Self Actualization Quotes & Sayings

Concepts vs. self-actualization. - Instead of dedicating your life to actualize a concept of what you should be like, ACTUALIZE YOURSELF. The process of maturing does not mean to become a captive of conceptualization. It is to come to the realization of what lies in our innermost selves. — Bruce Lee

Go toward self-actualization rather than self-image actualization ... Search within ... for honest self- expression. — Bruce Lee

In life, you don't get instant satisfaction. In life, you get to slog. You work. You grow. You take the long view. You fill the void with self-actualization. — Amy Dickinson

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

Know your own happiness. You want nothing but patience- or give it a more fascinating name, call it hope. — Jane Austen

Any person whom seeks to live a historical existence must devote their efforts to learning about the world, care about people and nature, and seek to express their thoughts in the artistic methodology most appropriate to their particular talent. A person cannot fake self-awareness or imitate an artistic nature. A person must honestly earn a heightened level of conscious awareness. — Kilroy J. Oldster

I exist as I am, that is enough. — Walt Whitman

It was only after two years' work that it occurred to me that I was a writer. I had no particular expectation that the novel would ever be published, because it was sort of a mess. It was only when I found myself writing things I didn't realise I knew that I said, 'I'm a writer now.' The novel had become an incentive to deeper thinking. That's really what writing is - an intense form of thought. — Don DeLillo

Fear of failure is one of the principal fears creating obstacles in the way of successful self-actualization and achieving goals — Sunday Adelaja

I am an artist. Any artist knows that their creations, their pieces must express an array of human emotion and experience. From the juvenile and innocent, to the erotic and the dangerous, and everything in between. Because Life is all of these things and more. It is the artist's divine purpose to reflect what Experience has shown them and others. What truly sets us apart from each other is whether or not we truly know ourselves enough to reflect objectively; but, through our own unique 'voice'. — Solange Nicole

If a person does not satisfy the need to self-actualization, his satisfaction and anxiety increases — Sunday Adelaja

Many people dedicate their lives to actualizing a concept of what they should be like, rather than actualizing themselves.
This difference between self-actualization and self-image actualization is very important. Most people live only for their image — Bruce Lee

Alignment begins with a constituency of one. These are the individuals whose substance is real, pure and nonnegotiable. They share their vulnerabilities and fears in complement to their strengths. They are comfortable weaving all parts of their lives together in an integrated way. Our level of effectiveness, contribution and integrity of work and life are in direct correlation with our level of integration, self-actualization and total alignment fo body, mind and spirit. — Kristin S. Kaufman

Our goals are not achieved if all our energy given to us to achieve the goal and self-actualization is directed towards being accepted by our surroundings and to meet their requirements — Sunday Adelaja

Oliver did not seem to understand that the only real fulfilment on this earth was to be gained through hard work. Life as a series of momentary pleasures satisfied no one. He needed to make an investment in it, an investment of himself. — Julian Fellowes

Everything that motivates living creatures is based on
some weakness or flaw. Hunger motivates animals. Lust
motivates animals. Fear and pain motivate animals. A God
would have none of those impulses. Humans are driven by
all of our animal passions plus loftier-sounding things like
self-actualization and creativity and freedom and love — Scott Adams

It is certainly true that cooking is therapeutic, creative and all those other faintly creepy self-helpish words. I would love to tell you that learning to cook was part of my journey toward actualization. I would love to tell Oprah this. I would love to tell Oprah this while weeping. But I learned to cook for a much simpler reason: in the abject hope that people would spend time with me if I put good things in their mouth. It is, in other words (like practically everything else I do), a function of my desperation for emotional connection and acclaim. — Steve Almond

You don't find happiness, you make happiness. — David Leonhardt

Give yourself permission to stop existing and start growing. We all need more than work for self-actualization. Remember that interests and hobbies aren't frivolous; they're necessary for fulfillment and health. — Susan Barbara Apollon

The gift of willingness is the only thing that stands between the quiet desperation of a disingenuous life and the actualization of unexpressed potential. — James Patrick McDonald

As far as you can, get into the habit of asking yourself in relation to any action taken by another: "What is his point of reference here?" But begin with yourself: examine yourself first. — Marcus Aurelius

My mom says you only need three people you can rely on to achieve self-actualization. — Cassandra Clare

The self-actualization process for a man is a conscious choice of a life goal and the way to achieve it — Sunday Adelaja

Fake Self-Actualization Loophole: Often, a loophole is disguised as an embrace of life or an acceptance of self, so that the failure to pursue a habit seems life-affirming - almost spiritual. — Gretchen Rubin

Successful self-actualization can prevent inferiority complexes — Sunday Adelaja

We have an obligation to ourselves to foster the environment that allows for our self-actualization. Rather than my gifts serving me, I must serve them. I want to be a steward of the best aspects of my character and assist them in their fulfillment through proper discipline and habits. — Chris Matakas

There is no greater moment in life than that when we discover the unique design which has shaped our lives from the moment of birth, save one:
The instant we recognize destiny, accept it and then begin to create the rest of our own lives within it using the power of free will.
When this threshold has been crossed, nothing can stop our inevitable journey into the highest good for ourselves and all around us.
This is healing.
This is actualization.
This is integration.
This is joy.
And it is the birthright of every incarnated soul on this planet. — Jacob Nordby

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

The most important thing in life it to be true to ourselves, to never give up attempting to become the very finest version of what we wish to be, no matter how arduous that proves to be. — Kilroy J. Oldster

Shed who you think you are, to experience who you really are. — Evita Ochel

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

No matter who you are, no matter what you did, no matter where you've come from, you can always change, become a better version of yourself. — Madonna

To achieve self actualization, do good things for other people that you would want to be done onto yourself — Meg Cabot

The tree of technology management takes root only if there is the self-actualization of needs, renewal, interdependence, and natural flow. The growth patterns are characteristic of the evolution process, which means that things move in a combination of slow change and sudden transformation; each transformation causes either a leap into a new, more complex level or a devastating crash to some earlier level; dominant models reach a certain peak of success when they turn troublesome; and the rate of change always accelerates. — A. P. J. Abdul Kalam

Parents who engage in this kind of [conscious] parenting understand the power of being present being mindful to take the time to build connection understanding that this foundation is the bedrock of all later self-worth, self-esteem and self-actualization. — Shefali Tsabary

To try deliberately for self-actualization is like trying very hard to fall asleep or to have a good time. — Cornelius Plantinga

Swapping out the nine-to-five for a more agile, independent working life brings with it one other huge benefit - a channel for self-actualization. — Leah Busque

Gen. Matthew Ridgeway intended not to impose his will on his men, but to allow the men under him to find something in themselves that would make them more confident, more purposeful fighting men. It was their confidence in themselves that would make them fight well, he believed, not so much their belief in him. His job was to keep them to find that quality in themselves. — David Halberstam

In my deepest contacts with individuals in therapy, even those whose troubles are most disturbing, whose behavior has been most anti-social, whose feelings seem most abnormal, I find this to be true. When I can sensitively understand the feelings which they are expressing, when I am able to accept them as separate persons in their own right, then I find that they tend to move in certain directions. And what are these directions in which they tend to move? The words which I believe are most truly descriptive are words such as positive, constructive, moving toward self-actualization, growing toward maturity, growing toward socialization. — Carl R. Rogers

Those who improve with age embrace the power of personal growth and personal achievement and begin to replace youth with wisdom, innocence with understanding, and lack of purpose with self-actualization. — Bo Bennett

If you wish to find yourself, you must first admit you are lost. — Brian Rathbone

No man can begin to mould himself on a faith or an idea without rising to a higher order of experience. — George Eliot

Only to the extent that someone is living out this self transcendence of human existence, is he truly human or does he become his true self. He becomes so, not by concerning himself with his self's actualization, but by forgetting himself and giving himself, overlooking himself and focusing outward. — Viktor E. Frankl

It was psychobabbler Abraham Maslow who wrote of the phenomena of self-actualization. What Maslow failed to grasp is that reaching true self-actualization can only be ultimately achieved when you have your own brand of ammunition. — Ted Nugent

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

It is easy to live for others, everybody does. I call on you to live for yourself. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

The more the development of late capitalism renders obsolete or at least suspect the real possibilities of self, self-fulfillment and actualization, the more they are emphasized as if they could spring to life through an act of will alone. — Richard Rosen

How to Write a Thesis," then, isn't just about fulfilling a degree requirement. It's also about engaging difference and attempting a project that is seemingly impossible, humbly reckoning with "the knowledge that anyone can teach us something." It models a kind of self-actualization, a belief in the integrity of one's own voice. — Anonymous

Whatever you is, Onion," he said, "be it full. — James McBride

Mannequins can't dress themselves. Stones go wherever you throw them. — Marty Rubin

For many kids, the Internet is a means of self-actualization. It allows them to explore who they are and who they want to be, but that works only if we're able to be private and anonymous, to make mistakes without them following us. — Glenn Greenwald

Embracing human frailty, fallibility, and heartbreaking aloneness is crucial for any person seeking to attain self-actualization and self-realization. — Kilroy J. Oldster

Age 50 is the mile marker where any mildly perceptive person becomes acutely aware that he or she alone is accountable for the content and coherence of their character. — Kilroy J. Oldster

Housework is work directly opposed to the possibility of human self-actualization. — Ann Oakley

I chose to live in the Ether, to be starlight and legend.... — Laurie Perez

By declaring that man is responsible and must actualize the potential meaning of his life, I wish to stress that the true meaning of life is to be discovered in the world rather than within man or his own psyche, as though it were a closed system. I have termed this constitutive characteristic "the self-transcendence of human existence." It denotes the fact that being human always points, and is directed, to something or someone, other than oneself
be it a meaning to fulfill or another human being to encounter. The more one forgets himself
by giving himself to a cause to serve or another person to love
the more human he is and the more he actualizes himself. What is called self-actualization is not an attainable aim at all, for the simple reason that the more one would strive for it, the more he would miss it. In other words, self-actualization is possible only as a side-effect of self-transcendence. — Viktor E. Frankl

It is important to measure ourselves at least once in life, undertake a personal odyssey that constructs a clarifying prism of our being. — Kilroy J. Oldster

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

Keep on dreaming your better self. — Igor Goldkind

The joy in life is his who has the heart to demand it. — Theodore Roosevelt

Self-development requires direct action. Knowledge must precede action. The self's relation to the world must be grounded in reality through ideas and thoughts. Self-reflection and introspection expands our appreciation of life. — Kilroy J. Oldster

The "self-actualization" philosophy from which most of this new bureaucratic language emerged insists that we live in a timeless present, that history means nothing, that we simply create the world around us through the power of the will. — David Graeber

During self-reflection, the realization came that revolution begins within. — Amanda Mosher

To accept struggle as part of life, to accept all of it, even the darkest moments of anguish; to be motivated by love rather than fear, by confidence rather than insecurity: these are the benchmarks of high self-esteem. The wish to avoid fear and pain is not the motive that drives the lives of highly evolved men and women; rather, it is the life force within them, thrusting toward its unique form of expression-the actualization of personal values. — Nathaniel Branden

By not letting me turn you into something you're not, you've helped me be more of myself. — Aleksandra Ninkovic

Insights are everything. They play central parts in the actualization of destiny. A dangerous insights becomes a colossal executioner. Latching your fate with noble thoughts spares you a life of self-limitation. — Darmie Orem

All energy given to us for the achievements of goals and self-actualization is instead spent on deriving acceptance from our surroundings and compliance with the requirements of the society — Sunday Adelaja

The more distortions we have the less attention we can pay to realizing our potential and self- actualization of our personality — Sunday Adelaja

Self-actualization is what educated existence is all about. For members of the educated class, life is one long graduate school. When they die, God meets them at the gates of heaven, totes up how many fields of self-expression they have mastered, and then hands them a divine diploma and lets them in. — David Brooks

A tenacious grip on our own ideals, irrespective of hurdles, would propel us towards self-actualization! — Deeba Salim Irfan

Visionary feminism is a wise and loving politics. It is rooted in the love of male and female being, refusing to privilege one over the other. The soul of feminist politics is the commitment to ending patriarchal domination of women and men, girls and boys. Love cannot exist in any relationship that is based on domination and coercion. Males cannot love themselves in patriarchal culture if their very self-definition relies on submission to patriarchal rules. When men embrace feminist thinking and preactice, which emphasizes the value of mutual growth and self-actualization in all relationships, their emotional well-being will be enhanced. A genuine feminist politics always brings us from bondage to freedom, from lovelessness to loving. — Bell Hooks

The rough must always accompany the smooth. Without one or the other one learns nothing about oneself. — Solange Nicole

The woman who refuses to see her sexual organs as mere wood chips, designed to make the man's life more comfortable, is in danger of becoming a lesbian
an active, phallic woman, an intellectual virago with a fire of her own ... The lesbian body is a particularly pernicious and depraved version of the female body in general; it is susceptible to auto-eroticism, clitoral pleasure and self-actualization. — Sigmund Freud

Let yourself be drawn by the stronger pull of that which you truly love. — Rumi

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

While I still did not know what self- actualization that sat on the top level of the pyramid meant, I could believe
that if I knew I would be able to say something positive about it as well in
my life. — Vann Chow

It is possible I can make very little of myself; but this little is everything, and better than what I allow to be made out of me by the might of others, by the training of custom, religion, the laws, the State. — Max Stirner

(William) Deresiewicz offers a vision of what it takes to move from adolescence to adulthood. Everyone is born with a mind, he writes, but it is only through introspection, observation, connecting the head and the heart, making meaning of experience and finding an organizing purpose that you build a unique individual self. — David Brooks

Don't go on discussing what a good person should be. Just be one. — Marcus Aurelius

The more one forgives himself - by giving himself to a cause to serve or another person to love - the more human he is and the more he actualizes himself. — Viktor E. Frankl

Bloom where you are planted,' the poster reads. But the poster does not tell the whole story. ' plant yourself where you know you can bloom' may well be the poster we all need to see. Or better yet, "Work the arid soil however long it takes until something that fulfills the rest of you finally makes the desert in you bloom. — Joan D. Chittister

Parents should learn to stop nagging their children about how well they could do "if you only tried more, or cared more." Trying and caring, in specific areas, is built into people; or else it comes to them later, if they mature properly; or it never comes at all. But it is dead certain that no young person was ever motivated by a querulous, disappointed parent more concerned with his own pride than with the child's ultimate self-actualization. — Sydney J. Harris

In a world of watered-down bestsellers and formula novels, Hitching to Nirvana eases back just enough to show the blade which cuts the real open, then bolts forward again, giving us a charged, swerving dance to self-actualization. Hitching to Nirvana is a magnetic forcefield, not just pulling us beautifully into the story, but into our own lives. It's rare when a writer can open the shared world with such a deft, personal touch. Janet Mason is a genius. — CA Conrad

It's not happening to you, it's happening through you. Check your thoughts and your energetic output for the answers. — Sanjo Jendayi

Within you, you will find everything you need to be complete. — Bryant McGill

Lilly: Mia, when I recognize a human soul crying out for self-actualization, I am powerless to stop myself. I must do what I can to see that that person's dream is realized.
[Gee, I haven't noticed Lilly doing all that much to help me realize my dream of
French-kissing her brother. But on the other hand, I have not exactly made that dream known to her.] — Meg Cabot

Grandmere says she can't get over the change in me. She says I seem taller. And you know maybe I am. She thinks it's because I'm wearing another one of Sebastiano's original creations, designed just for me,just like the dress that was supposed to make Michael see me as more than just his little sister's best friend ... except that it turned out he already did. But I know that's not it. And it isn't love, either. Well, not entirely. I'll tell you what it is: self-actualization. That and the fact that it turns out I'm really a princess, after all. I must be, because guess what? I'm living happily ever after. — Meg Cabot

Excellence in life, is like a play. For your real life play, the quality of the actors you bring on your life's stage, determine your success. Always choose the best, most excellent actors. — Mark LaMoure

I am Susah, the dragoneer. — C.D. Sutherland

The greatest way to overcome resentment of past is by gratitude of present. What you have, your friends your family, the things that you have overcome but most importantly what you plan to do now. Self Actualization states that we can have what ever we want in the future by acting as if we already have it now. — Matthew Donnelly

it often takes a long time for women to "get into" taking care of themselves, and that her need for autonomy was as much about basking in her hard-won self-actualization as it was a reaction to the exhaustion that comes with tending to a child's every need. These days, as I enter my forties, I find that I am only now beginning to feel comfortable in my own skin, to find the wherewithal to respect my own needs as much as others', to know what my emotional and physical limits are, and to confidently, yet kindly, tell others no. (No, I cannot perform that job; no, I cannot meet you for coffee; no, I cannot be in a relationship in which I feel starved for emotional and physical connection.) — Meghan Daum

Most men lead lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave with the song still in them. — Henry David Thoreau

Every living organism is fulfilled when it follows the right path for its own nature. — Marcus Aurelius

Needs cause motivation. Deep-rooted desires for esteem, affection, belonging, achievement, self-actualization, power, and control motivate us to push for what we want and need in our lives. — Lorii Myers

You know, that's what you've been doing in a way--coming out. Coming out of your room. Coming out of your house. Coming out of your shell. — Jennifer Niven

Life should be full of- Compassion, Peace, Companionship, Honor, Love, Honesty, Joy, Rapture, Euphoria, Friendship, Family, Spiritual Enrichment, Enlightenment, Trust, Truth, Loyalty, Passion, Cultural Enrichment, Unity, Serenity, Zen, Wonder, Respect, Beauty of All Kinds, Balance of all Creation, Philosophy, Adventure, Art, Happiness, Bliss, Serendipity, Kismet, Fantasy, Positivity, Yin, Yang, Color, Variety, Excitement, Sharing, Fun, Sound, Paradise, Magick, Tenderness, Strength, Devotion, Courage, Conviction, Responsibility, Wisdom, Justice, Satisfaction, Fulfillment, Purpose, Mystery, Healing, Learning, Virtue, History, Creativity, Imagination, Receptiveness and Faith. For through these things you are One with your Creator. — Solange Nicole

The person who fights monsters should make sure that in the process, he does not become a monster himself. Because when you stare down at an abyss, the abyss stares back at you. — Friedrich Nietzsche

It was a part of me that I was taking, this magical part of me that he somehow sparked into being. I wasn't waiting for Santa; I wasn't waiting like some heroine in a romance novel for the tall, dark stranger to make a gift of these feelings he evoked in me, I was taking it, I was claiming this for my own. — Chris Dee

The journey was a surreal dream. This world was about knowing the person you'd always wanted to be and setting your foot down to it, remembering the person you'd thought you were as a child and rejoicing in its living, breathing actuality. — Christopher Hawke

Finding happiness is like finding yourself. You don't find happiness, you make happiness. You choose happiness. Self-actualization is a process of discovering who you are, who you want to be and paving the way to happiness by doing what brings you the most meaning and contentment to your life over the long run. — David Leonhardt