Abraham Maslow Quotes (47 Quotes)


    There is, first, the desire for strength, for achievement, for adequacy, for confidence in the face of the world, and for independence and freedom. Secondly, we have what we may call the desire for reputation or prestige (defining it as respect or es.

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

    To the man who only has a hammer in the toolkit, every problem looks like a nail.

    To objectify our subjective thought so as to be able to look at it and improve it toward perfection. To seek peak experiences.

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


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

    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.

    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,

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

    The beautiful programme of Watson. its fatal flaw is that it's good for the lab and in the lab but you put it on and take it off like a lab coat. It does not generate an image of man, a philosophy of life, a conception of human nature. It's not a gu

    A child wants some kind of undisrupted routine or rhythm. He seems to want a predictable, orderly world. For instance, injustice, unfairness or inconsistency in the parents seems to make a child feel anxious and unsafe. This attitude may not be so mu.

    I have come to think of this humanist trend in psychology as a revolution in the truest, oldest sense of the word the sense in which Galileo, Darwin, Einstein, Freud and Marx made revolutions, i.e. new ways of perceiving and thinking, new images of

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

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


    This Third Psychology is now one facet of a new philosophy of life, a new conception of man, the beginning of a new century of work.

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

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

    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.

    The growing tip is a small proportion of mankind. They will carry on. As a matter of fact, that is what is happening with the whole humanistic synthesis now the groundbreaking is done by a few people, and most of the stuff is just routine or mediocr

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

    The desire to know and to understand are themselves connotative, i.e. have a striving character, and are as much personality needs as the basic needs' we have already discussed.

    If both the physiological and the safety needs are fairly well gratified, then there will emerge love and affection and belongingness needs, and the whole cycle already described will repeat itself with this new centre. Now the person will feel keenl.

    Too many of the findings that have been made in animals have been proven to be true for animals, but not for the human being. There is no reason whatsoever why we should start with animals in order to study human motivation.

    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.

    Even if all these needs are satisfied, we may still often, if not always, expect that a new discontent and restlessness will soon develop, unless the individual is doing what he is fitted for. A musician must make music, an artist must paint, a poet

    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.

    During all my first twenty years, I was depressed, terribly unhappy, lonely, isolated (and self-rejecting).

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

    When all you own is a hammer, every problem starts looking like a nail.

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

    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.

    A first rate soup is better than a second rate painting.

    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.

    The great lesson from the true mystics is that the sacred is in the ordinary, that it is to be found in one's daily life, in one's neighbors, friends, and family, and in one's backyard.

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

    White-Headed Chief was wealthy, even though he owned nothing. In what way did virtue pay The men who were formally generous in this way were the most admired, most respected, and the most loved men in the tribe. These were the men who benefited the

    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.

    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.

    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.

    The neurosis in which the search for safety takes its clearest form is in the compulsive-obsessive neurosis. Compulsive-obsessive to frantically order and stabilize the world so that no unmanageable, unexpected or unfamiliar dangers will ever appear.

    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.

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

    And yet there are also other regressive, fearful, self-diminishing tendencies as well, and it is very easy to forget them in our intoxication with personal growth', especially for inexperienced youngsters. We must appreciate that many people choose

    What conditions of work, what kinds of work, what kinds of management, and what kinds of reward or pay will help human stature to grow healthy, to its fuller and fullest stature Classic economic theory, based as it is on an inadequate theory of hum


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