Abraham Maslow
Hierarchy of needs, self-actualization
Most quoted
"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 full psychological height."
— from Motivation and Personality, 1954
"Self-actualizing people are those who have come to a high level of maturation, health and self-fulfillment... the values that self-actualizers appreciate include truth, creativity, beauty, goodness, wholeness, aliveness, uniqueness, justice, simplicity, and self-sufficiency."
— from Motivation and Personality, 1954
"Classic economic theory, based as it is on an inadequate theory of human motivation, could be revolutionized by accepting the reality of higher human needs, including the impulse to self-actualization and the love for the highest values."
— from Eupsychian Management
All quotes by Abraham Maslow (211)
The fully human person is one who has come to terms with his own mortality.
The more we know about ourselves, the more we can become ourselves.
The human being is not a tabula rasa, a blank slate, but rather a being with a built-in structure of needs and capacities.
Growth is a series of choices between safety and danger, then choose danger.
We are not strong enough to be honest, and we are not honest enough to be strong.
The more we learn about man's natural tendencies, the more we will be able to create a social environment that will allow these tendencies to flourish.
Self-actualizing people are, without one exception, involved in some cause outside their own skin.
The most important learning experiences are those that cannot be taught directly, but must be experienced.
It looks as if the organism is always striving to grow, to develop, to actualize its potentialities.
The ultimate goal of education is to help people become fully human.
We are all motivated by two main needs: the need for security and the need for growth.
The more we know about human nature, the more we can help people to become what they are capable of becoming.
The highest form of love is to love others for who they are, not for what they can do for you.
The more self-actualized a person is, the more they are able to transcend their own ego and connect with something larger than themselves.
The fully human person is one who has integrated all of their needs and capacities into a unified whole.
We must learn to listen to our inner voice, to our own instincts and intuitions.
The more we are able to accept ourselves, the more we are able to accept others.
The highest reaches of human nature are not found in the absence of problems, but in the ability to transcend them.
The creative person is one who has the courage to be themselves.
The ultimate goal of science is to understand the nature of reality, including human nature.
Contemporaries of Abraham Maslow
Other Psychologys born within 50 years of Abraham Maslow (1908–1970).