30 Best Abraham Maslow Quotes

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

The story of the human race is the story of men and women selling themselves short. – 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 Maslow

A musician must make music, an artist must paint, a poet must write, if he is to be ultimately at peace with himself. – Abraham 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 Maslow

The ability to be in the present moment is a major component of mental wellness. – 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

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

If the only tool you have is a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail. – Abraham Maslow

What one can be, one must be. – Abraham Maslow

The most fortunate are those who have a wonderful capacity to appreciate again and again, freshly and naively, the basic goods of life, with awe, pleasure, wonder, and even ecstasy. – 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

A person who makes full use of his or her talents and capabilities must find the right kind of activity to exercise those capacities. – 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 height. – Abraham Maslow

The good society is one in which virtue pays. – Abraham Maslow

Dispassionate objectivity is itself a passion, for the real and for the truth. – Abraham Maslow

It isn't normal to know what we want. It is a rare and difficult psychological achievement. – Abraham Maslow

The fact is that people are good, if only their fundamental wishes are satisfied, their wish for affection and security. Give people affection and security, and they will give affection and be secure in their feelings and their behavior. – Abraham Maslow

I have learned that 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

A failure is to be preferred to an unattained success, for the failure at least gives you knowledge. – Abraham Maslow

You will either step forward into growth, or you will step backward into safety. – Abraham Maslow

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 own backyard. – Abraham Maslow

We may define therapy as a search for value. – 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

The most stable, and therefore, the most healthy self-esteem is based on deserved respect from others rather than on external fame or celebrity and unwarranted adulation. – Abraham Maslow

If you deliberately set out to be less than you are capable of being, then I warn you that you'll be deeply unhappy for the rest of your life. – Abraham Maslow

The healthy man is not primarily motivated by the need to reduce tensions, to return to a state of equilibrium, or homeostasis. He is primarily motivated by his need to actualize his potentialities. – 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