it commands with choppy editing, commercial interruptions, and generally inane content.

People without an internalized symbolic system can all too easily become captives of the media.

We cannot deny the facts of nature, but we should certainly try to improve on them.

Enjoyment appears at the boundary between boredom and anxiety, when the challenges are just balanced with the person's capacity to act.

It does not seem to be true that work necessarily needs to be unpleasant. It may always have to be hard, or at least harder than doing nothing at all. But there is ample evidence that work can be enjoyable, and that indeed, it is often the most enjoyable part of life.