The loss of illusions and the discovery of identity, though painful at first, can be ultimately exhilarating and strengthening.
I have discovered the missing link between the anthropoid apes and civilized men. It’s us!
What we call ‘normal’ in psychology is really a psychopathology of the average, so undramatic and so widely spread that we don’t even notice it ordinarily.
The human being is so constructed that he pressed toward fuller and fuller being.
We are not in a position in which we have nothing to work with. We already have capacities, talents, direction, missions, callings.
In a word, to perceive an object abstractly means not to perceive some aspects of it. It clearly implies selection of some attributes, rejection of other attributes, creation or distortion of still others. We make of it what we wish. We create it.
No psychological health is possible unless this essential care of the person is fundamentally accepted, loved and respected by others and by himself.
Self-actualizing people must be what they can be.
People are not evil; they are schlemiels.
To make the growth choice instead of the fear choice a dozen times a day is to move a dozen times a day towards self-actualisation.
The test of a man is: does he bear apples? Does he bear fruit?
We do what we are and we are what we do...
What shall we think of a well-adjusted slave?
What is life for? Life is for you.
Religion becomes a state of mind achievable in almost any activity of life, if this activity is raised to a suitable level of perfection.
Creative people are all there, totally immersed, fascinated and absorbed in the present, in the current situation, in the here-now, with the matter-in-hand.
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.
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.
In order for us to become truly happy, that which we can become, we must become.
The key question isn’t, ‘What fosters creativity?’ But it is, ‘Why isn’t everyone creative?’