Abraham H. Maslow Quotes & Sayings

Shortsighted people make [experientialism and social reform] opposites, mutually exclusive. [...] The empirical fact is that self-actualizing people, our best experiencers, are also our most compassionate, our great improvers and reformers of society, our most effective fighters against injustice, inequality, slavery, cruelty, exploitation (and also our best fighters for excellence, effectiveness, competence). And it also becomes clearer and clearer that our best 'helpers' are the most fully human persons. What I may call the bodhisattvic path is an integration of self-improvement and social zeal, i.e., the best way to become a better 'helper' is to become a better person. — Abraham H. Maslow

Every human being has both sets of forces within him. One set clings to safety and defensiveness out of fear, tending to regress backward, hanging on to the past, afraid to grow away from the primitive communication with the mother's uterus and breast, afraid to take chances, afraid to jeopardize what he already has, afraid of independence, freedom and separateness. The other set of forces impels him forward toward wholeness of Self and uniqueness of Self, toward full functioning of all his capacities, toward confidence in the face of the external world at the same time that he can accept his deepest, real, unconscious Self. — Abraham H. 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 H. Maslow

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. — Abraham H. Maslow

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

Every age but ours has had its model, its ideal. All of these have been given up by our culture; the saint, the hero, the gentleman, the knight, the mystic. About all we have left is the well-adjusted man without problems, a very pale and doubtful substitute. — Abraham H. Maslow

A musician must make music, an artist must paint, a poet must write, if he is to be ultimately at peace with himself. What a man can be, he must be — Abraham H. Maslow

Creativeness comes partly out of the unconscious, i.e., is a healthy regression, a temporary turning away from the real world. — Abraham H. Maslow

In a word if you tell me you have a personality problem I am not certain until I know you better whether to say "Good!" or "I'm sorry." It depends on the reasons. And these, it seems, may be good reasons, or they may be good reasons. — Abraham H. Maslow

If your only tool is a hammer then every problem looks like a nail. — Abraham H. Maslow

How good a society does human nature permit? How good a human nature does society permit? — Abraham H. Maslow

The empirical fact is that self-actualizing people, our best experiencers, are also our most compassionate, our great improvers and reformers of society, our most effective fighters against injustice, inequality, slavery, cruelty, exploitation (and also are best fighters for excellence, effectiveness, competence). And it also becomes clearer and clearer that our best 'helpers' are the most fully human persons. What I may call the bodhisattvic path is an integration of self-improvement and social zeal, i.e., the best way to become a better 'helper' is to become a better person. But one necessary aspect of becoming a better person is via helping other people. So one must and can do both simultaneously. — Abraham H. Maslow

Seeing is better than being blind, even when seeing hurts. — Abraham H. Maslow

It isn't normal to know what we want. It is a rare and difficult psychological achievement. — Abraham H. Maslow

Dispassionate objectivity is itself a passion, for the real and for the truth. — Abraham H. Maslow

The great lesson 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, in one's backyard. — Abraham H. Maslow

Self-actualized people ... live more in the real world of nature than in the man-made mass of concepts, abstractions, expectations, beliefs and stereotypes that most people confuse with the world. — Abraham H. Maslow

In a word, growth and improvement can come through pain and conflict. — Abraham H. Maslow

The key question isn't "What fosters creativity?" But 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 not be why do people create? But why do people not create or innovate?
We have got to abandon that sense of amazement in the face of creativity, as if it were a miracle that anybody created anything. — Abraham H. Maslow

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. — Abraham H. Maslow

To sum it up, from this point of view, the two religions of mankind tend to be the peakers and the non-peakers, that is to say, those who have private, personal, transcendent, core-religious experiences easily and often and who accept them and make use of them, and, on the other hand, those who have never had them or who repress or suppress them and who, therefore, cannot make use of them for their personal therapy, personal growth, or personal fulfillment. — Abraham H. Maslow

Obviously 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 H. Maslow

What is necessary to change a person is to change his awareness of himself. — Abraham H. Maslow

When the only tool you have in your toolbox is a hammer, every problem begins to look like a nail. — Abraham H. 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 H. Maslow

The needs for safety, belonging, love relations and for respect can be satisfied only by other people, i.e., only from outside the person. This means considerable dependence on the environment. A person in this dependent position cannot really be said to be governing himself, or in control of his own fate. He must be beholden to the sources of supply of needed gratifications. Their wishes, their whims, their rules and laws govern him and must be appeased lest he jeopardize his sources of supply. He must be, to an extent, "other-directed," and must be sensitive to other people's approval, affection and good will. This is the same as saying that he must adapt and adjust by being flexible and responsive and by changing himself to fit the external situation. He is the dependent variable; the environment is the fixed, independent variable. — Abraham H. Maslow

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. — Abraham H. 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 H. Maslow

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

The desire to know and to understand are themselves conative, i.e., have a striving character, and are as much personality needs as the "basic needs" we have already discussed. — Abraham H. Maslow

Most people experience both tragedy and joy in varying proportions. Any philosophy which leaves out either cannot be considered to be comprehensive. — Abraham H. Maslow

Let people realize clearly that every time they threaten someone or humiliate or unnecessarily hurt or dominate or reject another human being, they become forces for the creation of psychopathology, even if these be small forces. Let them recognize that every person who is kind, helpful, decent, psychologically democratic, affectionate, and warm, is a psychotheraputic force, even though a small one. — Abraham H. 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 H. 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 H. Maslow

What one can be, one must be! — Abraham H. Maslow

False optimism sooner or later means disillusionment, anger and hopelessness. — Abraham H. 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 H. Maslow

Not allowing people to go through their pain, and protecting them from it, may turn out to be a kind of over-protection, which in turn implies a certain lack of respect for the integrity and the intrinsic nature and the future development of the individual. — Abraham H. 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 H. 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 H. Maslow

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 own backyard ... travel may be a flight from confronting the scared
this lesson can be easily lost. To be looking elsewhere for miracles is to me a sure sign of ignorance that everything is miraculous. — Abraham H. Maslow

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. — Abraham H. 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 H. Maslow

Be independent of the good opinion of other people. — Abraham H. Maslow

I can feel guilty about the past,
Apprehensive about the future,but only in the present can I act.The ability to be in the present moment is a major component of mental wellness. — Abraham H. Maslow

Perhaps adjustment and stabilization, while good because it cuts your pain, is also bad because development towards a higher ideal ceases? — Abraham H. Maslow