75 quotes from Abraham Maslow (and human needs)
Abraham Maslow is one of the important psychologists of the 20th century . He is known as the father of one of the great currents of psychology, humanism. His theory, known as the Pyramid of the hierarchy of human needs, arises from the idea that the actions of human beings are born of motivation directed towards the goal of meeting certain needs.
At the highest level of this pyramid, are the needs of self-realization, which are internal needs, spiritual, moral or search for a mission in life
- To learn more, we invite you to read our article: "The personality theory of Abraham Maslow"
The best quotes of Abraham Maslow
Throughout his life, Maslow delivered several full quotes that exemplify his theory.
In this article, we have compiled the best quotes, famous quotations and reflections of Abraham Maslow .
1. Self-realized people have a deep sense of identification, sympathy and affection for human beings in general. They feel the kinship and connection, as if all the people were members of their family
When we feel self-realized, we will feel good and we will have a higher self-esteem. Which, in turn, will affect relationships with others.
2. A musician must make music, an artist must paint, a poet must write. What a man can be, must be
One must fight for what he really loves to make sense of his life.
3. Be independent of the good opinion of other people
One must find in himself the motivations that make him happy.
4. We can orientate ourselves towards defense, security or fear. But, on the opposite side, there is the option of growth. Choose growth instead of fear twelve times a day, means to advance twelve times a day towards self-realization
Maslow is known as one of the most influential psychologists in personal development.
5. We must understand love, we must be able to teach it, to create it, to predict it, or else the world is lost in hostility and suspicion
Love is one of the most pleasant sensations you can feel in life. It is our great motivation.
6. People who qualify as sick are those who are not themselves, which have created all kinds of neurotic defenses
Abraham Maslow is one of the psychologists who originated positive psychology.
7. If you deliberately plan to be less than you are capable of being, I warn you that you will be deeply unhappy for the rest of your days
When someone has a goal in life, they must fight for it.
8. One can choose to go towards safety or to move towards growth. Growth must be chosen again and again; the fear must be overcome again and again.
The Maslow pyramid has several stages and each of them must be overcome to continue.
9. Many of us, most of the time we do not listen to each other, but listen to the introjected voices of mom, dad, the system, the elderly, authority or tradition
Culture and the environment affect how we think. Many times, not letting hear what we want to say to ourselves.
10. In certain definable and empirical ways, man needs to live in beauty rather than ugliness, just as he needs to have food for his hungry stomach or rest for his tired stomach
An appointment of Abraham Maslow that invites reflection.
11. I have the impression that the concept of creativity and that of a healthy, self-fulfilling and fully human person are increasingly close to each other and may turn out to be the same
Abraham Maslow, in reference to creativity.
12. One can not choose wisely in life unless he dares to listen to himself, to his own self, in every moment of his life
For this author, people are active agents of our change.
13. The satisfaction of the need for self-esteem leads to feelings of self-confidence, worth, strength, ability and sufficiency, of being useful and necessary in the world
There is a close relationship between self-esteem and self-confidence.
14. The study of motivation must be, in part, the study of the ends, desires or ultimate needs of the human being
Maslow contributed great knowledge to the theories of motivation.
15. We could define therapy as a search for value
Humanistic therapy starts from the idea that self-realization and personal well-being are related.
16. To invent or create it is necessary to possess the "arrogance of creativity" that many researchers have pointed out. But if you only have arrogance without humility, then you are a paranoid. We must be aware not only of the divine possibilities in us, but also of existential human limitations
It is necessary that we believe in ourselves, but always respecting others.
17. All the evidence we have indicates that it is reasonable to assume that in practically all human beings, and almost all newborns, there is an active will, a drive towards health, growth and fulfillment
We are active in our own self-development. That is why Maslow has influenced many coaching professionals.
18. Most of us could be better than we really are
We have the ability to continually improve ourselves.
19. Life is a continuous process of choosing between security and risk. Take the choice of growth a dozen times a day
This phrase refers to the concept of comfort zone.
20. False optimism sooner or later means disappointment, hatred and hopelessness
Optimism must be authentic, because otherwise it will end in frustration.
21. There is anthropological evidence that the fundamental or ultimate desires of all human beings hardly differ from their everyday conscious desires. The main reason for this is that two different cultures can generate two totally different ways of satisfying a particular desire
Desires are influenced by culture.
22. Self-realization means living fully, vividly and disinterestedly, with total concentration and absorption. It means experiencing without the adolescent's shyness. At that time, the person is totally and fully human. This is a moment of self-realization, the moment in which the self is updated
There is a close relationship between the state of flow and self-realization.
23. I have learned that the novice can often see things that the expert does not see. The necessary thing is not to be afraid to make mistakes or to seem naive
Fear is one of the limiting beliefs that affect our personal development.
24. People are not bad, they are unhappy
For Maslow, people are born with potential, but not all develop them.
25. The typical desire is clearly a necessity of the whole person
We all have desires in life that motivate us.
26. The only rival of one are its own potentialities. The only failure is to fail to live with respect to one's own possibilities. In this sense, every man can be a king, and must, therefore, be treated like a king
When we set limits, we are negatively affecting our personal development.
27. We must teach people to pay attention to their own tastes. Many do not
Self-knowledge is one of the great virtues of the human being.
28. The satisfaction of a need creates another
Human beings want more and more. Once we have achieved an objective, we want another.
29. Something like human curiosity can be easily observed in higher animals
A phrase that invites free reflection.
30. We should give up, once and for all, the pretension to elaborate a meticulous inventory of impulses or needs. For different reasons, such inventory is theoretically unconscious
After all, the needs come from within oneself.
31. If they threw me out of a plane into an ocean and told me that the nearest land is thousands of kilometers away, I would still swim. And he would despise the one who surrendered
A quote that expresses how Abraham Maslow thought.
32. The ability to be in the present moment is a major component of mental health
Nowadays, teaching to live present is part of some third generation therapies .
33. Self-realization is a continuous process. It means taking one by one all the many decisions about whether to lie or be honest, whether to steal or not at a certain time, and to make each of those decisions as a growth option. It is a movement towards self-realization
Maslow believes that self-realization depends on ourselves. We are the ones who have to fight to achieve it.
34. In reality, self-realized people, those who have reached a high level of maturity, health and self-satisfaction, have so much to teach us that, at times, they almost seem to belong to a different species of human beings
Not everyone is able to overcome their limiting beliefs and go towards self-realization.
35. We would never want to compose music or create mathematical systems, or decorate our houses, or go well dressed, if our stomachs were empty at all hours, or if we were continually dying of thirst
For Maslow, the phases have to be exceeded one by one. You can not think of self-realization if we have not been able to satisfy our basic needs.
36. In short, the musician must play, the painter must paint and the poet must write, if they want to live at peace with themselves
Each one of us has a path that he must follow to achieve his self-realization.
37. The independence of the environment achieves a relative stability against a hard blow, deprivation, sticks, frustrations and the like. These people can maintain a relative serenity in the midst of circumstances that could lead other people to suicide. They are also described as "self-sufficient"
It is not easy to achieve what we want in life.You have to keep going even in bad times.
38. Children do not need to be taught to be curious
People, in an innate way, are explorers.
39. If your only tool is a hammer, you tend to treat each problem as if it were a nail
This phrase refers to mental flexibility when solving problems and adapting to the environment.
40. The most important problems of the greatest and best characters in the history of humanity must be covered and explained.
In Maslow's book appear a multitude of characters that are used as examples of successful people .
41. If all needs are not met, and the body, therefore, is dominated by physiological needs, the remaining needs may simply be non-existent or be displaced to the fund.
The preference is always to meet the needs of lower order.
42. If you only have a hammer, you tend to see all the problems like a nail
It is harder to adapt to the environment with an inflexible mind.
43. We must immediately ensure that human motivation is rarely realized in behavior, except in relation to a situation and people
Motivation is a psychological variable that is very present in our personal development.
44. What needs to change in a person is self-awareness
Trusting oneself is one of the best virtues to achieve what we want.
45. We fear our maximum possibilities. In general, it scares us to become what we envision at our best moments, in the most perfect and most courageous conditions
Another concept that emerges from Maslow's pyramid theory is the Jonah complex.
46. There are people who are afraid to bet on themselves
Some individuals have ways of thinking that limit them to personal growth.
47. You will walk forward towards growth or you will walk back towards safety
Living in the comfort zone does not allow you to fully develop.
48. The fact is that people are good. Give people affection and security and they will give affectivity and be safe in their feelings and behaviors
For Maslow, people are born good but society corrupts them.
49. When people seem to be something other than good and decent, it is only because they are reacting to stress or deprivation of needs such as security, love and self-esteem
People are born good, but the situation makes them good or bad
50. As incomes rise, people want and actively strive for things they would never have dreamed a few years before.
When people cover the need for security, then they start thinking about other needs.
51. What a man can be, he must be. We call this need self-realization
Maslow, in clear reference to the needs of maximum order
52. If you plan on being something less than you are capable of, you will probably be unhappy every day of your life
True happiness is achieved only by satisfying the needs of self-realization.
53. It is not normal to know what we want. It is a strange and difficult psychological achievement
Knowing what we want requires a lot of effort, because you have to take time to think about it
54. Any worthwhile theory of motivation should treat the superior capacities of the strong and healthy person, as well as the defensive maneuvers of the paralyzed spirits
Maslow is recognized as one of the great theorists of motivation.
55. Studies of mentally healthy people indicate that, as a defining characteristic, they are attracted to the mysterious, the unknown, the chaotic, the disorganized and the unexplained.
With his research, Maslow tried to extract the strengths of successful people.
56. Probably the psychopathological effects are certain when basic needs are frustrated
Maslow thought that psychopathologies are associated with the achievement of needs.
57. The personality of the so-called psychopath is another example of the permanent loss of love needs. One way to understand this personality dysfunction is that people who lacked love in the first months of their lives have simply lost that desire forever, as well as the ability to give and receive affection.
He also thought that a lot of what we are is determined by the beliefs we acquired in childhood.
58. The need to know and understand are seen in the first and second childhood, perhaps even more strongly than in adulthood
The early stages are the most important for our development.
59. The good society is that in which virtue is rewarded
Unfortunately, society does not always give back everything we give it.
60. I wanted to show that human beings are capable of something more transcendent than war, prejudice and hatred. I wanted to make science consider all the problems that the profane have handled: religion, poetry, values, philosophy, art. I continued with them trying to understand the big people, the best specimens of humanity that I could find
Maslow tried to find the relationship between people who have succeeded in this life.
61The human being needs a framework of values and a philosophy of life
Existentialism greatly influenced Maslow's humanist philosophy, as manifested in this phrase.
62. The best way to analyze a present problem is to give everything for it, study its nature and discover the answer to the problem within the problem itself
To overcome the challenges you must first understand them.
63. Most people experience both tragedy and pleasure in varying proportions, and any philosophy that leaves out one of the two can not be considered complete.
The so-called "negative emotions" are also part of life.
64. Quitting smoking can be an excellent test of one's character
Something as simple as leaving an unhealthy habit is a step towards personal development.
65. The ability to be in the present moment is the main component of mental well-being
This idea of being in the here and now is common to many other humanistic approaches.
66. In a way, each person is their own project
One of Maslow's phrases in which he talks about the idea of personal development empowered by oneself.
67. The most beautiful destination is to receive a payment for doing what we are passionate about
Living doing what we love is a luxury.
68. One of the goals of education must be to teach that life is beautiful
Education should not simply consist of instruction.
69. Decanting ourselves for the option of growth instead of fear twelve times a day is to move twelve times a day towards self-actualization
A metaphorical way of talking about personal growth.
70. The only happy people I know are those who work well on something they consider important
Once again, Maslow talks about the union of work and pleasure.
71. Everything in life is education, and everyone is a teacher and at the same time a student
Life is a constant progress without us ever stopping.
72. Creativity is a characteristic that is given to all at birth
Maslow talks about the innate character he attributed to this mental capacity.
73. The necessary thing to change a person is to change his idea of himself
Our self-concept has a lot of power.
74. What is life for? Life is for you
A simple and beautiful phrase about the meaning of life.
75. We are what we do and we do what we are
For Maslow there is no separation between theory and practice in one's personality.
