Actualized Self Quotes & Sayings

Maslow might be speaking of clients I have known when he says, "self-actualized people have a wonderful capacity to appreciate again and again, freshly and naively, the basic goods of life with awe, pleasure, wonder, and even ecstasy, however stale these experiences may be for other people." (4, p. 214) — Carl R. Rogers

Those things which seem to take meaning away from human life include not only suffering but dying as well. I never tire of saying that the only really transitory aspects of life are the potentialities; but as soon as they are actualized, they are rendered realities at that very moment; they are saved and delivered into the past, wherein they are rescued and preserved from transitoriness. For, in the past, nothing is irretrievably lost but everything irrevocably stored. — Viktor E. Frankl

As a seer, I naturally can see the evolutionary potential of a being. But the potential will not necessarily be actualized. A particular being will not necessarily realize their full height. — Frederick Lenz

God created the possibility of evil; people actualized that potentiality. The source of evil is not God's power but mankind's freedom. Even an all-powerful God could not have created a world in which people had genuine freedom and yet there was no potentiality for sin, because our freedom includes the possibility of sin within its own meaning. — Peter Kreeft

An individual does not need to be a believer in a religion to embrace the idea that there is an animating principle in the self
a life force (some of us call it soul) that when nurtured enhances our capacity to be more fully self-actualized and able to engage in communion with the world around us. — Bell Hooks

The secret, or innermost, level of wisdom is pure intuition, clarity, lucidity, innate wakefulness, presence, and recognition of reality. This transcendental wisdom is within all of us - it just needs to be discovered and developed, unfolded and actualized. — Lama Surya Das

By believing that only some of our students will ever develop a love of books and reading, we ignore those who do not fall into books and reading on their own. We renege on our responsibility to teach students how to become self-actualized readers. We are selling our students short by believing that reading is a talent and that lifelong reading behaviors cannot be taught. — Donalyn Miller

That life is thus created through the cult means salvation from that distress and destruction which would befall, if life were not renewed. For existence is an everlasting war between the forces of life and death, of blessing and curse. 'The world' is worn out if it is not regularly renewed, as anyone can see by the annual course of life and nature. Thus it is the 'fact of salvation' which is actualized in the cult. — Sigmund Mowinckel

LOVE Love is the only way to grasp another human being in the innermost core of his personality. No one can become fully aware of the very essence of another human being unless he loves him. By his love he is enabled to see the essential traits and features in the beloved person; and even more, he sees that which is potential in him, which is not yet actualized but yet ought to be actualized. Furthermore, by his love, the loving person enables the beloved person to actualize these potentialities. By making him aware of what he can be and of what he should become, he makes these potentialities come true. In logotherapy, — Viktor E. Frankl

She's brim full of poetry - actualized poetry, if I may use the expression. She lives what paper-poets only write ... — Thomas Hardy

Perhaps the main basis for the claim that quantum mechanics is weird is the existence of what Einstein called 'spooky action at a distance'. These effects are not only 'spooky' but are also absolutely impossible to achieve within the framework of classical physics. However, if the conception of the physical world is changed from one made out of tiny rock-like entities to a holistic global informational structure that represents tendencies to real events to occur, and in which the choice of which potentiality will be actualized in various places is in the hands of human agents, there is no spookiness about the occurring transfers of information. The postulated global informational structure called the quantum state of the universe is the 'spook' that does the job. But it does so in a completely specified and understandable way, and this renders it basically non-spooky. — Paul Davies

A human being is not one thing among others; things determine each other, but man is ultimately self-determining. What he becomes - within the limits of endowment and environment- he has made out of himself. In the concentration camps, for example, in this living laboratory and on this testing ground, we watched and witnessed some of our comrades behave like swine while others behaved like saints. Man has both potentialities within himself; which one is actualized depends on decisions but not on conditions. — Viktor E. Frankl

Actually, I believe there are only two kinds of women in this world: Martha people and Oprah people. That doesn't mean one can't have an affinity for both of them, but my theory is that every chick is more firmly in one camp than the other. The typical Oprah woman is all self-actualized and best-life-y and Eat, Pray, Love. The Big O seems like the kind of gal who'd insist we all spend the afternoon wearing jammy pants. And how fun would that be?!
But Martha?
She's not putting up with that nonsense, and that makes me adore her all the more. She'll tell you what to eat, where to pray, and who to love, and I appreciate the guidance. — Jen Lancaster

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

I mean, hope doesn't get actualized in three and a half years. If that were the case, we'd be out of luck as a country. — Michelle Obama

Jewish nationalism means no more than recognition of the peoplehood of Israel, and of the propriety of that people's being a religio-cultural group in America, a nationality in Eastern Europe, and in Palestine an actualized nation. — Milton Steinberg

I know it's impossible for you to see peers this way, but when you're older, you start to see them - the bad kids and the good kids and all kids - as people. They're just people, who deserve to be cared for. Varying degrees of sick, varying degrees of neurotic, varying degrees of self- actualized. — John Green

I really love folklore. I had read a lot of faerie folklore that informed the books I wrote. I also really love vampire folklore; my eighth grade research paper was on [it]. [With this project,] it was really helpful to think about the way you can use language. When you're writing about faeries, you can't call anyone "fey"; there are certain words that become forbidden because they're actualized in what faeries do. When you write about vampires, you could think the same way about things like the word "red" or "hunger"
it's interesting to think of the ways that the words have double meanings, or different meanings that shifted. — Holly Black

Love is the only way to grasp another human being in the innermost core of his personality. No one can become fully aware of the very essence of another human being unless he loves him. By his love he is enabled to see the essential traits and features in the beloved person; and even more, he sees that which is potential in him, which is not yet actualized but yet ought to be actualized. Furthermore, by his love, the loving person enables the beloved person to actualize these potentialities. By making him aware of what he can be and of what he should become, he makes these potentialities come true. — Viktor E. Frankl

Power is actualized only when word and deed have not parted company. — Hannah Arendt

To study the Buddha Way is to study the self. To study the self is to forget the self. To forget the self is to be actualized by myriad things. When actualized by myriad things, your body and mind as well as the bodies and minds of others drop away. No trace of enlightenment remains, and this no-trace continues endlessly. — Dogen

Freud's most radical legacy is the one that is the least actualized. After years of evolution on the topic, he came to the conclusion that any exclusive monosexual interest - regardless of whether it was hetero- or homosexual - was neurotic. In a sense Freud is saying what second-wave critic Kate Millet said a half-century late: "Homosexuality was invented by a straight world dealing with its own bisexuality." By the end of his writings, in 1937, Freud was downright blythe about bisexuality: "Every human being['s] . . . libido is distributed, either in a manifest or a latent fashion, over objects of both sexes. — Jennifer Baumgardner

...a bad diet will eventually kill our dreams. It's essential that we constantly evaluate the nutritional value of what we are feeding ourselves. It may come down to how many hours of television we're viewing, the quality of the programs we're watching, what music we're listening to, the material we're reading, the conversations we're having, the movies we're seeing, the Web sites we're visiting, the video games we're playing, or the people with whom we're associating. As harmless as these may sometimes seem, excessive consumption of things that induce negative thinking, bad habits, and wrong behavior will thwart our potential.

A good litmus test is to ask yourself if you're giving more airtime to the media, educators, politicians, economists, pop stars, friends, or tradition than you are to God's Word. To see our dreams actualized, God's Word and His will must take precedence over everything else. — Christine Caine

The vicarious responsibility for things we have not done, this taking upon ourselves the consequences for things we are entirely innocent of, is the price we pay for the fact that we live our lives not by ourselves but among our fellow men, and that the faculty of action, which, after all, is the political faculty par excellence, can be actualized only as one of the many and manifold forces of human community. — Hannah

Everything that informs us of something useful that we didn't already know is a potential signal. If it matters and deserves a response, its potential is actualized. — Stephen Few

Any goal, regardless of how much it's cherished or how earnestly it's developed, will make little progress unless it is supported by commitment. Without commitment, the goals we set for ourselves are mere dreams - ideas that don't have the footing to be realized. Just as motivation provides the energy to set goals and begin the journey, commitment provides the power to stick with it over time so that goals can be actualized. — Heidi Reeder

To sing about freedom and to pray for its coming is not enough. Freedom must be actualized in history by oppressed peoples who accept the intellectual challenge to analyze the world for the purpose of changing it. — James H. Cone

Reflection is nothing more than what it sounds, and pondering one's own life is about as productive as talking to one's image in a mirror: both acts are egocentric and neither produces a dialog. People who talk to themselves in public are not self-actualized; they're crazy. — Anthony Marais

A person who makes full use of and exploits his talents, potentialities, and capacities. Such a person seems to be fulfilling himself and doing the best he is capable of doing. The self-actualized person must find in his life those qualities that make his living rich and rewarding. He must find meaningfulness, self-sufficiency, effortlessness, playfulness, richness, simplicity, completion, necessity, perfection, individuality, beauty, and truth. — Abraham Maslow

The most fully actualized people that I studied over ten years consistently pushed the envelope. These people consistently demanded far more of themselves every day than anyone else ever expected from them. These people raised their standards and committed themselves from their hearts to be the best they could be and to live a life of uncommon wonder. This is what self-mastery is all about. — Robin Sharma

Maslow notes that the self-actualized person has a strong desire for privacy; vehemently resists enculturation, but always has a freshness of appreciation; and has a genuine desire to help the human race. Yet when it comes down to it, in certain basic ways he is like an alien in a strange land. Very few really understand him, however much they may like him. — Wayne W. Dyer

Abraham Maslow became a towering figure in my life. He was the inspiration for me to look at psychology from a 180-degree-turnabout position. Rather than studying what was weak, infirm, or limited in clients and make an assessment based on overcoming ailments, I began looking for the highest qualities of self-actualization and encouraging clients - and ultimately readers and listeners - to seek their own innate greatness and aspire to these pinnacles. I reasoned that if some among us could be self-actualized, then so could I and anyone else who understood that it was possible. This became a major focus of my professional life and the compass I set for myself to live the principles that Maslow delineated in his writing. — Wayne W. Dyer

THE MEANING OF LOVE Love is the only way to grasp another human being in the innermost core of his personality. No one can become fully aware of the very essence of another human being unless he loves him. By his love he is enabled to see the essential traits and features in the beloved person; and even more, he sees that which is potential in him, which is not yet actualized but yet ought to be actualized. Furthermore, by his love, the loving person enables the beloved person to actualize these potentialities. By making him aware of what he can be and of what he should become, he makes these potentialities come — Viktor E. Frankl

I hate traveling and being away from my family. But I like meeting my readers, as what I write is actualized in them. Those encounters are exhilarating to me. — Aleksandar Hemon

Jesus was a human being who, while on Earth, completely self-actualized and fulfilled in all ways the potential glory that lies within us all. — Marianne Williamson

Self-actualized people are independent of the good opinion of others. — Wayne Dyer

To some extent this area was foreshadowed by pioneering humanistic psychologist Abraham Maslow, who wrote about the self-actualized or fulfilled person, and Carl Rogers, who once noted that he was pessimistic about the world, but optimistic about people. — Tom Butler-Bowdon

The most successful leader of all is the one who sees another picture not yet actualized. He sees the things which are not yet there ... Above all, he should make his co-workers see that it is not his purpose which is to be achieved, but a common purpose, born of the desires and the activities of the group. — Mary Parker Follett

Man has both potentialities within himself; which one is actualized depends on decisions but not on conditions. Our — Viktor E. Frankl

Just as He had been doing even before the moment I consciously embarked on this journey, He revealed to me that it was all about love. It always has been - before the foundations of the earth - and it always will be - throughout eternity. The answers I was seeking were found in love, the healing I desperately needed also found in love. The love I sought and so desperately wanted to give was enabled, empowered, and actualized by His divine love. So nothing remains but for me to LOVE as an expression of my appreciation for His love for me: L-live an O-openly V-virtuous E-existence. — Riisa Renee

For as soon as we have used an opportunity and have actualized a potential meaning, we have done so once and for all. We have rescued it into the past/ ... /, wherein nothing is irretrievably lost, but rather, on the contrary, everything is irrevocably stored and treasured. — Viktor E. Frankl

I think fiction isn't so good at being for or against things in general - the rhetorical argument a short story can make is only actualized by the accretion of particular details, and the specificity of these details renders whatever conclusions the story reaches invalid for wider application. — George Saunders

I have self-actualized. Pardon me whilst I adjust my glowing halo. — Ted Nugent

The thought of the novelist lies not in the remarks of his characters or even in their introspection but in the plight he has invented for his characters, in the juxtaposition of those characters and in the lifelike ramifications of the ensemble they make - their density, their substantiality, their lived existence actualized in all its nuanced particulars, is in fact his thought metabolized. — Philip Roth

I'm actually not a particularly negative person, but I feel like most things are better when they're not actualized. The motivation that comes from wanting something is so much more driving of people than actually getting it. — Grimes

But I wonder about the people who never suffer from depression," she says, leaning forward. "How calloused their souls are to feel less than us." The us rings through my head. "Are they less actualized, less pessimistic, less able to taste the tang of reality on the tips of their tongues? Why are we the broken ones - those who feel things? Who are affected by the changing tides in society? — Tarryn Fisher

Highly functioning self-actualized people simply never imagine what it is that they don't wish to have as their reality. — Wayne Dyer

The truth which can be actualized after Self Realization is that you are not this body, this mind, this conditioning from the past, this ego, these emotions, but that you are the pure spirit. — Nirmala Srivastava

Even if it cannot be
proven that a fetus is an actual living human person, there is no doubt that it is a potential living human person. In other words, a fetus is a developing person. It is not in a frozen state of potentiality. The fetus is in dynamic process-without interference or unforeseen calamity, it surely will become a fully actualized living human person. — R.C. Sproul

To invoke an analogy, consider a movie: it consists of thousands upon thousands of individual pictures, and each of them makes sense and carries a meaning, yet the meaning of the whole film cannot be seen before its last sequence is shown. However, we cannot understand the whole film without having first understood each of its components, each of the individual pictures. Isn't it the same with life? Doesn't the final meaning of life, too reveal itself, if at all, only at its end, on the verge of death? And doesn't this final meaning, too, depend on whether or not the potential meaning of each single situation has been actualized to the best of their respective individual's knowledge and belief? — Victor Frankl

Leadership is unveiled by Vision, Driven by Passion, Activated by Planning, Engineered by Sacrifice and Actualized by Tireless Pursuit. — Ld

Just as our fingerprints are one-of-a-kind, so is our identity. Each of us is a once-only articulation of what humans can be. We are rare, unmatched, mysterious. This is why the quality of openness is so crucial to our self-discovery. We cannot know ourselves by who we think we are, who others take us to be, or what our driver's license may say. We are fields of potential, some now actualized, most not yet. — David Richo