“The most stable, most balanced people are those who are most interested in what they see in themselves, not in what they think they ought to be.”
“The existence of value absolutes is denied; at most, it is said, we have a human inclination to develop preferences.”
“If you only have a religion, you tend to see every problem as a nail.”
“What is life for? It is for you.”
“If you plan on being anything less than you are capable of being, you will probably be unhappy all the days of your life.”
“We fear our highest possibilities. We are generally afraid to become that which we can glimpse in our most perfect moments.”
“If you deliberately plan to be less than you are capable of being, then I warn you that you’ll be deeply unhappy for the rest of your life.”
“We may define therapy as a search for value.”
“The fully developed person…works because it’s natural, because it’s right and enjoyable and because it’s necessary.”
“The creative person seems to have two personalities, one of which is childlike.”
“The story of the human race is the story of men and women selling themselves short.”
“The ability to be alone is an important component of psychological health.”
“The sacred is in the ordinary, it is to be found in one’s daily life, in one’s neighbors, friends, and family, in one’s backyard.”
“Discontent is the yeast that raises the dough.”
“What counts is not what facts you know, but how well you can find out.”
Abraham Maslow quotes :
“In any given moment, we have two options: to step forward into growth or to step back into safety.”
“A person who makes full use and exploitation of his talents, capacities, potentialities, etc., is a self-actualizing person.”
“The ability to be in the present moment is a major component of mental wellness.”
“Self-actualization is not a thing to be attained, it is a way of life.”
“One can choose to go back toward safety or forward toward growth. Growth must be chosen again and again; fear must be overcome again and again.”
“Self-actualization is not a process of learning or perfecting skills.”
“When it is a question of the child’s formation, the views of the parents about him are never neutral.”
“What a man can be, he must be. This need we call self-actualization.”
“A musician must make music, an artist must paint, a poet must write, if he is to be ultimately at peace with himself.”
“Life is an ongoing process of choosing between safety (out of fear and need for defense) and risk (for the sake of progress and growth).”
“What is necessary to change a person is to change his awareness of himself.”
“Love is often the wisdom of the fool and the folly of the wise.”
“The fact is that people are good, if only their fundamental wishes are satisfied, their wishes for affection and security, for belonging, for respect and self-respect.”
“The ability to be spontaneous is an important component of psychological health.”
READ MORE AUTHORS QUOTES:
“The child is father to the man.”
“If you only have a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail.”
“The fact is that people are good. Give people affection and security, and they will give affection and be secure in their feelings and their behavior.”
“What a man can be, he must be. This need we may call self-actualization.”
“If you deliberately plan on being less than you are capable of being, then I warn you that you’ll be unhappy for the rest of your life.”
“A first-rate soup is more creative than a second-rate painting.”
“Almost all creativity involves purposeful play.”
“The only happy people I know are the ones who are working well at something they consider important.”
“The positive effect on the self-image of our therapy is remarkable.”
“The fact that we are not at this moment emphasizing ‘self-actualizing’ concerns is due, I think, to an overemphasis on pathology.”
“It seems that the necessary thing to do is not to fear mistakes, to plunge in, to do the best that one can, hoping to learn enough from blunders to correct them eventually.”
“If you love the truth, you’ll trust it; if you trust it, you’ll want to live it.”
“The human being seems to have two diversely differentiated types of trends, or a dual motivation.”
“To the man who only has a hammer, everything he encounters begins to look like a nail.”
“It isn’t normal to know what we want. It is a rare and difficult psychological achievement.”
“What a man can be, he must be.”
“The study of error is not only in the highest degree prophylactic, but it serves as a stimulating introduction to the study of truth.”
“The further a society drifts from the truth, the more it will hate those who speak it.”
“What we call ‘normal’ in psychology is really a psychopathology of the average, so undramatic and so widely spread that we don’t even notice it ordinarily.”
“The fact is that people are good, Give people affection and security, and they will give affection and be secure in their feelings and their behavior.”
“The key question isn’t ‘What fosters creativity?’ But it is why in God’s name isn’t everyone creative? Where was the human potential lost? How was it crippled? I think therefore a good question might be not why do people create? But why do people not create or innovate?”
“The need for creative expression is an important component of psychological health.”
“To be normal is the ideal aim of the unsuccessful.”
“Human life will never be understood unless its highest aspirations are taken into account. Growth, self-actualization, the striving toward health, the quest for identity and autonomy, the yearning for excellence (and other ways of phrasing the striving ‘upward’) must by now be accepted beyond question as a widespread and perhaps universal human tendency.”
“We are dealing here with the best developed, the most efficiently functioning individuals.”
“The most fortunate are those who have a wonderful capacity to appreciate again and again, freshly and naively, the basic goods of life, with awe, pleasure, wonder, and even ecstasy.”
“If you only listen to your needs, you will not grow.”
“Musicians must make music, artists must paint, poets must write if they are to be ultimately at peace with themselves.”
“When we can’t stand it any longer, we discover that the thing we have been waiting for, and must do, is to throw ourselves more completely into the arms of existence.”
“The ability to be self-critical is an important component of psychological health.”
“Dispassionate objectivity is itself a passion, for the real and for the truth.”
“Be independent of the good opinion of other people.”
“All basic or innate capacities are biologically grounded and hence are biological or species properties.”
“Life is an ongoing process of choosing between safety (out of fear and need for defense) and risk (for the sake of progress and growth): Make the growth choice a dozen times a day.”
“To be neurotic is to be in a quandary.”
“If the only tool you have is a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail.”
“Self-actualizing people have a deep feeling of identification, sympathy, and affection for human beings in general.”