Abraham Maslow Men Quotations

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.

I have discovered the missing link between the anthropoid apes and civilized men. It's us!

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

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

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

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.

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

Man is a perpetually wanting animal.

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

There seems no intrinsic reason why everyone shouldn't be (self-actualising). Apparently every baby has possibilities for self-actualisation, but most get it knocked out of them ...I think of the self-actualising man not as an ordinary man with something added, but rather as the ordinary man with nothing taken away.

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

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

Man has his future within him, dynamically alive at this present moment.

What a man can be, he must be. This need we call self-actualizat ion.

Self-actualized people...live more in the real world of nature than in the man-made mass of concepts, abstractions, expectations, beliefs and stereotypes that most people confuse with the world.

One's only rival is one's own potentialities. One's only failure is failing to live up to one's own possibilities. In this sense, every man can be a king, and must therefore be treated like a king.

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

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.

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

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. It is as if psychology had voluntarily restricted itself to only half its rightful jurisdiction, and that the darker, meaner half.

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.

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.

White-Headed Chief was wealthy, even though he owned nothing. In what way did virtue pay ? The men who were formally generous in this way were the most admired, most respected, and the most loved men in the tribe. These were the men who benefited the

Man is ultimately not molded or shaped into humanness. The environment does not give him potentialities and capacities; he has them in inchoate or embryonic form, just exactly as he has embryonic arms and legs. And creativeness, spontaneity, selfhood