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Who really said it

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

Attributed to Abraham Maslow 1908–1970 · American psychologist, founder of humanistic psychology
Attributed In copyright

The vocabulary is genuinely his — “impulse-voices” is Maslow’s own coinage and runs through The Farther Reaches of Human Nature — but no book he published in his lifetime turns up in full-text search carrying this sentence. The earliest printing we could locate is Abraham H. Maslow: A Memorial Volume (Brooks/Cole, 1972) ↗, published two years after his death, where the line sits in what reads like a page of working notes.

Last verified 24 Aug 2026 · how we verify · spot an error?

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Unconfirmed quote & credit

“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” attributed to Abraham Maslow (1908–1970). Not found in any book Maslow published himself; the earliest printing located is 'Abraham H. Maslow: A Memorial Volume' (Brooks/Cole, 1972), where it appears among what read as working notes. Wikiquote files it under "Attributed." Via Quotle.info · Verbatim: “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.”

Can you use it?

Still under copyright (rights held by The estate of Abraham H. Maslow; Brooks/Cole Publishing Company (1972 memorial volume)). A short, credited quote is generally fine for talks, teaching, and internal decks; for commercial, published, or large-scale reuse, get permission.

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In context

Evoking the world of Abraham Maslow — American psychologist · Brandeis University. Theme: "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". Atmospheric and restrained, cinematic directional light, a muted period-appropriate palette, fine grain and texture. Compose with generous empty space for the quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.

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Minimalist editorial slide for the quote "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". Clean background, a single muted accent color, generous negative space, subtle paper or linen texture, no literal illustration — let the words carry it. Reserve clear space for a serif quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.

Provenance

Where the sentence actually turns up

Earliest printing located
Abraham H. Maslow: A Memorial Volume
Publisher & year
Brooks/Cole Publishing Company, Monterey, CA · 1972
Compiled with
Bertha G. Maslow and the International Study Project
Form on the page
Runs directly into “Some more phrases to use:” — a list of formulations, not finished prose

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. Posthumous, 1972

That is the full sentence as printed. In the 1972 memorial volume the very next words are “Some more phrases to use:” — which is why we read this as a working note rather than a published statement.

Abraham H. Maslow: A Memorial Volume (Brooks/Cole, 1972) at the Internet Archive

How we verified this

  • Quote Investigator’s Abraham Maslow index ↗ carries no article on this line — the only Maslow saying it has investigated is the hammer-and-nail one — so there is no specialist finding to defer to here.
  • Wikiquote ↗ places the quote in its Attributed section and gives one citation: Richard T. Kinnier (ed.), The Meaning of Life: According to the Great and the Good (2007) — a modern anthology, not a Maslow source.
  • Full-text search across scanned books puts the sentence in a handful of volumes; the earliest is the 1972 memorial volume ↗. The same search shows Maslow’s own, different passage in The Farther Reaches of Human Nature about “experiential emptiness” and hearing “small, delicate impulse voices from within.”
  • The term itself is authentically his: Google Books reports eight pages of The Farther Reaches of Human Nature matching “impulse-voices” ↗, while “worthwhileness” and “power of experience” return nothing in that book.
In copyright

Everything Maslow wrote was published in 1931 or later — he was born in 1908 and died in 1970 — so no wording of his can be public domain in the United States on age alone. This particular sentence is first found in print in a 1972 posthumous volume, which places it firmly in copyright; short quotation with attribution, as here, is the normal basis for reproducing it.

Rights status is our research, not legal advice — and copyright varies by country and edition. For commercial or published use, confirm with the rightsholder. See terms.

Fact-check

What goes wrong when this one travels

Nobody credits this to the wrong person — the trouble is that it is quoted as a finished Maslow aphorism when the documented text is a fragment of working notes, and the parts that give that away are the parts most often cut.

Most quote aggregators truncation

The circulating version usually stops at “hear these impulse voices from within.” In print the sentence continues “— and make the point: This can be done,” and in the 1972 memorial volume it is followed immediately by “Some more phrases to use:” ↗ — a writer’s note to himself, not a closing flourish.

Roger L. Gould, Shrink Yourself variant

Prints the middle clause out entirely: “…worthwhileness of life is to recover the power of experience. This can be done.” ↗ The impulse voices — the actual Maslow idea in the sentence — disappear.

Richard D. Zakia, Perceptual Quotes for Photographers variant

Renders it as “recover the power to experience” ↗ rather than “the power of experience” — a small change that shifts it from a faculty to be regained to an act to be performed.

Quote sites that name a Maslow book sourcing

Some pages pin the line to The Farther Reaches of Human Nature. Google Books returns no match for “worthwhileness” anywhere in that book ↗. Wikiquote, correspondingly, files the quote under “Attributed” ↗ and cites only a 2007 anthology.

The words are almost certainly Maslow’s, and the term “impulse-voices” is demonstrably his — but the sentence first surfaces in print in Abraham H. Maslow: A Memorial Volume (Brooks/Cole, 1972) ↗, after his death, as a note he was still working on.

Context

Why this one reads like an aphorism when it isn’t

Maslow’s late work turns on a single worry: that modern people had gone quiet inside. In The Farther Reaches of Human Nature he calls the condition “experiential emptiness” — the absence of impulse voices from within — and describes therapy and education as ways of learning to hear those small, delicate impulse voices again ↗. That is the published, finished version of the thought.

The sentence people quote is the unfinished version. In the 1972 memorial volume it runs straight into the words “Some more phrases to use:” ↗ — the giveaway that what survives here is a writer stocking a list of formulations, with the instruction “make the point: This can be done” addressed to himself. Strip that tail off, as almost every quote site does, and a working note starts to read like a closing line.

“Make the point: This can be done” is not a claim. It is a reminder to himself to make one.

Read the full story

The tell is in the punctuation. Genuine Maslow prose does not usually break mid-sentence into an imperative aimed at the author; outline notes do it constantly.

This is why the honest label here is “attributed” rather than “verified.” Nothing suggests someone else wrote it, and everything about the phrasing points to Maslow — but a line first printed after a writer’s death, in a memorial compilation, without a stated origin, is not the same evidentiary object as a page in a book he signed off on.

Explore

Filed under

More provenance-checked quotes on the same theme, each with its reuse status.

Purpose Growth Character

Go further

Dig deeper

Trusted places to keep pulling the thread — primary archives, fact-checks, and scholarship. We show how we used each one before you leave.

Abraham Maslow — Wikiquoteen.wikiquote.org

Lists this line in the “Attributed” section, sourced only to a 2007 anthology — not to any Maslow book.
Abraham H. Maslow: A Memorial Volume (1972)archive.org

Catalog record for the Brooks/Cole memorial volume — the earliest printing of the sentence we could locate.
Full-text book search: “impulse voices from within”openlibrary.org

Shows every scanned book containing the phrase, including the 1972 memorial volume and Maslow’s own separate passage in The Farther Reaches of Human Nature.
Quote Investigator — Abraham Maslow tagquoteinvestigator.com

QI’s Maslow index — it has investigated the hammer-and-nail saying but never this one.
“impulse-voices” inside The Farther Reaches of Human Naturebooks.google.com

Eight pages of Maslow’s 1971 book match his own term — evidence the vocabulary is authentic even where the sentence is not.
Abraham Maslow — Wikipediaen.wikipedia.org

Biography and chronology: born 1 April 1908, died 8 June 1970, with The Farther Reaches of Human Nature published in 1971.

The true author

Who Maslow actually was

Abraham Maslow

1908–1970 · American psychologist · Brandeis University

Abraham Maslow was the American psychologist who put the hierarchy of needs and the peak experience into everyday language, and who spent his later years at Brandeis arguing that psychology had studied damage far more carefully than it had studied flourishing. His central books — Motivation and Personality (1954), Toward a Psychology of Being (1962) and the posthumous The Farther Reaches of Human Nature (1971) — built the case that healthy people can be told apart from merely un-sick ones. He died of a heart attack in June 1970, leaving a large mass of notes, journals and lecture drafts that colleagues and his widow published afterwards.

For writers & researchers

Cite this

Earliest documented printing

Earliest printing located: Abraham H. Maslow: A Memorial Volume (Monterey, CA: Brooks/Cole Publishing Company, 1972), a posthumous collection associated with Bertha G. Maslow and the International Study Project. Wikiquote files the line under “Attributed,” citing only Richard T. Kinnier, ed., The Meaning of Life: According to the Great and the Good (2007).

This verification page

Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘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’?” Last verified 24 Aug 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/the-way-to-recover-the-meaning-of-life-and-the/

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