Quotes from Maxwell Maltz

It doesn't matter who's right but what's right.

His experiments proved that the best way to break a habit is to form a clear mental image of the desired end result, and to practice without effort towards reaching that goal. Dunlap found that either "positive practice" (refraining from the habit) or "negative practice" (performing the habit consciously and voluntarily) would have beneficial effect provided the desired end result was kept constantly in mind.

You act, and feel, not according to what things are really like, but according to the image your mind holds of what they are like. You have certain mental images of yourself, your world, and the people around you, and you behave as though these images were the truth, the reality, rather than the things they represent.

To the degree that we deny the gift of life, we embrace death.

There are "standard" convictions which are strongly held by nearly everyone. These are (1) the feeling or belief that one is capable of doing his share, holding up his end of the log, exerting a certain amount of independence, and (2) the belief that there is "something" inside you which should not be allowed to suffer indignities.

You must have a clear mental picture of the correct thing before you can do it successfully.

Learning the happiness habit, you become a master instead of a slave, or as Robert Louis Stevenson said, "The habit of being happy enables one to be freed, or largely freed, from the domination of outward conditions.

The measure of mental health is the disposition to find good everywhere. —Ralph Waldo Emerson

Happiness is simply "a state of mind in which our thinking is pleasant a good share of the time.

Happiness is not the reward of virtue," said Spinoza in his book Ethics, "but virtue itself; nor do we delight in happiness because we restrain our lusts; but, on the contrary, because we delight in it, therefore are we able to restrain them.

If he feels bad because he is inferior, the cure is to make himself as good as everybody else, and the way to feel really good is to make himself superior. This striving for superiority gets him into more trouble, causes more frustration, and sometimes brings about a neurosis where none existed before. He becomes more miserable than ever, and "the harder he tries," the more miserable he becomes.

Decide What You Want—Not What You Don't Want

Remember, above all, that the key to any crisis situation is you.

Knowledge Gives You Power.

2. The self-image can be changed. Numerous case histories have shown that one is never too young or too old to change his self-image and thereby start to live a new life. One of the reasons it has seemed so difficult for a person to change his habits, his personality, or his way of life has been that heretofore nearly all efforts at change have been directed to the circumference of the self, so to speak, rather than to the center.

If you can remember, worry, or tie your shoe, you can succeed.

Ideas are changed, not by will, but by other ideas

In an interview in 1992, Leary stated, "It is a genetic imperative to explore the brain. Because it's there. If you're carrying around in your head 100 billion mainframe computers, you just have to get in there and learn how to operate them.

In expecting to grow "old" at a given age we may unconsciously set up a negative goal image for our Creative Mechanism to accomplish.

A bicycle maintains its poise and equilibrium only so long as it is going forward towards something. You have a good bicycle. Your trouble is you are trying to maintain your balance sitting still, with no place to go.

Our present thinking, our mental habits, our attitudes towards past experiences, and our attitudes towards the future - all have an influence upon old recorded [neuronal] engrams. The old can be changed, modified, replaced, by our present thinking.

from impulsive and ill-considered actions; the other is

Jesus expressed the same thought when he told us not to hide our light under a bushel, but to let our light shine "so that your Father may be glorified." I cannot believe that it brings any glory to God when his children go around with hangdog expressions, being miserable, afraid to lift up their heads and "be somebody.

aggressive behavior is basic and fundamental, and that an animal cannot feel or express affection until channels have been provided for the expression of aggression.