Neurosis is ... a very hopeful kind of thing. It means that a man who is frightened, who doesn't trust himself, who has a low self-image, etc., still reaches out for the human heritage and for the basic gratifications to which every human being has a right simply by virtue of being human. You might say it's a kind of timid and ineffectual striving toward self-actualization, toward full humanness.
It is a great mystery to me why affluence releases some people for growth while permitting other people to stay fixated at a strictly 'materialistic' level. ... it may turn out to be useful to add to the definition of the self-actualizing person, not only that he be 1. sufficiently free of illness, 2. that he be sufficiently gratified in his basic needs, and 3. that he be positively using his capacities, but also 4. that he be motivated by some values which he strives for or gropes for and to which he is loyal.
Self-actualizing people are, without one single exception, involved in a cause outside their own skin, in something outside of themselves. They are devoted, working at something, something which is very precious to them - some calling or vocation in the old sense, the priestly sense.
Self-actualized people have a wonderful capacity to appreciate again and again, freshly and naively, the basic goods of life with awe, pleasure, wonder, and even ecstasy, however stale these experiences may be for other people.
It is easily possible for self-actualizing people to fall deeply in love with homely partners. ... The more mature they become, the less attracted they are by such characteristics as handsome, good looking, good dancer ... and the more they speak of compatibility, goodness, decency, good companionship, considerateness.
Self-actualizing people enjoy life in general and in practically all its aspects, while most other people enjoy only stray moments of triumph, of achievement or of climax or peak experience.
Related quotes (off site link): Abraham Maslow on Creativity
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