Abraham Maslow Quotes - Page 4

What a man can be, he must be. This need we call self-actualizat ion.

Whereas the average individuals "often have not the slightest idea of what they are, of what they want, of what their own opinions are," self-actualizing individuals have "superior awareness of their own impulses, desires, opinions, and subjective reactions in general."

It is vital that people "count their blessings:" to appreciate what they possess without having to undergo its actual loss.

The way to recover the meaning of life and the worthwhileness of life is to recover the power of experience, to have impulse voices from within, and to be able to hear these impulse voices from within — and make the point: This can be done.

Human nature has been sold short...[humans have] a higher nature which...includes the need for meaningful work, for responsibility, for creativeness, for being fair and just, for doing what is worthwhile and for preferring to do it well.

The human being needs a framework of values, a philosophy of life, a religion or religion-surrogate to live by and understand by, in about the same sense that he needs sunlight, calcium or love.

We fear our highest possibilities. We are generally afraid to become that which we can glimpse in our most perfect moments, under conditions of great courage. We enjoy and even thrill to godlike possibilities we see in ourselves in such peak moments. And yet we simultaneously shiver with weakness, awe, and fear before these very same possibilities.

We may define therapy as a search for value.

Life could be vastly improved if we could count our blessings as self-actualizing people can and do, and if we could retain their constant sense of good fortune and gratitude for it.

One's only rival is one's own potentialities. One's only failure is failing to live up to one's own possibilities. In this sense, every man can be a king, and must therefore be treated like a king.

What does 'happy' mean? Happiness is not a state like Vermont.

A musician must make music, an artist must paint, a poet must write, if he is to be ultimately at peace with himself.

A first-rate soup is more creative than a second-rate painting.

It looks as if there were a single ultimate goal for mankind, a far goal toward which all persons strive. This is called variously by different authors self-actualization, self-realization, integration, psychological health, individuation, autonomy, creativity, productivity, but they all agree that this amounts to realizing the potentialities of the person, that is to say, becoming fully human, everything that person can be.

In the ideal college, intrinsic education would be available to anyone who wanted it...The college would be life-long, for learning can take place all through life.

The most stable, and therefore, the most healthy self-esteem is based on deserved respect from others rather than on external fame or celebrity and unwarranted adulation.

The human being is so constructed that he pressed toward fuller and fuller being.

To make the growth choice instead of the fear choice a dozen times a day is to move a dozen times a day towards self-actualisation.

Human nature is not nearly as bad as it has been thought to be.

There seems no intrinsic reason why everyone shouldn't be (self-actualising). Apparently every baby has possibilities for self-actualisation, but most get it knocked out of them ...I think of the self-actualising man not as an ordinary man with something added, but rather as the ordinary man with nothing taken away.

Innocence can be redefined and called stupidity. Honesty can be called gullibility. Candor becomes lack of common sense. Interest in your work can be called cowardice. Generosity can be called soft-headedness, and observe : the former is disturbing

The study of crippled, stunted, immature, and unhealthy specimens can yield only a cripple psychology and a cripple philosophy

If you love the truth, you'll trust it - that is, you will expect it to be good, beautiful, perfect, orderly, etc., in the long run, not necessarily in the short run.

False optimism sooner or later means disillusionment , anger and hopelessness.

To the man who only has a hammer, everything he encounters begins to look like a nail.