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.

You will either step forward into growth or you will step back into safety.

Musicians must make music, artists must paint, poets must write if they are to be ultimately at peace with themselves. <strong>What human beings can be, they must be</strong>. They must be true to their own nature. This need we may call self-actualization.

Growth, individuation, autonomy, self-actualization, self-development, productiveness, self-realization, are all crudely synonymous.

The sacred is in the ordinary, in one's daily life, in one's neighbors, friends, and family, in one's backyard.

One cannot choose wisely for a life unless he dares to listen to himself, his own self, at each moment of his life.

The dichotomy between selfishness and unselfishness disappears altogether in healthy people because in principle every act is both selfish and unselfish.

There are no perfect human beings! Persons can be found who are good, very good indeed, in fact, great. There do in fact exist creators, seers, sages, saints, shakers, and movers...even if they are uncommon and do not come by the dozen. And yet these very same people can at times be boring, irritating, petulant, selfish, angry, or depressed. To avoid disillusionment with human nature, we must first give up our illusions about it.

And so also for the great statesman, the great therapist, the great philosopher, the great parent, the great inventor. They are all integrators, able to bring separates and even opposites together into unity.

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

We are generally afraid to become that which we can glimpse in our most perfect moments.

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.'

Self-actualizing individuals have a genuine desire to help the human race.

If the most socially identified people are themselves the most individualistic people, of what use is it to retain the polarity? If the most mature are also the most childlike? And if the most ethical and moral people are also the lustiest and most animal

Getting used to our blessings is one of the most important non-evil generators of human evil, tragedy and suffering.

A peak-experience happens *to* a person, but the person *makes* the great product.

Much disturbance in children and adolescents can be understood as a consequence of the uncertainty of adults about their values.

I think it is possible that we may soon even define therapy as a search for values, because ultimately the search for identity is, in essence, the search for one’s own intrinsic, authentic values.

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. This need we may call self-actualization. ... It refers to man’s desire for self-fulfillment, namely, to the tendency for him to become actually in what he is potentially: to become everything that one is capable of becoming.

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.

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.

Self-actualizing people, those who have come to a high level of maturation, health and self-fulfillment, have so much to teach us that sometimes they seem almost like a different breed of human beings.

What one can be, one must be.

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.

As one studies these preconditions, one becomes saddened by the ease with which human potentiality can be destroyed or repressed, so that a fully-human person can seem like a miracle, so improbable a happening as to be awe-inspiring. And simultaneously one is heartened by the fact that self-actualizing persons do in fact exist, that they are therefore possible, that the gauntlet of dangers can be run, that the finish line can be crossed.

Duty cannot be contrasted with pleasure nor work with play when duty is pleasure, when work is play, and people doing their duty are simultaneously seeking pleasure and being happy.

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

In short, I do not seek perfection in human nature. To do so is a big mistake and a sure path toward disillusionment and unhappiness in life.

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.

They have become strong enough to be independent of the good opinion of other people, or even of their affection. The honors, the status, the rewards, the popularity, the prestige, and the love they can bestow must have become less important than self-development and inner growth.

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... It refers to man’s desire for self- fulfillment, namely to the tendency for him to become actually in what he is potentially: to become everything one is capable of becoming.

They attempt to grow to perfection and to develop more and more fully their own style.

It would not occur to anyone to question the statement that we “need” iodine or vitamin C. I remind you that the evidence that we “need” love is of exactly the same type.

I am not saying that humans can become psychologically perfect. They cannot, except perhaps for a moment or two. Rather, I am only stating that humans can improve and, furthermore, that we should help them to do so. Psychotherapy and humanistic education should become the science of helping people improve.

For them, motivation is just character growth, character expression, maturation, and development; in a word self-actualization.

Anybody, any person whatsoever, under any circumstance whatsoever, can be a psychological success—at least in the above sense, of doing the best that one can and doing fully what one can—to be himself or herself and to accept the reality of himself or herself.

If I were dropped out of a plane into the ocean and told the nearest land was 1,000 miles away, I’d still swim. And I’d despise the ones who gave up.

When the only tool you have is a hammer, all problems begin to resemble nails.

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.

The group of thinkers who have been working with self-actualization, with self, with authentic humanness, etc., have pretty firmly established their case that man has a tendency to realize himself. By implication he is exhorted to be true to his own nature, to trust himself, to be authentic, spontaneous, honestly expressive, to look for the sources of his action in his own deep inner nature.

Self-actualizing people must be what they can be.

Being and Becoming are not contradictory or mutually exclusive. Approaching and arriving are both in themselves rewarding.

If we want to answer the question, how tall can the human species grow, then obviously it is well to pick out the ones who are already tallest and study them. If we want to know how fast a human being can run, then it is no use to average out the speed of the population; it is far better to collect Olympic gold medal winners and see how well they can do. If we want to know the possibilities for spiritual growth, value growth, or moral development in human beings, then I maintain that we can learn most by studying our most moral, ethical, or saintly people.