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... We must find out what psychology might be if it could free itself from the stultifying effects of limited, pessimistic and stingy preoccupations with human nature.

We are not in a position in which we have nothing to work with. We already have capacities, talents, direction, missions, callings.

We fear to know the fearsome and unsavory aspects of ourselves, but we fear even more to know the godlike in ourselves.

The person in peak-experiences feels himself, more than other times, to be the responsible, active, creating center of his activities and of his perceptions. He feels more like a prime-mover, more self-determined (rather than caused, determined, helpless, dependent, passive, weak, bossed). He feels himself to be his own boss, fully responsible, fully volitional, with more "free-will" than at other times, master of his fate, an agent.

When we free ourselves from the constraints of ordinary goals and uninformed scoffers we will find ourselves roaring off the face of the earth.

Self-actualizing people have a deep feeling of identification, sympathy, and affection for human beings in general. They feel kinship and connection, as if all people were members of a single family.

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