Best 75 quotes in «self actualization quotes» category

We reclaim genuine space for our identities not by rushing headlong into simplistic remedies, but by engaging in the less glamorous spadework of paying attention to our feelings, clarifying what matters to us, asserting our point of view, and negotiating for change.

Whatever you is, Onion," he said, "be it full.

When people think you're a "good person", they're essentially putting you inside of this jar with a label on it and the ingredients on that label are whatever the fuck they think "good person" means. Of course it always just basically means "this person was born to make me feel good in any circumstance of my life." And then they pound you into that jar--every inch of you-- and think you've gone spoiled rotten when the time arises that you're no longer making them feel good, for whatever reasons that may be. And that's "good person" from other people's perspectives. Meanwhile, "good person" in first person perspective is basically "hypocrite". It's basically "let me enact these roles I think I am supposed to perform so God and mama Mary and and the neighborhood will believe I am a good person." I am always described as a "good person" and from any perspective that's coming from, I hate hearing that. I hate it. It either means they think they can stuff me in a jar and mix me with their kool aide; or it means I am sticking myself in my own jar and mixing myself with everyone's kool aide. I am a fucking wonderful person-- that is what I am. And that is exactly how to say it: "fucking wonderful"! Not just wonderful. Fucking wonderful. It's not good; it's full of wonderment! It's not bad; it's full of wonderment! So, am I a good person? I have a heart that bleeds with others and a soul that gives people homes. I don't need to be good. I need to be wonderful.

What women are concerned in is developing their own individuality, and hence they refuse to call any man master, be he husband or spiritual guide. Personal freedom is more precious to them than the protection of the best men. The women they envy are not those who are simply wives and mothers, but those who by honest intelligent work have attained distinction in any line of effort, and whose creed has been self-reliance.

Work while you have strength.

When you apply that gift you possess that comes so easily to you and can be used anywhere, anytime to help someone else; maybe your family, your community, your city, state, country or the world in general... that is your PURPOSE.

While I still did not know what self- actualization that sat on the top level of the pyramid meant, I could believe that if I knew I would be able to say something positive about it as well in my life.

Who am I? The great inquiry indeed.

Why do you choose to write about such gruesome subjects? I usually answer this with another question: Why do you assume that I have a choice? Writing is a catch-as-catch-can sort of occupation. All of us seem to come equipped with filters on the floors of our minds, and all the filters have differing sizes and meshes. What catches in my filter may run right through yours. What catches in yours may pass through mine, no sweat. All of us seem to have a built-in obligation to sift through the sludge that gets caught in our respective mind-filters, and what we find there usually develops into some sort of sideline. The accountant may also be a photographer. The astronomer may collect coins. The school-teacher may do gravestone rubbings in charcoal. The sludge caught in the mind's filter, the stuff that refuses to go through, frequently becomes each person's private obsession. In civilized society we have an unspoken agreement to call our obsessions “hobbies.” Sometimes the hobby can become a full-time job. The accountant may discover that he can make enough money to support his family taking pictures; the schoolteacher may become enough of an expert on grave rubbings to go on the lecture circuit. And there are some professions which begin as hobbies and remain hobbies even after the practitioner is able to earn his living by pursuing his hobby; but because “hobby” is such a bumpy, common-sounding little word, we also have an unspoken agreement that we will call our professional hobbies “the arts.” Painting. Sculpture. Composing. Singing. Acting. The playing of a musical instrument. Writing. Enough books have been written on these seven subjects alone to sink a fleet of luxury liners. And the only thing we seem to be able to agree upon about them is this: that those who practice these arts honestly would continue to practice them even if they were not paid for their efforts; even if their efforts were criticized or even reviled; even on pain of imprisonment or death. To me, that seems to be a pretty fair definition of obsessional behavior. It applies to the plain hobbies as well as the fancy ones we call “the arts”; gun collectors sport bumper stickers reading YOU WILL TAKE MY GUN ONLY WHEN YOU PRY MY COLD DEAD FINGERS FROM IT, and in the suburbs of Boston, housewives who discovered political activism during the busing furor often sported similar stickers reading YOU'LL TAKE ME TO PRISON BEFORE YOU TAKE MY CHILDREN OUT OF THE NEIGHBORHOOD on the back bumpers of their station wagons. Similarly, if coin collecting were outlawed tomorrow, the astronomer very likely wouldn't turn in his steel pennies and buffalo nickels; he'd wrap them carefully in plastic, sink them to the bottom of his toilet tank, and gloat over them after midnight.

You can’t understand this yet, but that’s most of life: breaking your own promises to yourself.

You know, that's what you've been doing in a way--coming out. Coming out of your room. Coming out of your house. Coming out of your shell.

Your power to choose can never be taken from you. It can be neglected and it can be ignored. But if used, it can make all the difference.

You can change your life by changing the way you think about yourself and your potential.

If you follow your bliss...the life that you ought to be living is the one you are living.

All energy given to us for the achievements of goals and self-actualization is instead spent on deriving acceptance from our surroundings and compliance with the requirements of the society

I was a late bloomer. But anyone who blooms at all, ever, is very lucky.

I was awfully curious to find out why I didn't go insane.

Allowing people to contribute in your life is a leap of faith. And that comes gradually with self actualization and overcoming fears of uncertainty.

By not letting me turn you into something you're not, you've helped me be more of myself.

And if anyone has trouble understanding that, well, they can kiss my ass.

A movement’s call for action evokes an eager response in the frustrated, for they see in action a cure for all that ails them. It brings self-forgetting and gives them a sense of purpose and worth. Indeed it seems that frustration stems chiefly from an inability to act, and that the most poignantly frustrated are those whose talents and temperament equip them ideally for a life of action but are condemned by circumstances to rust away in idleness.

Bloom where you are planted,' the poster reads. But the poster does not tell the whole story. ' plant yourself where you know you can bloom' may well be the poster we all need to see. Or better yet, "Work the arid soil however long it takes until something that fulfills the rest of you finally makes the desert in you bloom.

Expectation has brought me disappointment. Disappointment has brought me wisdom. Acceptance, gratitude and appreciation have brought me joy and fulfilment.

During self-reflection, the realization came that revolution begins within.

Excellence is a journey and a constant process. It is never a final destination. Have fun and enjoy it as a lifetime self-improvement program. Polish yourself for excellence. Glitter and sparkle for success.

Excellence in life, is like a play. For your real life play, the quality of the actors you bring on your life’s stage, determine your success. Always choose the best, most excellent actors.

I am Susah, the dragoneer.

Gen. Matthew Ridgeway "intended not to impose his will on his men, but to allow the men under him to find something in themselves that would make them more confident, more purposeful fighting men. It was their confidence in themselves that would make them fight well, he believed, not so much their belief in him. His job was to keep them to find that quality in themselves.

Human beings are not born once and for all on the day their mothers give birth to them, but ... life obliges them over and over again to give birth to themselves.

I’d tell men and women in their midtwenties not to settle for a job or a profession or even a career. Seek a calling. Even if you don’t know what that means, seek it. If you’re following your calling, the fatigue will be easier to bear, the disappointment will be fuel, the highs will be like nothing you’ve ever felt.

I'd always vaguely expected to outgrown my limitations.

I close my eyes. Golden light shines through my eyelids in wavering patterns of red and yellow. Figures dance and sway in the light, dark eyes flashing. I feel Victoire’s eagerness rise as if it were my own. It ebbs almost in the same instant. What do I care for the pulse of a beat, for the eyes of many, for the touch of heat and sweat? That is Victoire’s passion, not mine. I will not succumb. I am not Ravel’s dream of me.

I define me. No event or person does this. I define me. I decide who I am and how I'm going to behave, and I choose to be better. To look more carefully, to trudge deeper. To think about other people's past and not judge someone for doing or handling something differently than I would. To understand my limitations, my shortcomings - that is my growth edge.

I didn't know that my brother's death was defining me. I didn't know that I had the ability to say no to being defined by death. Now I was with a person who could help me process what happened and turn the parts of me that acted like a nine-year-old into a self-actualized adult who had come to a better understanding of what it means to dig deep and admit your pain - thereby beginning the process of relinquishing it.

If a person does not satisfy the need to self-actualization, his satisfaction and anxiety increases

If you believe you can change—if you make it a habit—the change becomes real. This is the real power of habit: the insight that your habits are what you choose them to be. Once that choice occurs—and becomes automatic—it’s not only real, it starts to seem inevitable.

I have a rabbit’s foot, a four-leaf clover, and a lucky charm. The only problem is, none of them become effective until I do.

If you wish to find yourself, you must first admit you are lost.

I hope I never hold anyone down; I hope I never cut someone's wings. I hope I never take anyone's freedom; I hope I never cover someone's eyes and ears. I hope that I never keep anyone from having their true love; I hope that I never cage someone's heart. I hope to be the wind and the air; the window and the song; the field in which love may roam, run and then bury itself.

It is possible I can make very little of myself; but this little is everything, and better than what I allow to be made out of me by the might of others, by the training of custom, religion, the laws, the State.

Inner Architecture is the skill of crafting your soul into a place so real and so tangible that you step into this area every time you look into your own eyes and other people step into this place every time they encounter you. What kind of place are you? What are the smells, sounds, colours? What kind of people can access this place and how do they get there? How does this place feel to all those who step into it? How does it feel to you? Is there food? What kind of food? What does the food taste like and what does it do for you? Each person is a place. It is not a matter of asking "what kind of person am I?",rather, it is a matter of asking, "what place am I?

It was a part of me that I was taking, this magical part of me that he somehow sparked into being. I wasn’t waiting for Santa; I wasn’t waiting like some heroine in a romance novel for the tall, dark stranger to make a gift of these feelings he evoked in me, I was taking it, I was claiming this for my own.

It's not happening to you, it's happening through you. Check your thoughts and your energetic output for the answers.

Most people do not want much. All they want is to be envied by most people.

Oliver did not seem to understand that the only real fulfilment on this earth was to be gained through hard work. Life as a series of momentary pleasures satisfied no one. He needed to make an investment in it, an investment of himself.

It was not only colored people who praised John, since they could not, John felt, in any case really know; but white people also said it, in fact had said it first and said it still. It was when John was five years old and in the first grade that he was first noticed; and since he was noticed by an eye altogether alien and impersonal, he began to perceive, in wild uneasiness, his individual existence.

Let a man radically alter his thoughts, and he will be astonished at the rapid transformation it will effect in the material conditions of his life. Men imagine that thought can be kept secret, but it cannot; it rapidly crystallizes into habit, and habit solidifies into circumstance. Bestial thoughts crystallize into habits of drunkenness and sensuality, which solidify into circumstances of destitution and disease: impure thoughts of every kind crystallize into enervating and confusing habits, which solidify into distracting and adverse circumstances: thoughts of fear, doubt, and indecision crystallize into weak, unmanly, and irresolute habits, which solidify into circumstances of failure, indigence, and slavish dependence: lazy thoughts crystallize into habits of uncleanliness and dishonesty, which solidify into circumstances of foulness and beggary: hateful and condemnatory thoughts crystallize into habits of accusation and violence, which solidify into circumstances of injury and persecution: selfish thoughts of all kinds crystallize into habits of self-seeking, which solidify into circumstances more or less distressing. On the other hand, beautiful thoughts of all kinds crystallize into habits of grace and kindliness, which solidify into genial and sunny circumstances: pure thoughts crystallize into habits of temperance and self-control, which solidify into circumstances of repose and peace: thoughts of courage, self-reliance, and decision crystallize into manly habits, which solidify into circumstances of success, plenty, and freedom: energetic thoughts crystallize into habits of cleanliness and industry, which solidify into circumstances of pleasantness: gentle and forgiving thoughts crystallize into habits of gentleness, which solidify into protective and preservative circumstances: loving and unselfish thoughts crystallize into habits of self-forgetfulness for others, which solidify into circumstances of sure and abiding prosperity and true riches. A particular train of thought persisted in, be it good or bad, cannot fail to produce its results on the character and circumstances. A man cannot directly choose his circumstances, but he can choose his thoughts, and so indirectly, yet surely, shape his circumstances.

My mother maintained the sort of parental mind-set that I now recognize as brilliant and nearly impossible to emulate - kind of unflappable Zen neutrality... She wasn't quick to judge and she wasn't quick to meddle. Instead, she monitored our moods and bore benevolent witness to whatever travails or triumphs a day might bring... When we'd done something great, we received just enough praise to know she was happy with us, but never so much that it became the reason we did what we did.

No man can begin to mould himself on a faith or an idea without rising to a higher order of experience.

Our goals are not achieved if all our energy given to us to achieve the goal and self-actualization is directed towards being accepted by our surroundings and to meet their requirements