One's only failure is failing to live up to one's own possibilities.

Secrecy, censorship, dishonesty, and blocking of communication threaten all the basic needs.

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.

We need not take refuge in supernatural gods to explain our saints and sages and heroes and statesmen, as if to explain our disbelief that mere unaided human beings could be that good or wise.

One can choose to go back toward safety or forward toward growth. Growth must be chosen again and again; fear must be overcome again and again.

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

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