Abraham Maslow

Laugh at what you hold sacred, and still hold it sacred.

— Abraham Maslow

One can go back toward safety or forward toward growth.

— Abraham Maslow

Self-actualizing people must be what they can be.

— Abraham Maslow

What is life for? Life is for you.

— Abraham Maslow

The chicken came first - God would look silly sitting on an egg.

— Abraham Maslow

The fact that people who create are good workers tends to be lost.

— Abraham Maslow

Creativity is a characteristic given to all human beings at birth.

— Abraham Maslow

Man is a perpetually wanting animal.

— Abraham Maslow

You will either step forward into growth or you will step back into safety.

— Abraham Maslow

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

— 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

To the man who only has a hammer in the toolkit, every problem looks like a nail.

— Abraham Maslow

We fear to know the fearsome and unsavory aspects of ourselves, but we fear even more to know the godlike in ourselves.

— Abraham Maslow

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

— Abraham Maslow

When all you own is a hammer, every problem starts looking like a nail.

— Abraham Maslow

During all my first twenty years, I was depressed, terribly unhappy, lonely, isolated (and self-rejecting).

— Abraham Maslow

We are dealing with a fundamental characteristic, inherent in human nature, a potentiality given to all or most human beings at birth,…

— Abraham Maslow

If I were a Negro, I'd be fighting, as Martin Luther King fought, for human recognition and justice. I'd rather go down…

— Abraham Maslow

The good or healthy society would then be defined as one that permitted people's highest purposes to emerge by satisfying all their…

— Abraham Maslow

Innocence can be redefined and called stupidity. Honesty can be called gullibility. Candor becomes lack of common sense. Interest in your work…

— Abraham Maslow

Life is an ongoing process of choosing between safety (out of fear and need for defense) and risk (for the sake of…

— Abraham Maslow

If both the physiological and the safety needs are fairly well gratified, then there will emerge love and affection and belongingness needs,…

— Abraham Maslow

In a word, to perceive an object abstractly means not to perceive some aspects of it. It clearly implies selection of some…

— Abraham Maslow

Classic economic theory, based as it is on an inadequate theory of human motivation, could be revolutionized by accepting the reality of…

— Abraham Maslow

The science of psychology has been far more successful on the negative than on the positive side... It has revealed to us…

— Abraham Maslow

The person in peak-experiences feels himself, more than other times, to be the responsible, active, creating center of his activities and of…

— Abraham Maslow

It looks as if there were a single ultimate goal for mankind, a far goal toward which all persons strive. This is…

— Abraham Maslow

We cannot study creativeness in an ultimate sense until we realize that practically all the definitions that we have been using of…

— Abraham Maslow

As one studies these preconditions, one becomes saddened by the ease with which human potentiality can be destroyed or repressed, so that…

— Abraham Maslow

We can consider the process of healthy growth to be a never ending series of free choice situations, confronting each individual at…

— Abraham Maslow

People with intelligence must use their intelligence, people with eyes must use their eyes, people with the capacity to love have the…

— Abraham Maslow

What is the good life? What is the good man? The good woman? What is the good society and what is my…

— Abraham Maslow

A first-rate soup is more creative than a second-rate painting.

— Abraham Maslow

What does 'happy' mean? Happiness is not a state like Vermont.

— Abraham Maslow

We may define therapy as a search for value.

— Abraham Maslow

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

— Abraham Maslow

Every person is, in part, 'his own project' and makes himself.

— Abraham Maslow

Be independent of the good opinion of other people.

— Abraham Maslow

People are not evil; they are schlemiels.

— Abraham Maslow

I was awfully curious to find out why I didn't go insane.

— Abraham Maslow