Abraham Maslow

“The good or healthy society would then be defined as one that permitted people’s highest purposes to emerge by satisfying all their basic needs.” ~ Abraham Maslow

“It isn’t normal to know what we want. It is a rare and difficult psychological achievement.” ~ Abraham Maslow

“Education is learning to grow, learning what to grow toward, learning what is good and bad, learning what is desirable and undesirable, learning what to choose and what not to choose.” ~ Abraham Maslow

“One’s only failure is failing to live up to one’s own possibilities.” ~ Abraham Maslow

“When people appear to be something other than good and decent, it is only because they are reacting to stress, pain, or the deprivation of basic human needs such as security, love, and self-esteem.” ~ Abraham Maslow

“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.” ~ Abraham Maslow

“Self-actualizing people must be what they can be.” ~ Abraham Maslow

“Man is a perpetually wanting animal.” ~ Abraham Maslow

“If you treat your children at home in the same way you treat your animals in the lab, your wife will scratch your eyes out. My wife ferociously warned me against experimenting on her babies.” ~ Abraham Maslow

“All the evidence that we have indicates that it is reasonable to assume in practically every human being, and certainly in almost every newborn baby, that there is an active will toward health, an impulse towards growth, or towards the actualization.” ~ Abraham Maslow

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

“A pedestrian hit me and went under my car.” ~ Abraham Maslow

“We do what we are and we are what we do…” ~ Abraham Maslow

“We crave and fear becoming truly ourselves.” ~ Abraham Maslow

“We must remember that knowledge of one’s own deep nature is also simultaneously knowledge of human nature in general.” ~ Abraham Maslow

“I used up all my sick days, so I’m calling in dead.” ~ Abraham Maslow

“But behavior in the human being is sometimes a defense, a way of concealing motives and thoughts, as language can be a way of hiding your thoughts and preventing communication.” ~ Abraham Maslow

“Language can be a way of hiding your thoughts and preventing communication.” ~ Abraham Maslow

“In order for us to become truly happy, that which we can become, we must become.” ~ Abraham Maslow

“The most beautiful fate, the most wonderful good fortune that can happen to any human being, is to be paid for doing that which he passionately loves to do.” ~ Abraham Maslow

“One can go back toward safety or forward toward growth.” ~ Abraham Maslow

“Be independent of the good opinion of other people.” ~ Abraham Maslow

“We may define therapy as a search for value.” ~ Abraham Maslow

“Laugh at what you hold sacred, and still hold it sacred.” ~ Abraham Maslow

“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.” ~ Abraham Maslow

“What a man can be, he must be. This need we call self-actualizat ion.” ~ Abraham Maslow

“I suppose it is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail.” ~ Abraham Maslow

“The spiritual life is part of the human essence. It is a defining characteristic of human nature, without which human nature is not fully human.” ~ Abraham Maslow

“The only happy people I know are the ones who are working well at something they consider important.” ~ Abraham Maslow

“Religion becomes a state of mind achievable in almost any activity of life, if this activity is raised to a suitable level of perfection.” ~ Abraham Maslow

“To the man who only has a hammer, everything he encounters begins to look like a nail.” ~ Abraham Maslow

“I have learned the novice can often see things that the expert overlooks. All that is necessary is not to be afraid of making mistakes, or of appearing naive.” ~ Abraham Maslow

“I think of the self-actualizing man not as an ordinary man with something added, but rather as the ordinary man with nothing taken away. The average man is a full human being with dampened and inhibited powers and capabilities.” ~ Abraham Maslow

“The major motivation theories by which most men live can lead them only to depression and cynicism.” ~ Abraham Maslow

“Self-actualizing people have a deep feeling of identification, sympathy, and affection for human beings in general. They feel kinship and connection, as if all people were members of a single family.” ~ Abraham Maslow

“Since my mother is the type that’s called schizophrenogenic in the literature-she’s the one who makes crazy people, crazy children-I was awfully curious to find out why I didn’t go insane.” ~ Abraham Maslow

“I was awfully curious to find out why I didn’t go insane.” ~ Abraham Maslow

“A positive self image and healthy self esteem is based on approval, acceptance and recognition from others; but also upon actual accomplishments, achievements and success upon the realistic self confidence which ensues.” ~ Abraham Maslow

“Creativity is a characteristic given to all human beings at birth.” ~ Abraham Maslow

“Creative people are all there, totally immersed, fascinated and absorbed in the present, in the current situation, in the here-now, with the matter-in-hand.” ~ Abraham Maslow

“What is life for? Life is for you.” ~ Abraham Maslow

“Classic economic theory, based as it is on an inadequate theory of human motivation, could be revolutionized by accepting the reality of higher human needs, including the impulse to self actualization and the love for the highest values.” ~ Abraham Maslow

“False optimism sooner or later means disillusionment, anger and hopelessness.” ~ Abraham Maslow

“Love, safety, belongingness and respect from other people are almost panaceas for the situational disturbances and even for some of the mild character disturbances.” ~ Abraham Maslow

“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.” ~ Abraham Maslow

“A first-rate soup is more creative than a second-rate painting.” ~ Abraham Maslow

“An invisible car came out of nowhere, struck my vehicle and vanished.” ~ Abraham Maslow

“The job is, if we are willing to take it seriously, to help ourselves to be more perfectly what we are, to be more full, more actualizing, more realizing in fact, what we are in potentiality.” ~ Abraham Maslow

“The chicken came first – God would look silly sitting on an egg.” ~ Abraham Maslow

“A child wants some kind of undisrupted routine or rhythm. He seems to want a predictable, orderly world.” ~ Abraham Maslow

“We are not in a position in which we have nothing to work with. We already have capacities, talents, direction, missions, callings.” ~ Abraham Maslow

“If I were dropped out of a plane into the ocean and told the nearest land was a thousand miles away, I’d still swim. And I’d despise the one who gave up.” ~ Abraham Maslow

“The story of the human race is the story of men and women selling themselves short.” ~ Abraham Maslow

“Getting used to our blessings is one of the most important non-evil generators of human evil, tragedy and suffering.” ~ Abraham Maslow

“One cannot choose wisely for a life unless he dares to listen to himself, his own self, at each moment of his life.” ~ Abraham Maslow

“Secrecy, censorship, dishonesty, and blocking of communication threaten all the basic needs.” ~ Abraham Maslow

“The study of crippled, stunted, immature, and unhealthy specimens can yield only a cripple psychology and a cripple philosophy.” ~ Abraham Maslow

“The key question isn’t, ‘What fosters creativity?’ But it is, ‘Why isn’t everyone creative?’” ~ Abraham Maslow

“One of the goals of education should be to teach that life is precious.” ~ Abraham Maslow

“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.” ~ Abraham Maslow

“People are not evil; they are schlemiels.” ~ Abraham Maslow

“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.” ~ Abraham Maslow

“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.” ~ Abraham Maslow

“Man has his future within him, dynamically alive at this present moment.” ~ Abraham Maslow

“We must understand love; we must be able to teach it, to create it, to predict it, or else the world is lost to hostility and to suspicion.” ~ Abraham Maslow

“We have got to abandon the sense of amazement in the face of creativity, as if it were a miracle if anybody created anything.” ~ Abraham Maslow

“All of life is education and everybody is a teacher and everybody is forever a pupil.” ~ Abraham Maslow

“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.” ~ Abraham Maslow

“No psychological health is possible unless this essential care of the person is fundamentally accepted, loved and respected by others and by himself.” ~ Abraham Maslow

“Only the flexibly creative person can really manage the future, Only the one who can face novelty with confidence and without fear.” ~ Abraham Maslow

“The best way to view a present problem is to give it all you’ve got, to study it and its nature, to perceive within it the intrinsic interrelationships, to discover the answer to the problem within the problem itself.” ~ Abraham Maslow

“I have discovered the missing link between the anthropoid apes and civilized men. It’s us!” ~ Abraham Maslow

“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.” ~ Abraham Maslow

“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.” ~ Abraham Maslow

“We need not take refuge in supernatural gods to explain our saints and sages and heroes and statesmen, as if to explain our disbelief that mere unaided human beings could be that good or wise.” ~ Abraham Maslow

“He that is good with a hammer tends to think everything is a nail.” ~ Abraham Maslow

“Become aware of internal, subjective, sub-verbal experiences, so that these experiences can be brought into the world of abstraction…” ~ Abraham Maslow

“What shall we think of a well-adjusted slave?” ~ Abraham Maslow

“Human nature is not nearly as bad as it has been thought to be.” ~ Abraham Maslow

“What one can be, one must be!” ~ Abraham Maslow

“What is necessary to change a person is to change his awareness of himself.” ~ Abraham Maslow

“You will either step forward into growth or you will step back into safety.” ~ Abraham Maslow

“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.” ~ Abraham Maslow

“Dispassionate objectivity is itself a passion, for the real and for the truth.” ~ Abraham Maslow

“If the essential core of the person is denied or suppressed, he gets sick sometimes in obvious ways, sometimes in subtle ways, sometimes immediately, sometimes later.” ~ Abraham Maslow

“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.” ~ Abraham Maslow

“What does ‘happy’ mean? Happiness is not a state like Vermont.” ~ Abraham Maslow

“If you only have a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail.” ~ Abraham Maslow

“My feeling is that the concept of creativeness and the concept of the healthy, self actualizing, fully human person seem to be coming closer and closer together, and may perhaps turn out to be the same thing.” ~ Abraham Maslow

“A stupid man behaves stupidly, not because he wants to, or tries to, or is motivated to, but simply because he is what he is.” ~ Abraham Maslow

“We fear our highest possibility. We are generally afraid to become that which we can glimpse in our most perfect moments.” ~ Abraham Maslow

“Well why not a technology of joy, of happiness?” ~ Abraham Maslow

“Expression and communication in the peak–experiences tend often to become poetic, mythical, and rhapsodic, as if this were the natural kind of language to express such states of being.” ~ Abraham Maslow

“Musicians must make music, artists must paint, poets must write if they are to be ultimately at peace with themselves. What human beings can be, they must be. They must be true to their own nature. This need we may call self-actualization.” ~ Abraham Maslow

“Fear of knowing is very deeply a fear of doing.” ~ Abraham Maslow

“The ability to be in the present moment is a major component of mental wellness.” ~ Abraham Maslow

“If you plan on being anything less than you are capable of being, you will probably be unhappy all the days of your life.” ~ Abraham Maslow

“The test of a man is: does he bear apples? Does he bear fruit?” ~ Abraham Maslow

“Boys will be boys as long as there are no girls in the picture.” ~ Abraham Maslow

“The emotional reaction in the peak experience has a special flavor of wonder, of awe, of reverence, of humility and surrender before the experience as before something great.” ~ Abraham Maslow

“Every person is, in part, ‘his own project’ and makes himself.” ~ Abraham Maslow

“When we free ourselves from the constraints of ordinary goals and uninformed scoffers we will find ourselves roaring off the face of the earth.” ~ Abraham Maslow

“The loss of illusions and the discovery of identity, though painful at first, can be ultimately exhilarating and strengthening.” ~ Abraham Maslow

“We fear to know the fearsome and unsavory aspects of ourselves, but we fear even more to know the godlike in ourselves.” ~ Abraham Maslow

“It is vital that people “count their blessings:” to appreciate what they possess without having to undergo its actual loss.” ~ Abraham Maslow

“Quitting smoking can be a very good test of ones character. Pass the test and you will have accomplished so much more than just get rid of one bad habit.” ~ Abraham Maslow

“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.” ~ Abraham Maslow

“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.” ~ Abraham Maslow

“Common sense means living in the world as it is today; but creative people are people who don’t want the world as it is today but want to make another world.” ~ Abraham Maslow