In 1943, a psychologist named Abraham Maslow categorized and prioritized human needs in a book named “Motivation and Personality.” In this publication, he designed a “hierarchy of human needs” layering each need from the most critical, starting at the base. Maslow identified the base level as physiological needs, such as air, water and food. At the peak of the pyramid is self-actualization, a need for sure but hardly as necessary as requirements of the human body.
Quotes by Abraham Maslow
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.
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.
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.
with the consequence that it immediately becomes possible for a certain amount of control to be exerted over these hitherto unconscious and uncontrollable processes.
If the only tool you have is a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail.
A musician must make music, an artist must paint, a poet must write, if he is to be ultimately at peace with himself.
What is necessary to change a person is to change his awareness of himself.
To the man who only has a hammer, everything he encounters begins to look like a nail.
The ability to be in the present moment is a major component of mental wellness.
If you plan on being anything less than you are capable of being, you will probably be unhappy all the days of your life.
- Born: April 1, 1908, Brooklyn, New York City, New York, United States
- Died: June 8, 1970, Menlo Park, California, United States
- Full name: Abraham Harold Maslow
- Nationality: American
- Getting used to our blessings is one of the most important non-evil generators of human evil, tragedy and suffering.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- When the only tool you have is a hammer, all problems begin to resemble nails.
- 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.
- You will either step forward into growth or you will step back into safety.
- Self-actualizing people must be what they can be.
- 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.
Inspirational Quotes › By Teacher › 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.
- The sacred is in the ordinary, in one's daily life, in one's neighbors, friends, and family, in one's backyard.
- 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.
- 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.
- The dichotomy between selfishness and unselfishness disappears altogether in healthy people because in principle every act is both selfish and unselfish.
- 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.
- 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
- 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.
- 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.
Quotes[edit]
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- Human beings seem to be far more autonomous and self-governed than modern psychological theory allows for.
- Motivation and Personality (1954), p. 123.
- The study of crippled, stunted, immature, and unhealthy specimens can yield only a cripple psychology and a cripple philosophy. The study of self-actualizing people must be the basis for a more universal science of psychology
- Motivation and Personality (1954), p. 234.
- The more evolved and psychologically healthy people get, the more will enlightened management policy be necessary in order to survive in competition and the more handicapped will be an enterprise with an authoritarian policy.
- The Maslow Business Reader.
- I am deliberately rejecting our present easy distinction between sickness and health, at least as far as surface symptoms are concerned. Does sickness mean having symptoms? I maintain now that sickness might consist of not having symptoms when you should. Does health mean being symptom-free? I deny it. Which of the Nazis at Auschwitz or Dachau were healthy? Those with a stricken conscience or those with a nice, clear, happy conscience? Was it possible for a profoundly human person not to feel conflict, suffering, depression, rage, etc.?
In a word if you tell me you have a personality problem, I am not certain until I know you better whether to say "Good" or "I'm sorry". It depends on the reasons. And these, it seems, may be bad reasons, or they may be good reasons.
An example is the changing attitude of psychologists toward popularity, toward adjustment, even toward delinquency.Popular with whom? Perhaps it is better for a youngster to be unpopular with the neighboring snobs or with the local country club set.Adjusted to what? To a bad culture? To a dominating parent? What shall we think of a well-adjusted slave? A well-adjusted prisoner? Even the behavior problem boy is being looked upon with new tolerance. Why is he delinquent? Most often it is for sick reasons. But occasionally it is for good reasons and the boy is simply resisting exploitation, domination, neglect, contempt, and trampling upon. Clearly what will be called personality problems depends on who is doing the calling. The slave owner? The dictator? The patriarchal father? The husband who wants his wife to remain a child? It seems quite clear that personality problems may sometimes be loud protests against the crushing of one's psychological bones, of one's true inner nature.- "Personality Problems and Personality Growth", an essay in, The Self : Explorations in Personal Growth (1956) by Clark E. Moustakas, p. 237, later published in Notes Toward A Psychology of Being (1962).
- 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.
- Eupsychian Management : A Journal (1965), p. 212.
- If swindling pays, then it will not stop. The definition of the good society is one in which virtue pays. I can now add a slight variation on this; you cannot have a good society unless virtue pays. But here we get very close to the whole subject of metaneeds, and also of the ideal conditions where dichotomies are resolved and transcended.
- Eupsychian Management : A Journal (1965), p. 213.
- I suppose it is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail.
- The Psychology of Science: A Reconnaissance (1966), Ch. 2, p. 15; although some similar statements to describe fundamental errors in human perception have been attributed to others, his expression, or slight paraphrases of it, is one of the earliest yet found to be documented in published writings, and remains among the most popular.
- 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.
- The Farther Reaches of Human Nature (1971).
- What is necessary to change a person is to change his awareness of himself.
- As quoted in Life In the Open Sea (1972) by William M. Stephens, p. 21.
- And I may add that it taught me something about the limitations of the small . . . orthodox scientist who won't recognize as knowledge, or as reality, any information that doesn't fit into the already existent science.
- As quoted in New Pathways In Psychology (1972) by Colin Wilson
- The story of the human race is the story of men and women selling themselves short.
- As quoted in Road Signs for Success (1993) by Jim Whitt, p. 61.
- Laugh at what you hold sacred, and still hold it sacred.
- As quoted in Relax — You May Have Only a Few Minutes Left : Using the Power of Humor to Overcome Stress in Your Life and Work (1998) by Loretta LaRoche, p. xvii.
- If you plan on being anything less than you are capable of being, you will probably be unhappy all the days of your life.
- As quoted in Perfecting Private Practice (2004) by Joan Neehall-Davidson, p. 95.
- 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.
- As quoted in The Meaning of Life : According to the Great and the Good (2007) edited by Richard T. Kinnier.
- You will either step forward into growth, or you will step backward into safety.
- As quoted in How the Best Leaders Lead : Proven Secrets to Getting the Most Out of Yourself and Others (2010) by Brian Tracy, p. 35.
Motivation and Personality (1954)[edit]
- For our chronically and extremely hungry man, Utopia can be defined simply as a place where there is plenty of food. He tends to think that, if only he is guaranteed food for the rest of his life, he will be perfectly happy and will never want anything more. Life itself tends to be defined in terms of eating. Freedom, love, community feeling, respect, philosophy, may all be waved aside as fripperies that are useless since they fail to fill the stomach. Such a man may fairly be said to live by bread alone. It cannot possibly be denied that such things are true, but their generality can be denied. Emergency conditions are, almost by definition, rare in the normally functioning peaceful society.
- p. 17.
- Secrecy, censorship, dishonesty, and blocking of communication threaten all the basic needs.
- p. 23.
- 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.
- p. 31.
- 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. This term, first coined by Kurt Goldstein, is being used in this paper in a much more specific and limited fashion. It refers to the desire for self-fulfillment, namely, to the tendency for him to become actualized in what he is potentially. This tendency might be phrased as the desire to become more and more what one is, to become everything that one is capable of becoming.
- p. 93.
- Love, safety, belongingness and respect from other people are almost panaceas for the situational disturbances and even for some of the mild character disturbances.
- p. 103.
- One of the goals of education should be to teach that life is precious.
- p. 255.
External links[edit]
Wikipedia has an article about:
Comprehensive bibliography of Maslow's works
Quotes about Abraham Maslow
Some years ago, an American psychologist, Abraham Maslow, felt the same kind of instinctive revolt against the 'atmosphere' of Freudian psychology, with its emphasis on sickness and neurosis, and decided that he might obtain some equally interesting results if he studied extremely healthy people. He therefore looked around for the most cheerful and well-adjusted people he could find, and asked for their co-operation in his studies. he soon discovered and interesting fact: that most extremely healthy people frequently experience of intense affirmation and certainty; Maslow called these 'peak experiences.' No one had made this discovery before because it had never struck anyone that a science calling itself 'psychology' and professing to be a science of the human mind (not merely the sick mind), ought to form its estimate of human beings by taking into account healthy minds as well as sick ones. A sick man talks obsessively about his illness; a healthy man never talks about his health; for as Pirandello points out, we take happiness for granted, and only begin to question life when we are unhappy. Hence no psychologist ever made this simple and obvious discovery about peak experiences.
- Colin Wilson in Introduction to the New Existentialism, p. 15. (1966)
- Maslow's psychology, firmly based upon Freud and Watson, simply points out that the optimistic side of the picture has been overlooked; the deterministic laws of our 'lower nature' hold sway in their won field; but there are other laws. Man's freedom is a reality -- a reality that makes a difference to his physical, as well as his mental health. When Frankl's prisoners ceased to believe in the possibility of freedom, they grew sick and died. On the other hand, when they saw that Dachau had no chimney, standing out all night in the rain seemed no great hardship; they laughed and joked. The conclusion needs to be stated in letters ten feet high. In order to realise his possibilities, man must believe in an open future; he must have a vision of something worth doing. And this will not be possible until all the determinism and pessimism that we have inherited from the 19th century -- and which has infected every department of our culture, from poetry to atomic physics -- has been dismissed as fallacious and illogical. Twentieth century science, philosophy, politics, literature -- even music -- has been constructed upon a weltanschauung that leaves half of human nature out of account.
- Colin Wilson in New Pathways In Psychology, p 219-220 (1972)
Colin Henry Wilson (26 June 1931 – 5 December 2013) is a British writer, noted for his first book The Outsider and over one hundred other books, including seventeen novels and numerous works in criminology, existential philosophy,psychology, religion, the occult, mysticism, wine, and music.
