Maxwell Maltz Quotes

You make mistakes, mistakes don't make you

~ Maxwell Maltz

A human being always acts and feels and performs in accordance with what he imagines to be true about himself and his environment...For imagination sets the goal ‘picture’ which our automatic mechanism works on. We act, or fail to act, not because of ‘will,’ as is so commonly believed, but because of imagination.

~ Maxwell Maltz

Times will change for the better when you change.

~ Maxwell Maltz

Happiness is a mental habit, a mental attitude, and if it is not learned and practiced in the present it is never experienced. It cannot be made contingent upon solving some external problem. When one problem is solved, another appears to take its place. Life is a series of problems. If you are to be happy at all, you must be happy - period! Not happy because of.

~ Maxwell Maltz

Our errors, mistakes, failures, and sometimes even our humiliations, were necessary steps in the learning process. However, they were meant to be means to an end - and not an end in themselves. When they have served their purpose, they should be forgotten. If we consciously dwell on the error, or consciously feel guilty about the error and keep berating ourselves because of it, then - unwittingly - the error or failure itself becomes the goal that is consciously held in imagination and memory.

~ Maxwell Maltz

I have found that one of the commonest causes of unhappiness among my patients is that they are attempting to live their lives on the deferred payment plan. They do not live, or enjoy life now, but wait for some future event or occurrence. They will be happy when they get married, when they get a better job, when they get the house paid for, when they get the children through college, when they have completed some task or won some victory. Invariably, they are disappointed.

~ Maxwell Maltz

We must have courage to bet on our ideas, to take the calculated risk, and to act. Everyday living requires courage if life is to be effective and bring happiness.

~ Maxwell Maltz

You will act like the sort of person you conceive yourself to be.

~ Maxwell Maltz

If you make friends with yourself, you'll never be alone.

~ Maxwell Maltz

The most delightful surprise in life is to suddenly recognize your own worth.

~ Maxwell Maltz

It is common knowledge among psychologists that most of us underrate ourselves, short-change ourselves, sell ourselves short. Actually, there is no such thing as a superiority complex. People who seem to have one are actually suffering from feelings of inferiority; their superior self is a fiction, a coverup, to hide from themselves and others their deep-down feelings of inferiority and insecurity.

~ Maxwell Maltz

Our present state of self-confidence and poise is the result of what we have experienced rather than what we have learned intellectually.

~ Maxwell Maltz

What is opportunity, and when does it knock? It never knocks. You can wait a whole lifetime, listening, hoping, and you will hear no knocking. None at all. You are opportunity, and you must knock on the door leading to your destiny. You prepare yourself to recognize opportunity, to pursue and seize opportunity as you develop the strength of your personality, and build a self-image with which you are able to live -- with your self-respect alive and growing.

~ Maxwell Maltz

If you make friends with yourself, you’ll never be alone.

~ Maxwell Maltz

Man maintains his balance, poise, and sense of security only as he is moving forward.

~ Maxwell Maltz

If you make friends with yourself you will never be alone.

~ Maxwell Maltz

Often the difference between a successful man and a failure is not one's better abilities or ideas, but the courage that one has to bet on his ideas, to take a calculated risk, and to act.

~ Maxwell Maltz

You make mistakes. Mistakes don't make you.

~ Maxwell Maltz

Our self image, strongly held, essentially determines what we become.

~ Maxwell Maltz

We are built to conquer environment, solve problems, achieve goals, and we find no real satisfaction or happiness in life without obstacles to conquer and goals to achieve.

~ Maxwell Maltz

For imagination sets the goal picture which our automatic mechanism works on. We act, or fail to act, not because of will, as is so commonly believed, but because of imagination.

~ Maxwell Maltz

Remember you will not always win. Some days, the most resourceful individual will taste defeat. But there is, in this case, always tomorrow - after you have done your best to achieve success today.

~ Maxwell Maltz

The 'self-image' is the key to human personality and human behavior. Change the self image and you change the personality and the behavior.

~ Maxwell Maltz

To change a habit, make a conscious decision, then act out the new behavior.

~ Maxwell Maltz

If you make friends with yourself you will never be alone.

~ Maxwell Maltz