Quotes from Maxwell Maltz

I then suggested that he memorize a saying of Epictetus, which has always been a favorite of mine: "Men are disturbed not by the things that happen, but by their opinion of the things that happen.

Both experimental and clinical psychology have proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that the human nervous system cannot tell the difference between an actual experience and an experience imagined vividly and in detail.

It has been pointed out earlier that since man is a goal-striving being, he is functioning naturally and normally when he is oriented toward some positive goal and striving toward some desirable goal. Happiness is a symptom of normal, natural functioning, and when man is functioning as a goal-striver, he tends to feel fairly happy, regardless of circumstances.

Psychologist H. L. Hollingworth said that happiness requires problems, plus a mental attitude that is ready to meet distress with action toward a solution.

Negative feedback always says in effect, "Stop what you're doing, or the way you're doing it—and do something else." Its purpose is to modify response, or change the degree of forward action—not to stop all action. Negative feedback does not say, "Stop—period!" It says, "What you are doing is wrong," but it does not say, "It is wrong to do anything.

It is no exaggeration to say that every human being is hypnotized to some extent, either by ideas he has uncritically accepted from others, or ideas he has repeated to himself or convinced himself are true.