It is how people respond to stress that determines whether they will profit from misfortune or be miserable.

To gain control over the quality of experience, one needs to learn how to build enjoyment into what happens day in, day out.

Control over consciousness cannot be institutionaliz ed. As soon as it becomes part of a set of social rules and norms, it ceases to be effective in the way it was originally intended to be.

If I had to express in one word what makes their [creative individuals'] personalities different from others, it's complexity. They show tendencies of thought and action that in most people are segregated. They contain contradictory extremes; instead of being an "individual," each of them is a "multitude."

Most of us become so rigidly fixed in the ruts carved out by genetic programming and social conditioning that we ignore the options of choosing any other course of action. Living exclusively by genetic and social instructions is fine as long as everything goes well. But the moment bioloical or social goals are frustrated- which in the long run is inevitable - a person must formulate new goals, and create a new flow activity for himself, or else he will always waste his energies in inner turmoil.

People who learn to control inner experience will be able to determine the quality of their lives, which is as close as any of us can come to being happy.

Knowing oneself is not so much a question of discovering what is present in one's self, but rather the creation of who one wants to be.