Maslow Quotes

Certainly a visitor from Mars descending upon a colony of birth-injured cripples, dwarfs and hunchbacks...could not deduce what they should have been. But then let us not study cripples, but the closest thing we can get to whole, healthy men. In them, we find qualitative differences, a different system of motivation, emotion, value, thinking and perceiving. In a certain sense, only the saints are mankind. All the rest are cripples. ~ Abraham H. Maslow

What is life for? Life is for you. ~ Abraham Maslow

The study of crippled, stunted, immature, and unhealthy specimens can yield only a cripple psychology and a cripple philosophy ~ 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

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

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

Even if you have just half an hour, you can get a good workout. So I try to make it count no matter where I am. ~ James 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

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

What you don't know has power over you; knowing it brings it under your control, and makes it subject to your choice. Ignorance makes real choice impossible. ~ Abraham H. 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

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

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

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

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

People are not evil; they are schlemiels. ~ Abraham Maslow

A true Democratic Spirit is up there with religious faith and emotional maturity and all those other top-of-the-Maslow-Pyramid-type qualities that people spend their whole lives working on. A Democratic Spirit's constituent rigor and humility and self-honesty are, in fact, so hard to maintain on certain issues that it's almost irresistibly tempting to fall in with some established dogmatic camp and to follow that camp's line on the issue and to let your position harden within the camp and become inflexible and to believe that he other camps are either evil or insane and to spend all your time and energy trying to shout over them. ~ David Foster Wallace

According to Maslow, I was stuck on the second level of the pyramid, unable to feel secure in my health and therefore unable to reach for love and respect and art and whatever else, which is, utter horseshit: The urge to make art or contemplate philosophy does not go away when you are sick. Those urges just become transfigured by illness.
Maslow's pyramid seemed to imply I was less human than other people, and most people seemed to agree with him. ~ John Green

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 person in peak-experiences feels himself, more than other times, to be the responsible, active, creating center of his activities and of his perceptions. He feels more like a prime-mover, more self-determined (rather than caused, determined, helpless, dependent, passive, weak, bossed). He feels himself to be his own boss, fully responsible, fully volitional, with more "free-will" than at other times, master of his fate, an agent. ~ Abraham Maslow

The major motivation theories by which most men live can lead them only to depression and cynicism. ~ 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

To quote Maslow again regarding his self-actualizing individuals: "One does not complain about water because it is wet, nor about rocks because they are hard ... As the child looks out upon the world with wide, uncritical and innocent eyes, simply noting and observing what is the case, without either arguing the matter or demanding that it be otherwise, so does the self-actualizing person look upon human nature both in himself and in others." (4, p. 207) This acceptant attitude toward that which exists, I find developing in clients in therapy. ~ Carl R. Rogers

I like people in general, which is why it's fun for me to interact with my fans. ~ James 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

Creativity is a characteristic given to all human beings at birth. ~ Abraham 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

The human being is so constructed that he pressed toward fuller and fuller being. ~ 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

The person who hasn't conquered, withstood and overcome continues to feel doubtful that he could. This is true not only for external dangers; it holds also for the ability to control and to delay one's own impulses, and therefore to be unafraid of them. ~ Abraham H. Maslow

The fact that people who create are good workers tends to be lost. ~ 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

Well that deflated my cock faster than a werebeaver with braces offering free blowjobs. ~ Meghan 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

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

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

I rarely use product in my hair, and when I do I have no idea which ones, nor does it matter all that much to me. And I can't remember the last time I even used a comb, much less carried one around. ~ James Maslow

Human beings seem to be far more autonomous and self-governed than modern psychological theory allows for. ~ 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

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

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

As always, dichotomizing pathologizes (and pathology dichotomizes). ~ Abraham H. Maslow

I tend to stay healthy because I've been eating right and exercising. It makes life so much easier when you're healthy. I also like to challenge myself by making my own physical goals and beating them. ~ James 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

Apparently one impression we are making ... is that creativeness consists of lightning striking you on the head in one great glorious moment. ~ Abraham 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

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

A first-rate soup is more creative than a second-rate painting. ~ Abraham Maslow

It is our desire, not need, to be loved (back). ~ Mokokoma Mokhonoana

Marriage is a school itself. Also, having children. Becoming a father changed my whole life. It taught me as if by revelation. ~ 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

Plateau experiencing can be achieved, learned, earned by long hard work ... A transient glimpse is certainly possible in the peak experiences which may, after all, come sometimes to anyone. But, so to speak, to take up residence on the high plateau ... that is another matter altogether. That tends to be a lifelong effort. ~ Abraham Maslow

But the greatest human problems are not social problems, but decisions that the individual has to make alone. The most important feelings of which man is capable emphasise his separateness from other people, not his kinship with them. The feelings of a mountaineer towards a mountain emphasise his kinship with the mountain rather than with the rest of mankind. The same goes for the leap of the heart experienced by a sailor when he smells the sea, or for the astronomer's feeling about the stars, or for the archaeologist's love of the past. My feeling of love for my fellowmen makes me aware of my humanness; but my feeling about a mountain gives me an oddly nonhuman sensation. It would be incorrect, perhaps, to call it 'superhuman'; but it nevertheless gives me a sense of transcending my everyday humanity.

Maslow's importance is that he has placed these experiences of 'transcendence' at the centre of his psychology. He sees them as the compass by which man gains a sense of the magnetic north of his existence. They bring a glimpse of 'the source of power, meaning and purpose' inside himself. This can be seen with great clarity in the matter of the cure of alcoholics. Alcoholism arises from what I have called 'generalised hypertension', a feeling of strain or anxiety about practically everything. It might be described as a 'passively negative' attitude towards existence. The negativity prevents proper relaxation; there is a perpetual excess of adrenalin in the bloodstrea ~ Colin Wilson

All of life is education and everybody is a teacher and everybody is forever a pupil. ~ Abraham Maslow

Everything for you stems from a physical need. Most of you think with either your belly or what's below it ~ Soroosh Shahrivar

A van backed through my windscreen into my wife's face. ~ Abraham 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

In Maslow's pyramid of needs, Abraham Maslow demonstrates the hierarchy of human requirements, most basic at the bottom, in a diagram. If you ask me, putting people's most basic requirements in a pyramid is bloody exclusive in the first place.They're extremely difficult to build, only pharoahs are allows in them and Indiana Jones was very nearly killed trying to get the treasure out. ~ Russell Brand

During a peak experience," Maslow explained, "the individual experiences an expansion of self, a sense of unity, and meaningfulness in life. The experience lingers in one's consciousness and gives a sense of purpose, integration, self-determination and empathy. ~ Steven Kotler

The test of a man is: does he bear apples? Does he bear fruit? ~ Abraham Maslow

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

Human beings have a deeply ingrained habit of passivity, which is strengthened by the relatively long period that we spend under the control of parents and schoolmasters. Moments of intensity are also moments of power and control; yet we have so little understanding of this that we wait passively for some chance to galvanize the muscle that created the intensity.

But whether you use the negative methods of relaxation (which is fundamentally 'transcendental meditation') or the positive method of intense alertness and concentration, the result is the same: a realization of the enormous vistas of reality that lie outside our normal range of awareness. You recognize that the chief obstacle to such awareness is that we don't need it to get through an ordinary working day. I can make do fairly well with a narrow awareness and a moderate mount of vital energy. I have 'peak experiences' when I occasionally develop more awareness and more energy than I need for the task in hand; then I 'overflow', and realize, for a dazzled moment, what a fascinating universe I actually inhabit. It is significant that Maslow's 'peakers' were not daydreaming romantics, but healthy, practical people... ~ Colin Wilson

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

Sony and Nickelodeon knew they wanted to create a TV show that was a platform for a band they would have for Sony. They knew what they wanted, and it took two years of auditions and screen tests and countless people coming in and out the door until they finally settled on the four of us. ~ James Maslow

Well, that's just what I'm talking about. All Maslow would need to do is rub against your legs and start purring, and you'd immediately forget all this Hitler/Card nonsense. No one does PR like a cat. Why do you think I'm so desperate to hire him? ~ Manny Rayner

Buyerarchy of Needs (with apologies to Maslow):

use what you have
borrow
swap
thrift
make
buy ~ Sarah Lazarovic

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

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

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

At this point, I must describe an important study carried out by Clare W. Graves of Union College, Schenectady, N.Y. on deterioration of work standards. Professor Graves starts from the Maslow-McGregor assumption that work standards deteriorate when people react against workcontrol systems with boredom, inertia, cynicism... A fourteen-year study led to the conclusion that, for practical purposes, we may divide people up into seven groups, seven personality levels, ranging from totally selfpreoccupied and selfish to what Nietzsche called 'a selfrolling wheel'-a thoroughly self-determined person, absorbed in an objective task. This important study might be regarded as an expansion of Shotover's remark that our interest in the world is an overflow of our interest in ourselves - and that therefore nobody can be genuinely 'objective' until they have fully satiated the subjective cravings. What is interesting - and surprising - is that it should not only be possible to distinguish seven clear personality-ypes, but that these can be recognised by any competent industrial psychologist. When Professor Graves's theories were applied in a large manufacturing organisation - and people were slotted into their proper 'levels' - the result was a 17% increase in production and an 87% drop in grumbles.

The seven levels are labelled as follows:

(1) Autistic
(2) Animistic
(3) Awakening and fright
(4) Aggressive power seeking
(5) Sociocentric
(6) Ag ~ Colin Wilson

An invisible car came out of nowhere, struck my vehicle and vanished. ~ Abraham Maslow

I was friends with all different people and all different groups. And that led me to being friends with a few people who didn't even go to my school. Now I have the most amazing collection of friends of all ethnic backgrounds and upbringing and financial backgrounds. ~ James Maslow

One can go back toward safety or forward toward growth. ~ Abraham Maslow

Many times when we help we do not really serve ... Serving is also different from fixing. One of the pioneers of the Human Potential Movement, Abraham Maslow, said, If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.' Seeing yourself as a fixer may cause you to see brokenness everywhere, to sit in judgment of life itself. When we fix others, we may not see their hidden wholeness or trust the integrity of the life in them. Fixers trust their own expertise. When we serve, we see the unborn wholeness in others; we collaborate with it and strengthen it. Others may then be able to see their wholeness for themselves for the first time. ~ Rachel Naomi Remen

What shall we think of a well-adjusted slave? ~ Abraham Maslow

The only happy people I know are the ones who are working well at something they consider important. ABRAHAM MASLOW ~ Mark Sanborn

We crave and fear becoming truly ourselves ~ 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

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

When all you own is a hammer, every problem starts looking like a nail. ~ 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

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

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

We fear to know the fearsome and unsavory aspects of ourselves, but we fear even more to know the godlike in ourselves. ~ Abraham 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

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

Laugh at what you hold sacred, and still hold it sacred. ~ 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

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 should dictate one's life? Money? Fame? No. Friends. Love. Your life's story is formed by those around you. Choose well and share. ~ James Maslow

I enjoy running, especially in a new city, so when I'm on tour that's always a good option. ~ James Maslow

Maslow said sex is the primary need. Does that mean pornstars spend more money in books than anyone else? ~ Daniel Marques

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

I think most of my songs are based on an emotion and in every song I write, there's at least a partial truth. ~ James 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

One thing I love is to do children's hospital visits. ~ James Maslow

All of my fans are beautiful. Some don't know it, & that sucks 'cause every girl deserves to know they are beautiful. ~ James Maslow

It is vital that people "count their blessings:" to appreciate what they possess without having to undergo its actual loss. ~ Abraham Maslow

We can consider the process of healthy growth to be a never ending series of free choice situations, confronting each individual at every point throughout his life, in which he must choose between the delights of safety and growth, dependence and independence, regression and progression, immaturity and maturity. ~ 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