Peak Experiences Quotes

People want to be bowled over by something special. Nine times out of ten you might strike out, but that tenth time, that peak experience, is what people want. That's what can move the world. That's art.

Laugh at what you hold sacred, and still hold it sacred.

We may define therapy as a search for value.

What shall we think of a well-adjusted slave?

The way to recover the meaning of life and the worthwhileness of life is to recover the power of experience, to have impulse voices from within, and to be able to hear these impulse voices from within — and make the point: This can be done.

The story of the human race is the story of men and women selling themselves short.

The human mind is kind of like a piñata. When it breaks open, there's a lot of surprises inside. Once you get the piñata perspective, you see that losing your mind can be a peak experience.

The worst loss you've ever experienced is the greatest gift you can have.

Plateau experiencing can be achieved, learned, earned by long hard work.... A transient glimpse is certainly possible in the peak experiences which may, after all, come sometimes to anyone. But, so to speak, to take up residence on the high plateau .... that is another matter altogether. That tends to be a lifelong effort.

Sport is singularly able to give us peak experience where we feel completely one with the world and transcend all conflicts as we finally become our own potential.

We fear to know the fearsome and unsavory aspects of ourselves, but we fear even more to know the godlike in ourselves.

One's only failure is failing to live up to one's own possibilities.

One's only rival is one's own potentialities. One's only failure is failing to live up to one's own possibilities. In this sense, every man can be a king, and must therefore be treated like a king.

Expression and communication in the peak–experiences tend often to become poetic, mythical, and rhapsodic, as if this were the natural kind of language to express such states of being.

Singing, it's like it's like loving somebody, it's a supreme emotional and physical experience.

The effects of mescalin or LSD can be, in some respects, far more satisfying than those of alcohol. To begin with, they last longer; they also leave behind no hangover, and leave the mental faculties clear and unimpaired. They stimulate the faculties and produce the ideal ground for a peak experience.

I really look for peak experiences and dramatic material that can allow peak experiences.

Dispassionate objectivity is itself a passion, for the real and for the truth.

We'll always be disappointed if we believe that we can plan for a peak experience and make it happen. True joy can't be anticipated or planned. It just strikes.

Reality is all-encompassing: the absolute nature is one. Although we may feel separate from the original uncreated reality - whether we call it 'God,' 'peak experience,' or 'enlightened mind' - through awareness we can contact this essential part of ourselves.

Ultimately, I want a peak experience in reading, and that is sometimes difficult to find in contemporary fiction. I'm not interested in books that are just clever and well executed; polish doesn't impress me, and I don't care about a merely capable sentence. Life is short; I want a confrontation with high art. I want soul.

If the only tool you have is a hammer, it's hard to eat spaghetti.

You will either step forward into growth or you will step back into safety.

Language can be a way of hiding your thoughts and preventing communication.

But behavior in the human being is sometimes a defense, a way of concealing motives and thoughts, as language can be a way of hiding your thoughts and preventing communication.

The emotional reaction in the peak experience has a special flavor of wonder, of awe, of reverence, of humility and surrender before the experience as before something great.

What is necessary to change a person is to change his awareness of himself.

She had always felt that the essence of human experience lay not primarily in the peak experiences, the wedding days and triumphs which stood out in the memory like dates circled in red on old calendars, but, rather, in the unself-conscious flow of little things - the weekend afternoon with each member of the family engaged in his or her own pursuit, their crossings and connections casual, dialogues imminently forgettable, but the sum of such hours creating a synergy which was important and eternal.

If I were dropped out of a plane into the ocean and told the nearest land was a thousand miles away, I'd still swim. And I'd despise the one who gave up.

A musician must make music, an artist must paint, a poet must write, if he is to be ultimately at peace with himself.

The person in peak-experiences feels himself, more than other times, to be the responsible, active, creating center of his activities and of his perceptions. He feels more like a prime-mover, more self-determined (rather than caused, determined, helpless, dependent, passive, weak, bossed). He feels himself to be his own boss, fully responsible, fully volitional, with more "free-will" than at other times, master of his fate, an agent.

Sport is where an entire life can be compressed into a few hours, where the emotions of a lifetime can be felt on an acre or two of ground, where a person can suffer and die and rise again on six miles of trails through a New York City park. Sport is a theater where sinner can turn saint and a common man become an uncommon hero, where the past and the future can fuse with the present. Sport is singularly able to give us peak experiences where we feel completely one with the world and transcend all conflicts as we finally become our own potential.

Everyone who experiences a spontaneous peak experience tries to recapture the bliss, but most are disappointed. They search for fulfillment in the next job, a new relationship, more money, a coveted car, accolades, and accomplishments.

Classic economic theory, based as it is on an inadequate theory of human motivation, could be revolutionized by accepting the reality of higher human needs, including the impulse to self actualization and the love for the highest values.

The ability to be in the present moment is a major component of mental wellness.