Competition is enjoyable only when it is a means to perfect one’s skills; when it becomes an end in itself, it ceases to be fun.

However, a good life consists of more than simply the totality of enjoyable experiences. It must also have a meaningful pattern, a trajectory of growth that results in the development of increasing emotional, cognitive, and social complexity.

One cannot lead a life that is truly excellent without feeling that one belongs to something greater and more permanent than oneself.

A person who forgoes the use of his symbolic skills is never really free.

Studying creativity is not an elite distraction, but provides one of the most exciting models for living.

Happiness does not simply happen to us. It's something that we make happen.

Attention is psychic energy, and like physical energy, unless we allocate some part of it to the task at hand, no work gets done.