Abraham Maslow

Psychologist

1908-04-01 – 1970-06-08

Abraham Maslow was an American psychologist best known for Maslow's hierarchy of needs. His work influenced humanistic psychology and organizational theory.

Quotes by Abraham Maslow

A first-rate soup is more creative than a second-rate painting.
Read quote
Work is that which you dislike doing but perform for the sake of external rewards. At school, this takes the form of grades. In society, it means money, status, privilege.
Read quote
What we need is a system of thought - you might even call it a religion - that can bind humans together. A system that would fit the Republic of Chad as well as the United States: a system that would supply our idealistic young people with something to believe in.
Read quote
Good psychology should include all the methodological techniques, without having loyalty to one method, one idea, or one person.
Read quote
Classic economic theory, based as it is on an inadequate theory of human motivation, could be revolutionized by accepting the reality of higher human needs, including the impulse to self actualization and the love for the highest values.
Read quote
We may define therapy as a search for value.
Read quote
If I were dropped out of a plane into the ocean and told the nearest land was a thousand miles away, I'd still swim. And I'd despise the one who gave up.
Read quote
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.
Read quote
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.
Read quote
With a tree, all the growth takes place at the growing tips. Humanity is exactly the same. All the growth takes place in the growing tip: among that one percent of the population. It's made up of pioneers, the beginners. That's where the action is.
Read quote
A musician must make music, an artist must paint, a poet must write, if he is to be ultimately at peace with himself.
Read quote
If you plan on being anything less than you are capable of being, you will probably be unhappy all the days of your life.
Read quote
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.
Read quote
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.
Read quote
A first rate soup is better than a second rate painting.
Read quote
I can feel guilty about the past, apprehensive about the future, but only in the present can I act. The ability to be in the present moment is a major component of mental wellness.
Read quote
If you only have a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail.
Read quote
If the only tool you have is a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail.
Read quote