Abraham Maslow

The human being is a being who is always seeking to understand himself and the world around him.

The more we are able to be ourselves, the more we are able to be truly happy.

It seems to me that the only way to be a good therapist is to be a good human being.

I'm trying to make a science of human nature, not just a science of human pathology.

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 friends, in one's wife, in one's children, in one's work, in one's garden.

We must understand that the human being is a wanting animal and rarely reaches a state of complete satisfaction except for a short time.

The more we know about man's higher nature, the more we will know about man's lower nature.

I have come to think of the self-actualizing person not as an ordinary person with something added, but rather as the ordinary person with nothing taken away.

The only happy people I know are the ones who are working at something they love.

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

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

I think of the self-actualizing man not as a perfect man, but as a healthy man.

The most beautiful human beings we have known are those who have known defeat, known suffering, known struggle, known loss, and have found their way out of the depths.

Growth is a series of choices between safety and danger, then between growth and regression.

We must teach our children to dream with their eyes open.

The only real security that a man can have in this world is a reserve of knowledge, experience, and ability.

The fact is that people are good, if they are not too sick or too hungry.

I am trying to make a science of human nature, not just a science of human pathology.

The only way to be a good therapist is to be a good human being.

One's only failure is failing to live up to one's own possibilities.