Abraham Maslow

“Modern literature and psychology play a considerable part in forming the picture that we have of ourselves; but according to Maslow they have been guilty of an underestimation of man’s character and potentialities.”

“Maslow points out that gratification of this need to know is satisfying even when it yields painful results. The healthy person wants truth even if it is painful; only the unhealthy indulge in ‘bad faith’ for self-protection.”

“Existential psychology, in fact, is simply a psychology that recognises that Maslow’s ‘need to know,’ Shaw’s ‘appetite for a high quality of existence,’ are as fundamental to human beings as the sexual appetite or the need for social security. (Here, of course, the word ‘human’ is used in the sense defined above.) In Heidegger’s language, a human being is characterised by a need for contact with ‘existence’; with the reality that underlies the banality of our social existence”

“Abraham Maslow, felt the same kind of instinctive revolt against the ‘atmosphere’ of Freudian psychology, with its emphasis on sickness and neurosis, and decided that he might obtain some equally interesting results if he studied extremely healthy people”