35 Inspirational Abraham Maslow Quotes On Success

Abraham Maslow was an American psychologist who was best known for creating Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, a theory of psychological health predicated on fulfilling innate human needs in priority, culminating in self-actualization. Maslow was a psychology professor at Alliant International University, Brandeis University, Brooklyn College, New School for Social Research, and Columbia University. He stressed the importance of focusing on the positive qualities in people, as opposed to treating them as a “bag of symptoms.” A Review of General Psychology survey, published in 2002, ranked Maslow as the tenth most cited psychologist of the 20th century. May his quotes inspire you to take action so that you may live your dreams.

1. “Growth must be chosen again and again; fear must be overcome again and again.” Abraham Maslow

2. “The great lesson is that the sacred is in the ordinary, that is is to be found in one’s daily life.” Abraham Maslow

3. “When people appear to be something other than good and decent, it is only because they are reacting to stress, pain, or the deprivation of basic human needs such as security, love, and self-esteem.” Abraham Maslow

4. “If the only tool you have is a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail.” Abraham Maslow

5. “If you plan on being anything less than what you are capable of being, you will probably be unhappy all the days of your life.” Abraham Maslow

6. “Don’t worry when you are not recognized but strive to be worthy of recognition.” Abraham Maslow

7. “Be independent of the good opinion of other people.” Abraham Maslow

8. “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 be secure in their feelings and their behavior.” Abraham Maslow

9. “I can feel guilty about the past, apprehensive about the future but only in the present can I act.” Abraham Maslow

10. “What is necessary to change a person is to change his awareness of himself.” Abraham Maslow

11. “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

12. “I’m someone who likes plowing new ground, then walking away from it. I get bored easily. For me, the big thrill comes with the discovering.” Abraham Maslow

13. “The key question isn’t, what fosters creativity? But it is, why isn’t everyone creative?” Abraham Maslow

14. “Appreciate again and again, freshly and naively the basic goods of life, with awe, pleasure, wonder and even ecstasy, however stable these experiences may have become to others.” Abraham Maslow

15. “The ability to be in the present moment is a major component of mental wellness.” Abraham Maslow

16. “It is as necessary for man to live in beauty rather than ugliness as it is necessary for him to have food for an aching belly or rest for a weary body.” Abraham Maslow

17. “But behavior in the human being is sometimes a defense, a way of concealing motives and thoughts, as language can be a way of hiding your thoughts and preventing communication.” Abraham Maslow

18. “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 health.” Abraham Maslow

19. “The definition of the good society is one in which virtue pays.” Abraham Maslow

20. “One of the goals of education should be to teach that life is precious.” Abraham Maslow

21. “All of life is education and everybody is a teacher and everybody is forever a pupil.” Abraham Maslow

22. “The only happy people I know are the ones who are working well at something they consider important.” Abraham Maslow

23. “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.” Abraham Maslow

24. “The best way to view a present problem is to give it all you’ve got, to study it and its nature, to perceive within it the intrinsic interrelationships, to discover the answer to the problem within the problem itself.” Abraham Maslow

25. “The story of the human race is the story of men and women selling themselves short.” Abraham Maslow

26. “Creativity is a characteristic given to all human beings at birth.” Abraham Maslow

27. “The human being needs a framework of values, a philosophy of life, a religion or religion-surrogate to live by and understand by, in about the same sense that he needs sunlight, calcium or love.” Abraham Maslow

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

29. “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

30. “What a man can be, he must be. This need we call self-actualization.” Abraham Maslow

31. “The spiritual life is part of the human essence. It is a defining characteristic of human nature, without which human nature is not fully human.” Abraham Maslow

32. “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

33. “The most beautiful fate, the most wonderful good fortune that can happen to any human being, is to be paid for doing that which he passionately loves to do.” Abraham Maslow

34. “Every person is, in part, his own project and makes himself.” Abraham Maslow

35. “One can choose to go back toward safety or forward toward growth.” Abraham Maslow