Abraham Maslow

I was awfully curious to find out why I didn't go insane.

Dispassionate objectivity is itself a passion, for the real and for the truth.

We may define therapy as a search for value.

One can choose to go back toward safety or forward toward growth. Growth mustbe chosen again and again fear must be overcome again and again.

It is as necessary for man to live in beauty rather than ugliness as it is necessary for him to have food for an aching belly or rest for a weary body.

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.

The science of psychology has been far more successful on the negative than on the positive side... It has revealed to us much about man's shortcomings, his illnesses, his sins, but little about his potentialities, his virtues, his achievable aspirations, or his psychological health.

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.

Almost all creativity involves purposeful play.

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.

I'm someone who likes plowing new ground, then walking away from it. I get bored easily. For me, the big thrill comes with the discovering.

We fear to know the fearsome and unsavory aspects of ourselves, but we fear even more to know the godlike in ourselves.

Dispassionate objectivity is itself a passion for the real and for the truth.

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

In any given moment we have two options: to step forward into growth or step back into safety.

With a tree, all the growth takes place at the growing tips. Humanity is exactly the same. All the growth takes place in the growing tip: among that one percent of the population. It's made up of pioneers, the beginners. That's where the action is.

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

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.

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

He that is good with a hammer tends to think everything is a nail.

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.

Marriage is a school itself. Also, having children. Becoming a father changed my whole life. It taught me as if by revelation.

You will either step forward into growth, or you will step backward into safety.

If I were dropped out of a plane into the ocean and told the nearest land was a thousand miles away Id still swim. And Id despise the one who gave up.

If the only tool you have is 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.

Good psychology should include all the methodological techniques, without having loyalty to one method, one idea, or one person.

The ability to be in the present moment is a major component of mental wellness.

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.

In any given moment we have two options to step forward into growth or to step back into safety.

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.

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.

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

If you only have a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail.

What is necessary to change a person is to change his awareness of himself.

The story of the human race is the story of men and women selling themselves short.

Language can be a way of hiding your thoughts and preventing communication.

If he is to be ultimately at peace with himself, what a man can be, he must be.

If you think only of evil, then you become pessimistic and hopeless like Freud. But if you think there is no evil, then you're just one more deluded Pollyanna.

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.