Explore the most impactful and insightful quotes and sayings by Abraham Maslow, and enrich your perspective with the wisdom. Share these inspiring Abraham Maslow quotes pictures with your friends on social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, or your personal blogs, completely free. Here are the top 123 Abraham Maslow quotes for you to read and share.
The best product should be bought, the best man should be rewarded more. Interfering factors which befuddle this triumph of virtue, justice, truth, and efficiency, etc., should be kept to
an absolute minimum or should approach zero as a limit. -- Abraham Maslow
He that is good with a hammer tends to think everything is a nail. -- Abraham Maslow
The human being needs a framework of values, a philosophy of life, a religion or religion-surrogate to live by and understand by, in about the same sense that he needs sunlight, calcium or love. -- Abraham Maslow
I have learned the novice can often see things that the expert overlooks.
All that is necessary is not to be afraid of making mistakes, or of appearing naive. -- Abraham Maslow
Self-actualizing people are those who have come to a high level of maturation, health and self-fulfillment ... the values that self-actualizers appreciate include truth, creativity, beauty, goodness, wholeness, aliveness, uniqueness, justice, simplicity, and self-sufficiency. -- Abraham Maslow
Self-actualizing people have a deep feeling of identification, sympathy, and affection for human beings in general. They feel kinship and connection, as if all people were members of a single family. -- Abraham Maslow
The major motivation theories by which most men live can lead them only to depression and cynicism. -- Abraham Maslow
The search for safety takes its clearest form ... in the compulsive-obsessive neurosis ... to frantically order and stabilize the world so that no unmanageable, unexpected or unfamiliar dangers will ever appear. -- Abraham Maslow
You will either step forward into growth or you will step back into safety. -- Abraham Maslow
We are dealing with a fundamental characteristic, inherent in human nature, a potentiality given to all or most human beings at birth, which most often is lost or buried or inhibited as the person gets enculturated. -- Abraham Maslow
Love, safety, belongingness and respect from other people are almost panaceas for the situational disturbances and even for some of the mild character disturbances. -- Abraham Maslow
A pedestrian hit me and went under my car. -- Abraham Maslow
When all you own is a hammer, every problem starts looking like a nail. -- Abraham Maslow
Fear of knowing is very deeply a fear of doing. -- Abraham Maslow
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. -- Abraham Maslow
The job is, if we are willing to take it seriously, to help ourselves to be more perfectly what we are, to be more full, more actualizing, more realizing in fact, what we are in potentiality. -- Abraham Maslow
People are not evil; they are schlemiels. -- Abraham Maslow
One can go back toward safety or forward toward growth. -- Abraham Maslow
What is life for? Life is for you. -- Abraham Maslow
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. -- Abraham Maslow
No psychological health is possible unless this essential care of the person is fundamentally accepted, loved and respected by others and by himself. -- Abraham Maslow
Boys will be boys as long as there are no girls in the picture. -- Abraham Maslow
If I were a Negro, I'd be fighting, as Martin Luther King fought, for human recognition and justice. I'd rather go down with my flag flying. If you're weak or crippled, or you can't speak out or fight back in some way, then people don't hesitate to treat you badly. -- Abraham Maslow
A stupid man behaves stupidly, not because he wants to, or tries to, or is motivated to, but simply because he is what he is. -- Abraham Maslow
The story of the human race is the story of men and women selling themselves short. -- Abraham Maslow
I may say that (Being) love, in a profound but testable sense, creates the partner. it gives him a self-image, it gives him self-acceptance, a feeling of love-worthiness, all of which permit him to grow. It is a real question whether the full development of the human being is possible without it. -- Abraham Maslow
The best way to view a present problem is to give it all you've got, to study it and its nature, to perceive within it the intrinsic interrelationships, to discover the answer to the problem within the problem itself. -- Abraham Maslow
What we need is a system of thought - you might even call it a religion - that can bind humans together. A system that would fit the Republic of Chad as well as the United States: a system that would supply our idealistic young people with something to believe in. -- Abraham Maslow
Human nature has been sold short ... [humans have] a higher nature which ... includes the need for meaningful work, for responsibility, for creativeness, for being fair and just, for doing what is worthwhile and for preferring to do it well. -- Abraham Maslow
We must remember that knowledge of one's own deep nature is also simultaneously knowledge of human nature in general. -- Abraham Maslow
The peaker learns surely and certainly that life can be worthwhile, that it can be beautiful and valuable. There are ends in life, i.e., experiences which are so precious in themselves as to prove that not everything is a means to some end other than itself. -- Abraham Maslow
The fact that people who create are good workers tends to be lost. -- Abraham Maslow
All of life is education and everybody is a teacher and everybody is forever a pupil. -- Abraham Maslow
We fear to know the fearsome and unsavory aspects of ourselves, but we fear even more to know the godlike in ourselves. -- Abraham Maslow
One of the goals of education should be to teach that life is precious. -- Abraham Maslow
The spiritual life is part of the human essence. It is a defining characteristic of human nature, without which human nature is not fully human. -- Abraham Maslow
A positive self image and healthy self esteem is based on approval, acceptance and recognition from others; but also upon actual accomplishments, achievements and success upon the realistic self confidence which ensues. -- Abraham Maslow
What kind of guilt comes from being true to yourself but not to others?. As we have seen, being true to yourself may at times intrinsically and necessarily be in conflict with being true to others. -- Abraham Maslow
Apparently one impression we are making ... is that creativeness consists of lightning striking you on the head in one great glorious moment. -- Abraham Maslow
My feeling is that the concept of creativeness and the concept of the healthy, self actualizing, fully human person seem to be coming closer and closer together, and may perhaps turn out to be the same thing -- Abraham Maslow
Life could be vastly improved if we could count our blessings as self-actualizing people can and do, and if we could retain their constant sense of good fortune and gratitude for it. -- Abraham Maslow
One cannot choose wisely for a life unless he dares to listen to himself, his own self, at each moment of his life. -- Abraham Maslow
Rioting is a childish way of trying to be a man, but it takes time to rise out of the hell of hatred and frustration and accept that to be a man you don't have to riot. -- Abraham Maslow
Man has his future within him, dynamically alive at this present moment. -- Abraham Maslow
Even when adults do feel their safety to be threatened, we may not be able to see this on the surface. Infants will react in a fashion as if they were endangered, if they are disturbed or dropped suddenly, startled by loud noises, flashing light -- Abraham Maslow
Religion becomes a state of mind achievable in almost any activity of life, if this activity is raised to a suitable level of perfection. -- Abraham Maslow
Whereas the average individuals "often have not the slightest idea of what they are, of what they want, of what their own opinions are," self-actualizing individuals have "superior awareness of their own impulses, desires, opinions, and subjective reactions in general." -- Abraham Maslow
The study of crippled, stunted, immature, and unhealthy specimens can yield only a cripple psychology and a cripple philosophy -- Abraham Maslow
What we call 'normal' in psychology is really a psychopathology of the average, so undramatic and so widely spread that we don't even notice it ordinarily. -- Abraham Maslow
In order for us to become truly happy, that which we can become, we must become. -- Abraham Maslow
Self-actualizing people must be what they can be. -- Abraham Maslow
We are not in a position in which we have nothing to work with. We already have capacities, talents, direction, missions, callings. -- Abraham Maslow
The emotional reaction in the peak experience has a special flavor of wonder, of awe, of reverence, of humility and surrender before the experience as before something great. -- Abraham Maslow
The good or healthy society would then be defined as one that permitted people's highest purposes to emerge by satisfying all their basic needs. -- Abraham Maslow
A child wants some kind of undisrupted routine or rhythm. He seems to want a predictable, orderly world. -- Abraham Maslow
We must understand love; we must be able to teach it, to create it, to predict it, or else the world is lost to hostility and to suspicion. -- Abraham Maslow
We cannot study creativeness in an ultimate sense until we realize that practically all the definitions that we have been using of creativeness are essentially male or masculine definitions of male or masculine products. We've left out of consideration almost entirely the creativeness of women. -- Abraham Maslow
Human nature is not nearly as bad as it has been thought to be. -- Abraham Maslow
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. -- Abraham Maslow
Secrecy, censorship, dishonesty, and blocking of communication threaten all the basic needs. -- Abraham Maslow
Only the flexibly creative person can really manage the future, Only the one who can face novelty with confidence and without fear. -- Abraham Maslow
I used up all my sick days, so I'm calling in dead. -- Abraham Maslow
It is vital that people "count their blessings:" to appreciate what they possess without having to undergo its actual loss. -- Abraham Maslow
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. -- Abraham Maslow
What shall we think of a well-adjusted slave? -- Abraham Maslow
I have discovered the missing link between the anthropoid apes and civilized men. It's us! -- Abraham Maslow
Good psychology should include all the methodological techniques, without having loyalty to one method, one idea, or one person. -- Abraham Maslow
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. -- Abraham Maslow
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. -- Abraham Maslow
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 -- Abraham Maslow
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. -- Abraham Maslow
With my childhood, it's a wonder I'm not psychotic. I was the little Jewish boy in the non-Jewish neighborhood. It was a little like being the first Negro enrolled in the all-white school. I grew up in libraries and among books, without friends. -- Abraham Maslow
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. -- Abraham Maslow
Education can become a self-fulfilling activity, liberating in and of itself. -- Abraham Maslow
Well why not a technology of joy, of happiness? -- Abraham Maslow
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. -- Abraham Maslow
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. -- Abraham Maslow
What a man can be, he must be. This need we call self-actualization. -- Abraham Maslow
The test of a man is: does he bear apples? Does he bear fruit? -- Abraham Maslow
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
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 -- Abraham Maslow
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 -- Abraham Maslow
Education is learning to grow, learning what to grow toward, learning what is good and bad, learning what is desirable and undesirable, learning what to choose and what not to choose. -- Abraham Maslow
Creativity is a characteristic given to all human beings at birth. -- Abraham Maslow
Work is that which you dislike doing but perform for the sake of external rewards. At school, this takes the form of grades. In society, it means money, status, privilege. -- Abraham Maslow
You can see neurosis from below - as a sickness - as most psychiatrists see it. Or you can understand it as a compassionate man might: respecting the neurosis as a fumbling and inefficient effort toward good ends. -- Abraham Maslow
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
Getting used to our blessings is one of the most important non-evil generators of human evil, tragedy and suffering. -- Abraham Maslow
We have got to abandon the sense of amazement in the face of creativity, as if it were a miracle if anybody created anything. -- Abraham Maslow
Become aware of internal, subjective, sub-verbal experiences, so that these experiences can be brought into the world of abstraction ... -- Abraham Maslow
We crave and fear becoming truly ourselves -- Abraham Maslow
Creative people are all there, totally immersed, fascinated and absorbed in the present, in the current situation, in the here-now, with the matter-in-hand. -- Abraham Maslow
Human beings seem to be far more autonomous and self-governed than modern psychological theory allows for. -- Abraham Maslow
To make the growth choice instead of the fear choice a dozen times a day is to move a dozen times a day towards self-actualisation. -- Abraham Maslow
When we free ourselves from the constraints of ordinary goals and uninformed scoffers we will find ourselves roaring off the face of the earth. -- Abraham Maslow
One's only failure is failing to live up to one's own possibilities. -- Abraham Maslow
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 -- Abraham Maslow
Every person is, in part, 'his own project' and makes himself. -- Abraham Maslow
The chicken came first - God would look silly sitting on an egg. -- Abraham Maslow
I think of the self-actualizing man not as an ordinary man with something added, but rather as the ordinary man with nothing taken away. The average man is a full human being with dampened and inhibited powers and capabilities. -- Abraham Maslow
A van backed through my windscreen into my wife's face. -- Abraham Maslow
An invisible car came out of nowhere, struck my vehicle and vanished. -- Abraham Maslow
When people appear to be something other than good and decent, it is only because they are reacting to stress, pain, or the deprivation of basic human needs such as security, love, and self-esteem. -- Abraham Maslow
The human being is so constructed that he pressed toward fuller and fuller being. -- Abraham Maslow
The theory of science which permits and encourages the exclusion of so much that is true and real and existent cannot be considered a comprehensive science. -- Abraham Maslow
It is unfortunate to consider all lawyers as natural Satanists many are just dumb. -- Abraham Maslow
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. -- Abraham Maslow
Where was the human potential lost? How was it crippled? ... a good question might be not why do people create? But why do people not create or innovate? -- Abraham Maslow
What does 'happy' mean? Happiness is not a state like Vermont. -- Abraham Maslow
To the extent that language forces experiences into categories it is a screen between reality and the human being. In a word, we pay for its benefits ... Therefore, while using language, as we must of necessity, we should be aware of its shortcomings. -- Abraham Maslow
The loss of illusions and the discovery of identity, though painful at first, can be ultimately exhilarating and strengthening. -- Abraham Maslow
A first-rate soup is more creative than a second-rate painting. -- Abraham Maslow
Man is a perpetually wanting animal. -- Abraham Maslow
We do what we are and we are what we do ... -- Abraham Maslow
In the ideal college, intrinsic education would be available to anyone who wanted it ... The college would be life-long, for learning can take place all through life. -- Abraham Maslow
Common sense means living in the world as it is today; but creative people are people who don't want the world as it is today but want to make another world. -- Abraham Maslow
I was awfully curious to find out why I didn't go insane. -- Abraham Maslow
Marriage is a school itself. Also, having children. Becoming a father changed my whole life. It taught me as if by revelation. -- Abraham Maslow
In a word, to perceive an object abstractly means not to perceive some aspects of it. It clearly implies selection of some attributes, rejection of other attributes, creation or distortion of still others. We make of it what we wish. We create it. -- Abraham Maslow
Laugh at what you hold sacred, and still hold it sacred. -- Abraham Maslow
Being a full human being is difficult, frightening, and problematical. -- Abraham Maslow
We may define therapy as a search for value. -- Abraham Maslow
We fear our highest possibility. We are generally afraid to become that which we can glimpse in our most perfect moments. -- Abraham Maslow
