What is the good life? What is the good man? The good woman? What is the good society and what is my relation to it? What are my obligations to society? What is best for my children? What is justice? Truth? Virtue? What is my relation to nature, to death, to aging, to pain, to illness? How can I live a zestful, enjoyable, meaningful life? What is my responsibility to my brothers? Who are my brothers? What shall I be loyal to? What must I be ready to die for?
Interpretation
This quote explores the deep questions of existence and one's responsibilities to self, society, and nature.
Abraham Maslow raises fundamental inquiries about the essence of a good life, ethical obligations to others, and the search for meaning. By questioning what constitutes justice, truth, and virtue, he encourages us to reflect on our relationships with society and nature while considering our responsibilities, loyalties, and the values we hold dear as we navigate life’s complexities.
In practice
In a discussion about ethical responsibilities in our communities.
It looks as if there were a single ultimate goal for mankind, a far goal toward which all persons strive. This is called variously by different authors self-actualization, self-realization, integration, psychological health, individuation, autonomy, creativity, productivity, but they all agree that this amounts to realizing the potentialities of the person, that is to say, becoming fully human, everything that person can be.
Dispassionate objectivity is itself a passion, for the real and for the truth.
The study of crippled, stunted, immature, and unhealthy specimens can yield only a cripple psychology and a cripple philosophy
Marriage is a school itself. Also, having children. Becoming a father changed my whole life. It taught me as if by revelation.
It seems that the necessary thing to do is not to fear mistakes, to plunge in, to do the best that one can, hoping to learn enough from blunders to correct them eventually.
I was awfully curious to find out why I didn't go insane.
Actual life was chaos, but there was something terribly logical in the imagination. It was the imagination that set remorse to dog the feet of sin. It was the imagination that made each crime bear its misshapen brood. In the common world of fact the wicked were not punished, nor the good rewarded. Success was given to the strong, failure thrust upon the weak. That was all.
The very idea of supernatural magic - including miracles - is incoherent, devoid of sensible meaning.
I prefer to work with grey characters rather than black and white.
… in the relentless and meaningless manner one searches for something in a nightmare, coming on doors that won’t open or drawers that won’t shut, struggling over and over against the same meaningless thing, not knowing why the effort seems so desperate, why the sudden sight of a chair with a shawl thrown over it inspires the mind with horror.
Here feel we but the penalty of Adam,_x000D_ _x000D_ The seasons' difference, as the icy fang_x000D_ _x000D_ And churlish chiding of the winter's wind,_x000D_ _x000D_ Which, when it bites and blows upon my body,_x000D_ _x000D_ Even till I shrink with cold, I smile.
All the efforts of the human mind cannot exhaust the essence of a single fly.
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