Abraham Maslow Quotations | Page 2

We are dealing with a fundamental characteristic, inherent in human nature, a potentiality given to all or most human beings at birth, which most often is lost or buried or inhibited as the person gets enculturated.

We have got to abandon the sense of amazement in the face of creativity, as if it were a miracle if anybody created anything.

Where was the human potential lost? How was it crippled? ...a good question might be not why do people create? But why do people not create or innovate?

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

Self-actualizing people must be what they can be.

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

As one studies these preconditions, one becomes saddened by the ease with which human potentiality can be destroyed or repressed, so that a fully-human person can seem like a miracle, so improbable a happening as to be awe-inspiring. And simultaneously one is heartened by the fact that self-actualizing persons do in fact exist, that they are therefore possible, that the gauntlet of dangers can be run, that the finish line can be crossed.

Human nature is not nearly as bad as it has been thought to be.

It is vital that people "count their blessings:" to appreciate what they possess without having to undergo its actual loss.

Apparently one impression we are making... is that creativeness consists of lightning striking you on the head in one great glorious moment.