Abraham Harold Maslow (1908–70) was an American personality theorist and one of the best-known psychologists of the twentieth century. He was the spearhead of the humanistic school of psychology, sometimes referred to as the “Third Force,” to differentiate it from the schools of behaviorism and Freudian psychoanalysis.
Maslow postulated a “hierarchy of needs” that he theorized leads to “self-actualization” to explain human motivation. His theories propose that people’s basic needs for safety, food and drink, and a sense of belonging and self-worth must be met before they will begin to address their higher-order needs, such as the desire to learn and to fulfill their potential for achievement.
In the 1960s, Maslow’s emphasis on self-expression and the human capacity to transcend limitations found devotees among business executives and the counterculture. Betty Friedan and other feminists drew on Maslow’s concept of self-actualization to explain the alienation of American women.
Maslow’s notable works on psychology and selfhood include Motivation and Personality (1954,) The Psychology of Science: A Reconnaissance (1966,) and Toward a Psychology of Being (1962.)
More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Abraham Maslow
Getting used to our blessings is one of the most important nonevil generators of human evil, tragedy and suffering.
—Abraham Maslow
Topics: Appreciation, Tragedy, Attitude
Self-actualizing people must be what they can be.
—Abraham Maslow
Topics: Act, People
Dispassionate objectivity is itself a passion, for the real and for the truth.
—Abraham Maslow
The dichotomy between selfishness and unselfishness disappears altogether in healthy people because in principle every act is both selfish and unselfish.
—Abraham Maslow
The sacred is in the ordinary, in one’s daily life, in one’s neighbors, friends, and family, in one’s backyard.
—Abraham Maslow
Topics: Friend
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
Topics: Wishes
One cannot choose wisely for a life unless he dares to listen to himself, his own self, at each moment of his life.
—Abraham Maslow
Topics: Wise, Life, Persona
Innocence can be redefined and called stupidity. Honesty can be called gullibility. Candor becomes lack of common sense. Interest in your work can be called cowardice. Generosity can be called soft-headedness, and observe: the former is disturbing.
—Abraham Maslow
Topics: Innocence
I have learned 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
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.
—Abraham Maslow
Topics: Potential
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.
—Abraham Maslow
Topics: Act, Potential, Persona, Heart
To the man who only has a hammer, everything he encounters begins to look like a nail.
—Abraham Maslow
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
—Abraham Maslow
Topics: Achievement
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.
—Abraham Maslow
Sometimes I think we’re alone in the universe, and sometimes I think we’re not. In either case the idea is quite staggering
—Abraham Maslow
Topics: Possibilities, Potential, The Universe
We fear our highest possibility (as well as our lowest one). We are generally afraid to become that which we can glimpse in our most perfect moments.
—Abraham Maslow
Topics: Anxiety, Fear
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.
—Abraham Maslow
Topics: Wisdom, Perfection, People
Become aware of internal, subjective, sub-verbal experiences, so that these experiences can be brought into the world of abstraction, of conversation, of naming, etc. with the consequence that it immediately becomes possible for a certain amount of control to be exerted over these hitherto unconscious and uncontrollable processes.
—Abraham Maslow
Topics: Identity, Self-Knowledge
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.
—Abraham Maslow
Topics: Courage, Risk, Fear
When the only tool you own is a hammer, every problem begins to resemble a nail.
—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
Topics: Vision, Potential
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.
—Abraham Maslow
What is necessary to change a person is to change his awareness of himself.
—Abraham Maslow
Topics: Awareness, Change
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.
—Abraham Maslow
Topics: Reflection
You will either step forward into growth or you will step back into safety.
—Abraham Maslow
Topics: Growth, Courage, Safety
A first rate soup is better than a second rate painting.
—Abraham Maslow
Topics: Appropriateness, Aptness, Success
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.
—Abraham Maslow
Topics: Love, People
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.
—Abraham Maslow
Topics: Music, Purpose, Vision, Peace, Art
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.
—Abraham Maslow
About eighty to ninety per cent of the population must be rated about as high in ego-security as the most secure individuals in our society, who comprise perhaps five or ten per cent at most.
—Abraham Maslow
Topics: Ego
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