Self Actualization Quotes

“When the tension between "being" and "becoming" is too high, we may be caught in the cycle of perpetual yearning and remain locked in a state of potentiality, forever suspended between wish and fulfillment. If we refuse to commit to concrete steps toward self-actualization, we risk losing our ability to truly engage with the world. ("Like a fallen star")”
― Erik Pevernagie

“Expectation has brought me disappointment. Disappointment has brought me wisdom. Acceptance, gratitude and appreciation have brought me joy and fulfilment.”
― Rasheed Ogunlaru

“No man can begin to mould himself on a faith or an idea without rising to a higher order of experience.”
― George Eliot, Scenes of Clerical Life

“To create - a role, a poem, picture, music, a rapture in stone: great. But not for her.
What she wanted was to donate to the world a good Maud Martha. That was the offering, the bit of art, that could not come from any other.
She would polish and hone that.”
― Gwendolyn Brooks, Maud Martha

“Every individual, every plant, every animal
has only one inborn goal—to actualize itself as it is.”
― Frederick Salomon Perls, Gestalt Therapy Verbatim

“The mysteries of life include the external and the internal conundrums that each person encounters in a world composed of competing ideologies and agents of change. Conflicting ideas include political, social, legal, and ethical concepts. Agents of change include environmental factors, social pressure to conform, aging, and the forces inside us that made us into whom we are as well as the forces compelling us to be a different type of person.”
― Kilroy J. Oldster, Dead Toad Scrolls

“I'm traveling a speed
unknown to man
and I carry love for all
in the mirror of my hand.

I say love for all…don't try to run away...
look at the mirrors of your heart.
Face the truth today—

I am what I am, thank God.
Some people don't understand,
Help them, God—
I say find yourself first, and then your tool.
I say find yourself first, don't you be no fool.

Here comes a woman, sweat all down her back.
For birth or for pleasure, she's on the right track…
But for being free, she ain't supposed to plea.
And don't rely on no man to try and understand.
I say find yourself first
and then your talent.
Work hard in your mind
for it to come alive.
And then prove to the man
that you're as strong as him.
'Cause in the eyes of God…
you're both children to him…

You are what you are, thank God.
You gonna shine like a star
with the help of God—
But we find ourselves first
and then our tool…
Find yourself, don't be no fool.”
― Jimi Hendrix, Cherokee Mist: The Lost Writings

“​Self-love takes us into places deep inside of ourselves where we have never been before. Untapped resources of strength, courage, fortitude, stamina, compassion, and humor (to name a few) are released like running lakes and streams within us, washing over and seeping into the essence of who we are.”
― Melana Plains

“We should strive to be the best versions of ourselves and work towards creating the life we want. But we should do so with a sense of detachment, knowing that the journey is just as important as the destination.”
― Sam Izad, Snackable Existentialism: Small Portions, Big Ideas

“Certainly it seems more and more clear that what we call "normal" in psychology is really a psychopathology of the average, so undramatic and so widely spread that we don't even notice it ordinarily. The existentialist's study of the authentic person and of authentic living helps to throw this general phoniness, this living by illusions and by fear into a harsh, clear light which reveals it clearly as sickness, even though widely shared.”
― Abraham H. Maslow, Toward a Psychology of Being

“The drama of truth can only be experienced within oneself.”
― Jonathan Harnisch, When We Were Invincible

“Even cavemen who could barely think, they must have seen it, that sky; and tribal people bossed around by their village chiefs; even shackled slaves who might briefly feel freed simply because the sky was so vast, and for a few moments their eyes could own a rich emptiness that they had a right to see, just like anyone else. Because every one of earth's people who felt small, eventually they must have discovered how they could look upward. And maybe that simple black sky might have whispered to them the very same thing we are feeling now, "Never give up hope.”
― Rose Rosetree, Bigger than All the Night Sky: The Start of Spiritual Awakening. A Memoir.

“​"Self-love takes us into places deep inside of ourselves where we have never been before. Untapped resources of strength, courage, fortitude, stamina, compassion, and humor (to name a few) are released like running lakes and streams within us, washing over and seeping into the essence of who we are.”
― Melana Plains, The Path: A Journey Into The Light: The Journey From Fear To Love

“Life is like a game; strive to be the boss, not just an NPC.”
― Mehdi Ikhibi

“Every human being is an expression of the great, vast Spirit. Since you are a manifestation of Spirit, you should make an effort to express your infinite potentialities.”
― Paramahansa Yogananda, "Where There is Light (Self-Realization Fellowship)"

“Anyone who focuses so strongly on their ideal self, will be eaten by the unrealized self.”
― Kenn Day, Post-Tribal Shamanism: A New Look at the Old Ways

“The art of aligning the ego with the essence emerges as a sacred endeavor, a pursuit as delicate as it is profound. It is in this harmonizing of the internal celestial bodies – the luminous ego and the radiant essence – that one finds the symphony of the soul, a melody of harmony echoing through the corridors of our being.”
― Kevin L. Michel, The 7 Laws of Quantum Power

“Where vision’s depth and spirit’s breath converge, a cosmos where reality and dreams diverge, in every spectrum, life’s quantum strings vibrate, in soul’s vast universe, where thoughts create. A dance of light reveals the shades of your internal day, in ego’s fire, some truths may turn to gray, yet essence pure, in radiant array. In the interplay of shadow and gleam, you find the heart of your chosen dream.”
― Kevin L. Michel, The 7 Laws of Quantum Power

“Apathy isn't a private solution for a public problem

It's a coping mechanism”
― Henry Joseph-Grant

“Meditation is only a tool, self-realization is only a process and self-actualization is the next step to bring down that which is realized as a higher truth or idea. This is converted into a service for a bigger need and for a greater whole.”
― Master Del Pe, Hidden Dangers of Meditation and Yoga: How to Play with Your Sacred Fires Safely

“In the twinkling of an eye, Cinderella became everything she had ever hoped to be – the most beautiful girl in the Kingdom. Her life was a dream come true, except for one problem: the changes made were temporary. At midnight, she would return to her former, impoverished state.

We all feel spiritually impoverished sometimes, and even the most proactive women can get caught waiting for that fairy godmother to appear. Wouldn't it be a lot easier if someone else could suddenly come along and turn our spiritual rags to riches? Waiting for someone or something to transform us into our best selves is tempting, yet how little growth we would experience if such gratuitous transformations were available.

Fortunately ... I have it on good authority that the fairy godmother will definitely not be coming. (This is good news for me because I'm not sure I could have resisted her help!) The progress we make in this life will depend upon our own labors, and every blessing .... will be ours to keep.”
― Susan Noyes Anderson, Awaken Your Spiritual Power

“There’s always been two of me. There’s this broken-me totally happy to live in the suck and knotty+dark. Then there’s this future-me, and she’s always been within me. She is bright and solid and the woman I always knew I’d grow to be. The woman I knew I’d become. She’s been slowly gaining ground throughout my entire life.”
― S.D.G., Naked

“After "self-realization", one needs "self-actualization" to complete the evolutionary process.”
― Master Del Pe, Hidden Dangers of Meditation and Yoga: How to Play with Your Sacred Fires Safely

“We use the language of being "purpose-driven" when often, alas, we just mean "made capable of more aggressive assertion.”
― Rowan Williams, Being Disciples: Essentials of the Christian Life

“But we don’t pray to change the world (or, in this case, the cactus); we pray to change ourselves, and so I continue my supplications—my begging and protestations—in the hopes that I may alter my own perception of this bitter flavor.”
― Melissa Broder, Death Valley

“Growth is a continuous process. Keep learning, keep evolving.”
― Glody Kikonga, MENTAL TOUGHNESS: Unbreakable Mind

“Maslow didn’t list “education” anywhere on his famous
hierarchy of needs. (Probably to avoid offending the stupid.)”
― Todd Lyons, You Tried: A Deadbeat’s Guide to Self-Actualization

“To even talk about not having a partner makes the story about me not having a partner. What is actually happening in the ecosystem of my spiritual life and my physical life and my emotional life is that a garden is blooming. . . . It isn’t about who isn’t here. It is about what is here.”
― Elizabeth Gilbert

“I may not be me, but I will be”
― Shamsaddin Amanov

“An empty mirror and your worst destructive habits,
when they are held up to each other,
that’s when the real making begins.
That’s what art and crafting are.”
― Jalal ad-Din Muhammad ar-Rumi, The Essential Rumi